Performing a funny play doesn´t mean that it´s always a good one!!

Desdichado Deleite del Destino

On Monday, we went to see an Argentinean play called Desdichado deleite del Destino in Maria Alvarado School. The play was very funny. However I was a little confused. They started talking about the roses. The old man all his life have looked after roses. But there were too many ants that ate the plants. So he told her daughter to buy a poison to kill the ants. I was confused because they didn´t finished with the same theme. They were changing a lot. They presented us the problem about the roses and suddenly it changed to football. The old man was the coach of a football team. Finally a CD seller appears and tries to sell his CDs. The play´s theme was changing very fast and they didn´t finish developing the scene.

On the other hand, I liked very much the girl. I liked her column position and we could see how she used a lot her centre of energy. She was a very shy girl. When his father dies, she changes totally from being a shy girl to a very good singer. Another thing that I liked about her was her voice although she didn´t talk too much. It was very soft. I think that she was shy because she was scared of his father. He treated her sometimes badly.
In general, I think that it was a very funny play but they never finished a theme. The character that I like the most was the shy girl.

Divinas Palabras

On Tuesday we went to see a Spanish play called Divinas Palabras in “Teatro Segura”. I didn´t understand the play but I liked the different characterizations and the variety of characters, their different ages, postures, the props and costumes. The different types of voices of the characters were very interesting, some of them had a high pitch and some had a low pitch. However, I couldn´t understand sometimes what they were saying.

A lot of props were used but the main one was a kind of wooden wheel that was also used as tables, a wheel chair, etc. It had many uses. There was a scene were they used them one on top of the other and it had the shape of a little tower. The actors were half naked and made like a dance while climbing the tower. Everything was calculated. If there was one mistake they could have fall off the tower and that´s it. But happily that did not happen. Although I didn´t understand the play, I enjoyed it.

There was a character that looked like one of my characters. He was an old man with a strange voice and he did a lot of face expressions. When he started to act my IB partners said that he acted like me. JaJaJa He acted like me, but not me acting like him!!! That needs to be very clear.

This play was also very useful for the next school play La Vida es Sueño because the costumes used were examples of how our costumes could be. Seriously I enjoyed a lot this play.

Finally, after going to the theatre to see these plays I´d learnt a lot more about acting: what it should be done and what it shouldn´t. However, I wonder how the next plays will be, full of new conventions and knowledge that I can learn as an actor? As exciting and full of different characters and characterizations like the ones I´ve just talked about?

The body language isn´t enough!!!

Yesterday was the first date of the 4th UCSUR festival of international theatre. We all went to see a play called Dominicanish - Ayombé from Dominican Republic. Seriously I didn´t understand the theme of the play and I didn´t like it. However, I did like the actress´ way of acting. Her body movements were amazing. She used a lot the three different levels and she worked also with her column. She did a variation of different column positions using her centre of energy. Her movements were very good ones. I understood how important is to have a centre of energy. All that positions that she did requires a lot of concentration and a wisely use of your centre of energy. She also, while singing, made drum rhythms with her feet. I was surprised; you need a lot of coordination to do that.

I´ve learned that a good acting, full of actions, column movements and use of levels isn´t always a good play. The acting was, as I´ve said, excellent but I couldn´t understand the play. Also, I didn´t like it because it was very confusing. While the actress was performing, a video was being played in the background and you couldn´t concentrate. You had to look either the actress or the video, confusing.

To me, this play was like a lesson of what an actor should and shouldn´t do in a play. It was a new and different experience.

To what extent will the plays help in my way of acting?

Segismundo is a cave man !!!

18/04/09
Today we rehearsed the first scenes of the second act. In general, it was a good rehearsal. When Segismundo arrives for the first time to the palace, he is surprised because he never saw something like that. He was being attended by a group of female servants. The servants give all types of commodities to him. He feels like a King and he cannot believe all this.

However, I had some problems. I was just repeating my lines in verse and no action was taking place. Roberto helped me by explaining the different actions that I could do because now Segismundo is a kind of cave man.

Then, I practiced alone and wrote on my script next to the text all the actions that I could do when saying my lines. I´ve learned that you cannot just say your lines because it´s your turn to say them, you have to understand what you are saying, how are you saying them and what actions will complement your lines.

Now that I know about the importance of actions, could I interpret Segismundo without making those mistakes?

16/04/09

Today was the first time that I acted as Segismundo in La Vida es Sueño. It was very exciting. I was thinking to represent Segismundo as a prince. Like a normal one. Always a gentlemen, respectful and generously but when I started to act, Roberto explained to me more about Segismundo´s situation. The fact that Segismundo is a prince doesn´t mean that he is a good one. His father, the King Basilio, kept him prisoner inside a tower almost all his life. So, Segismundo didn´t know what was meant to be a respectful person or to be a gentlemen. The King Basilio was afraid of Segismundo´s attitude because the stars told him that Segismundo was going to be a bad King, and that he will destroy all the city and a lot of people will die. In the other hand, Segismundo is like a cave man. Almost all his life had passed inside of a tower. So, when he gets out, everything is new. He met Estrella and Rosaura, he feels a sexual attraction and all what he wants is to have sex. I thought Segismundo to be different, how long could I take to create a new and different Segismundo?

26/03/09

Today, we rehearsed after school for the play. The best opportunity that we have to select the characters and watch all the actors´ habilities is in a rehearsal. It is very important to have different activities prepared that will tell you which actor or actress could be an specific character.

Today Roberto assigned each of us a different activity. Well, we had to prepare an activity for the rehearsal. An activity that was very useful to select people to interpret the different characters of the play.

Our objective was to relax everybody making them to rest in the floor in position A. Then they had to wake up little by little every part of their body and then they had to stand up as their character assigned.That was the plan but we made a lot of mistakes during the process.

Once we finished our activities we realized that we didn´t plan it very well. It was a little disorganised. One of te mistakes that we had was to separate all the people in different teams. One team was made up of soldiers. The Second team were a lot of princess and finally the las team were old men. While one group was still waking up their body the other groups were watching them doing nothing. And they started to get bored, and one of our objectives is always to keep an actor busy, giving him something to do. They have a lot of things to do, they need to prepare their voice, body, face expressions, movements, warm up, etc. A lot of thing that an actor needs to do before they start to act.

Anyway, we know what our mistakes were and we learnt how to do it next time. I´ve learnt how I need to plan in order to have a better and a good result.

Did we really learnt or we are still going to make mistakes?

16/03/09 - The actor´s training

Our class today, was a theorical one. I´ve learnt that an actor trains its imagination. He puts his imagination un practice. It also trains to focus on something. An actor needs to train with his body and mind, to discover, to pay attention and finally to be ready full of energy.

I´ve learnt that training never ends. It is needed to improve, to learn and to get better. The warm-up is necessary to prepare yourself to train. It´s when you get your body ready to perform or to train. The rehearsal is the moment to explode what you have learnt in the training. There are two ways to rehearse:

• Individual: at home, alone, trying all possibilities. The director must choose from your proposals.
• Group: On stage, when you put in practice all your rehearsed possibilities.

An actor´s concentration and mood are very important for training. You have to forget about the outside world.

I´ve also learnt that when you warm up you have to focus on your voice and body. I usually start with the body but today I´ve realized it´s better to start with the voice and then the body.

The Starting Points - to have a proper warm up

1. Breathing
2. Centre-the main engine of your body. It´s were you put all the strenght. Everything starts from the centre.
3. Column-It is the guide for all your movements of your body.

Finally, I´ve dicovered that I didn´t know a lot about these simple things about acting. Having now all this information very clear, could I improve my way of acting and have different variations and not repeat always the same?

13/03/09

13/03/09
Yesterday we had homework; we had to read an extract from the book The Theatre and It´s bubble by Antonin Artaud. The chapter assigned was PREFACE: The Theatre and Culture. We had to ask two questions about any part of the text that we didn´t understand. My questions were:

1. Why for Asiatics, white has become a marñ of extreme decomposition?
2. What is “the Serpent Quetzalcoatl´s multiple?

In class, everybody help me to awnser them.

After awnsering, Roberto prepared a different activity. There was music and we were resting in position A on the floor. We then, had to wake up little by little our parts of the body. First my face, my head, my arms and so on. Once we were totally awake we started to move all our body using different levels and moves. Fast moves and slow ones, direct and indirect ones.


I´ve realized that I need to change my moves. I feel like if I were inside a big bubble. I act inside but I cannot get out. I need to change my way of acting. I need to have more and different variations. I think that I´m almost always the same.


Is it so hard to brake this bubble?

12/03/09

Today, we performed a 30 second play to show the “Rodrigo” that nobody knows, outside of school. It was a wonderful experience because I realized things that I´d thought were different about me. It was also difficult to act as myself because I discovered new things about me. I didn´t think that I always use the same shoes for everything, jajaja. But don´t think that those are the only ones uuuhhh!!!

I have more shoes, but that pair, is my favourite. My performance was almost what I do every day. I put on my shoes, always the same ones, and I play the drums while listening to the oasis´ song wonderwall. I also did a Tae Kwon Do kick because that´s what I do almost every day.

I enjoyed a lot this activity because it let me know my other classmates better. How they really are outside school. I know them a lot, but I´d realized I don´t, the way I thought.
So, is it necessary to act with your friends to know them better?