La Vida es Sueño - Premiere

18/06/09

I was sure that the play was going to be successful but I was nervous, I didn´t know what to expect. I dressed up and it was finally the time, we had to act. The play begun, it was very good. People were enjoying the play. I confused a little bit in the third act, for a second I forgot my lines but then I remembered them.

When we finished the play we were very happy, we managed to do it for the first time complete without stopping. However, we made some mistakes that we had to correct the next day.

People were very happy and surprised because they said that it was a good production. If they didn´t like the play they had Las Aceitunas, Las Garapiñas and el Baile to have a good night. I was very happy.

Final Rehearsal

17/06/09

This Wednesday was the most important day, the final rehearsal. We were all nervous because we never did the whole play once and we were running out of time. We only had 24 hours before the premiere and when we were going to start our final rehearsal we received a call, it was the costume maker. He add a new problem to all our worries by saying that costumes were going to arrive like an hour later. Nooooooo!!! We never did the whole play before and now the costumes weren´t ready? It was like a nightmare, I was really worried. We just had to begin the final rehearsal without costumes; that was just the beginning of a terrible night.

The play begun, we had some mistakes: people weren´t totally concentrated. We confused our lines and people didn´t enter to the scene where they had to act. Some people were concentrated and hard working while others were talking in the backstage like if they don´t care. Roberto was very angry and in the break between act 2 and 3, he talked to us in a very furious way. When he finished I realized how wrong we were. But I trusted all my IB partners and the whole cast. I knew that the third act was going to be better and it was.

Back at home I couldn´t sleep. I was thinking about what had happened hours before but something was saying to me that everything was going to be all right. I was very secure that the play was going to be very successful.

Finishing up the scenery

16/06/09

On Tuesday we stayed at school after rehearsing La Vida es Sueño to finish the scenery. This meant to finish painting the tower, finishing with the palace, with the mountains in the desert, etc. We had to organize and finish with all props and scenery because tomorrow is our final rehearsal before the premiere. We knew that we were running out of time because we never did the whole play complete. We always stopped. I am worried, I don´t know what will happen. However, we had to put this problem out of our minds and finish with the production process at once.

We planned how we were going to paint it, at first. Then we planned who was going to do which thing and we managed to do it. In the end, we had good results. I painted the tower with the help of my IB partners, while others were in the palace decorating the railings. After painting the tower, I also helped with the decoration of the railings.

I also fixed the swords because the part where you grab the sword was very thin and we couldn´t fight, it was very painful. You could feel the pain in your hand. As a result, we buy two sponges and adhesive tape and I lined it where you grab the swords in order to have a thicker one and be able to fight much better.

After 2 hours of working we finally finished with all the scenery, it was all ready for our final, and most important, rehearsal.

La Vida es Sueño

On Saturday we had another rehearsal for our play, “La Vida es Sueño”. At this moment we are running out of time. There´s only 3 weeks left before our first performance and I´m nervous because I don´t know if we are going to make it. I always try to be positive but that´s the true, we are running out of time. Anyway, every rehearsal I find a new movement and way of talking for my character, Segismundo. He has different movements and voices, it varies. When he is in his tower he is more violent and he talks like a beast. He doesn´t know nothing about the outside world. In the other hand, when being in the palace, he tries to be a gentleman but he can´t. He is just a beast and everybody is afraid of him.

He never saw a woman before and when he sees Estrella or Rosaura he feels a sexual attraction. Segismundo is a bad prince, he treats everybody bad. He is most of the time angry. As I´ve said he changes when he sees Rosaura and Estrella. I am still discovering my character and finding new ways to represent him.

Am I going to be able to show the Segismundo that I have in mind?

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?

Teatralidades y Representaciones Andinas

Conferencias del Festival UCSUR de Teatro

En esta conferencia hubo una pequeña sorpresa, el expositor era Roberto y nosotros no estábamos enterados.

El primer tema del que se habló fue la performance. La Performance de definió como la ejecución de acciones. En otras palabras, la performance es aquello que nosotros conocemos como actuación, cuando un actor representa a un personaje definido haciendo acciones que acompañan al personaje. Con estas acciones te dan una mejor información sobre el personaje que está siendo representado. El performance se asocia al ritual, puede ser una misa, un evento o un pasacalle. Ritual, es cuando hay un cambio. Si nos referimos al ritual es porque hay un antes y un después. Uno ejemplo de ritual puede ser un bautizo: antes, el niño no pertenecía a la iglesia pero después del bautizo, después del ritual el niño forma parte de la iglesia.

Por otro lado, la performance refuerza identidades, esto significa que la gente se reúne. Un cumpleaños por ejemplo, éste refuerza el sentimiento por las personas. Un claro ejemplo de cómo la gente se reúne el fiesta de Paucartambo.

Luego, los expositores nos hablaron un poco más acerca de Paucartambo. Para ser más específicos Roberto nos habló sobre “La Guerrilla”. Ésta es una representación teatral en el tercer día de la fiesta de Paucartambo. “La Guerrilla” es un enfrentamiento entre los Ch´unchu y los Qulla. Estos se encuentran en el pueblo para intercambiar sus productos; entonces los Ch´unchu intentan raptar a la Imilla, mujer de los Qulla, lo que da origen al enfrentamiento entre ambos grupos. Han habido muchos cambios a través del tiempo. Se mencionó también que el objetivo del rito es fortalecer y preservar los lazos de la ciudad.

En “La Guerrilla” se usan escenarios circulares, la audiencia alrededor de los actores. Los espectadores también forman parte de la acción al ver su reacción con la acción. En esta fiesta los actores le dan más énfasis a la voz y a las acciones.

En conclusión, las charlas fueron muy útiles y me muero de ganas de viajar a Paucartambo.
“La Guerrilla” es sólo el tercer día de la fiesta de Paucartambo, pero imagínense lo maravilloso que serán los otros días. Serán tan interesantes y llenos de acción como "La guerrilla"?

Contraelviento de Ecuador

La Flor de la Chukirawa

On Thursday 23rd of April an ecuatorian drou called Contraelviento presented a play called "La flor de la Chukirawa", for the Ucsur festival of international theatre.

It was a very good play. When we entered the theatre we saw the actors like statues. The migration was the play´s theme. A poor boy has parted to the United States looking for better days; there, he decides to be enlisted in the army and he dies in Iraq. The play has as starting point a supposed interview carried out by a reporter of television to a rural mother, by the way of the death of the son.

It was amazing how the actors used their centre of energy to be like statues, without moving. There were 3 actors. The first one was the rural mother. I liked a lot the way she acted. The actress used a lot the different levels as well as different face expressions and movements. Fast and slow, direct and indirect movements. She was an old woman. She used to represent her character using a hoarse voice.

In the other hand the actor representing used a lot his centre of energy. He was “running” in the same place and it was amazing because it seemed that he was really running. There was one scene were he was representing death, when the son has been killed, and he stayed in that position a lot of time. That position was like the guys of “Matrix” when avoiding a bullet. It is very important to have a centre of energy and use it because you can say that you have one but you really don´t really use it.

The other actress was the one that I didn´t like. She was representing the reporter of television doing an interview to the rural mother about his son. She always talked like a radio and it was boring. But in general I liked the combination of characters. And the theme was very interesting.

When I go to a play there´s always something that I don´t like about it. ¿Could the next play cover all my expectations?