Post

      After watching Black Watch, I came to a personal opinion of what i believe what post modern plays are in an essential sense. Post modern plays are the mind. Not A mind but THE mind, as in the mind of many not just the mind of one. It is the mind because it is always an idea or an observation that the mind of the author wants to show the rest of the world through a medium that can emphathise with people. it is also the mind of many, for it is important to experiment in theatre especially post modernism, and so it is the collective planning of many minds to become that one, the mind. Yet even though it is an observation it may not always ring true because how we see the world is through our own eyes and is neigh impossible to see through the eyes of others, making a post modern play a play of opinions, opinions shared and differencing from people in the cast. it adds to the appeal that we can choose to ignore or accept the mind of a post modern production and even sometimes on slightly rarer occasions, contribute to the opinions playing out in the preformance. post modern plays are memories, experiences, thoughts, dreams, observations, and opinions put into a medium that the populous can experience and build their own off of.
     The three preformances I watched were, odyssey, Gulliver and Black Watch. Odyessy was a  very confusing play without the language difference. I came to the conclusion that a running theme of the play was about masculinity versus immasculinity. the fact that Telemachus, Odysseus' son was left alone as the sole protector of the family while he was out at war. the part when the naked man was posing and the son was going crazy trying to look more manly in the background furthered this for me. There was also this feeling of lack of a father figure expressed in the beginning where he started to say the letter a then angel and then the translated word was guardian, showing this loss. The suitors were also a reminder of that protective stance Telemachus had to take. Gullivers travels was a lot less hardcore than the Odyssey. Gullivers travels was a pantomime version of the traditional story of the explorer Gulliver. this was a lot easier to follow since they blatantly told the audience at the beginning what the themes of each story were. The themes were governmental corruption seen by the lack responsibility taken by the lilliputian officials and how cowardly they were in face of danger and oppressing the people (us, the audience), and reliance on power of others (Gulliver). the next was the corruption of the mind that money has on us, and how opportunistic wally- i mean, people are when faced with money, and was expressed by the Brobdingnag giants. the final part was humanity and what separates us from the "beasts" with the Houyhnhnms (yes i looked it up) the rationalistic equine society to the animalistic yahoo hominids, and how to the houyhnhnms Gulliver was just a intelligent yahoo and therefore is a taint to their superior society, to the point of the terrible term ethnic cleansing. the genre of pantomime is a personal favorite, it gives a sense of connection through breaking the infamous fourth wall and talking to the audience, albeit still regarding the audience as characters rather than theatre goers. this gives it more comedic value in my opinion, but what also made it funny was the style of almost poor mans theatre especially with the fish scene where only a sign saying fish and actions distinguished the animal. The last and most realistic of all the production i watched was Black Watch. the story was of the Black Watch regiment and their period of work in Iraq  the story was told between two periods of time giving it that non linear feel to it. the one was the war time and the other an interview by a researcher in the pub. the play was done in a realistic way in order to make the audience feel as close as they can to the problems and emotions felt by the soldiers of Black Watch. they told a lot about its history and nature of the regiment. this piece was the most emotional piece for me of many that i have seen in the past.
      The play i read was Eurydice, but unlike the original this is her side of the story. the two stories are the same in many ways, but disregards the romantic part and the ancient greek parts to make a mock romance set in a modern theme. The original story is of how the musician orpheus plays music to save Eurydice from the underworld but fails when he turns around to look at her fearing a trick from Hades. This variation plays more with grief and loss and getting back by adding the character of Eurydice's Father. the play is surrealistic and should not be done minimalisticly, but through use of lighting i would do such. i would have two washes and five ellipsoidal lights in order to utilise lighting. a simple black and white set with a small staircase in the middle separating it and a table to the white side and a black box mesh on the black side to put up string used in the play. this play plays with the two relationships that Eurydice makes her father after she dies and her husband. this play asks us to review and make sure why we choose what we choose.
      Last Days of Judas Iscariot.

Silence Without Purpose

    Yesterday on the ninth I was sitting on the black bench in the drama lab wondering about post-modernist art, when a poster on the back wall. This was not one of our class and asked "what is art?" or something similar and noticed in the thought bubble it said "no art", either that or I misread it. Because I was thinking of Po-mo at the time I was reminded of a piece of postmodernist artwork in a picture of a museum. One particular one was an empty frame; no art in it and no art out, the frame itself was a vacant black, stoic boring frame. So I questioned, is that art, if nothing is visualised and no art is used. Well to answer that for myself I made my own little phrase of what no art is, "silence without purpose"- my words.

    To explain, silence without purpose is the lowest form of no art, where there is nothing to gain from nothing. It is a blank piece of paper that has no purpose no reason and through it people have nothing to gain from it. It is a train with people silent no one talking or noticing each other and the train dead still. It is a barren planet with no life and no water, no atmosphere, no reason for existing. Not to say it shouldn't exist but it does not stir emotion, the basis of my idea, emotion. That is what I see no art as, an empty husk that does not stir emotion at all and helps not one person.

      Silence without purpose is not the only form of no art; the other is noise without purpose. The noise does not only refer to sound but noise of the eyes, nose, touch and taste, but mostly eyes, ears and mind. But if there is a picture, and there is sound, is that not art?, not really no. this is the part of art I would call, sell-out art. This is music, theatre, literature, and visual artwork that the painter slew together to make money. Art that does not stir emotion does not serve purpose and is commonly directly influenced by common media. I see as most modern music as ones that just sound pretty but the lyrics are as shallow as the money it earns the artist, not saying this for all modern artists, but quite a few. Movies are also mostly sell-out art, the cowboy and alien movie, the expendables, many Michael bay movies with their explosions, all to impress and entice the audience to watch artless art. I’m not saying they are not art at all, many are just for fun anyway, but it is not art we should care about.

     There is a last part to this rant and that is "silence and noise with purpose" both which really sums up what think of art, anything with purpose. we can listen to music and hear lyrics that make us consider facts, greet someone or even look and smile at someone on that silent train, draw a picture on that paper that make you think or even draw what you are thinking about, like I am doing with this post. But it doesn't have to be a stimulus; it can be silence too, the silence after a heated discussion that leaves both sides silent, calming down and cooling down from anger, purpose being to not over do the argument. The silence at a funeral to give everyone a chance to silently consider how much this person meant to them and maybe even pray for their soul. The silence after a storm that leaves people happy it's gone and worried about the future. To return back to that frame I saw that was boring black and at the time symbolised things that I did not like about post-modernist art, I now see that, that frame is art it is silence with a purpose.