Nuestra Señora de las Nubes

Last week I went to see “Nuestra Señora de las Nubes” a play written by Arístides Vargas. I saw the same play but from two different theatre groups. One was the original version of “Malayerba” from Ecuador and the other performance was in “Teatro Racional”.

I´ve never saw the same play being represented by two different theatre groups. It was a very good experience because I´d realized the director´s perspectives. One play was completely different from the other one. The first big difference is that “Malayerba” had two actors and “Teatro Racional” had four actors.

I think that a play is successful when the director and the actors understand the play. If they understand the play, everything will be easier, the acting will be clearer; they will find different variations and actions, and a wise election of props.

A good example is “Malayerba”. They were two actors and they used only two bags containing the different props. The props were to change from one character to another one because there were a lot of characters and only two actors. They changed from a character to another just by adding a prop to their body. In the other hand, “Teatro Racional” had two more actors and they changed all the costume to represent the character. I think that “Malayerba” developed better their characters. There was only one character, Memé, which was better represented by “Teatro Racional” than “Malayerba”. It was very funny and it was more realistic than the Memé from “Malayerba”. Memé was a boy with a mental problem. There we can see the hard work of the actress in “Teatro Racional” building her Memé. Maybe she had to watch videos, talk with some real children with mental problems and analyze their movements and the way they talk. She was just amazing compared to the Memé from “Malayerba”.

Honestly I had a lot much fun watching the “Malayerba” representation. It was very funny having in mind that it was the same text for the two representations. Here we can see how important the acting is. It doesn´t matter if the play is a comedy, what does matter is how the actors will represent the character doing or telling that joke. If it is just a normal play without jokes you can still make the audience laugh and have some fun. It depends all on the actors. And then we realize how important is to understand the text, in order to do a better representation of your character.

In my opinion, I preferred by far “Nuestra Señora de las Nubes” by “Malayerba”. They were just better. The actresses from “Teatro Racional” were amateurs; they were new in the business.

Could I and the IB guys apply this knowledge to “La vida es sueño” and have a very good performance?