We are still on our preparation for the TPPP orals, and we are over-seeing all the aspects we have to mention and how we must link all these aspects such as rhythm, acting, scenery, and set design aspects as well as with the different traditions we have studied and our school play.


There is so much to talk about that we have to be wise when choosing which aspects to focus on, for example there are some things that even though important, didnt offer many connections. Like when we studied Gordon Craig's "Moods" we could maybe talk about a few plays we have seen where it applies but in terms of our own experience, lighting wasnt something we were really involved with.


While making a short practice for the orals we had to do a five minute presentation, and I decided to talk about the use of puppets in our play shadow Queendom. At first it was easy to brainstorm ideas, given that there was so much to talk about, from the acting process and how it was different from previous years, to the reception of our actors, or the way the audience reacted to them, or even the production of the puppets. And it was the easy availability of ideas and information that made my presentation a disaster. I just started mentioning everything, first how we had been able to make the puppets and learn about them through the puppeteers that came and taught us, then i talked about the acting process for our actors, and then about how the audience had reacted. It ended up being really vague, only describing the process and not a lot of analysis of why things happened as they did.


I realized that even though there was a lot to talk about, we had to choose very specific things, spread along the course, but to focus only in concrete aspects, because this way we can reach actual reflection and not just description, which in the end is what the examiners might be looking for. Though it is still important to show that you know a lot and that you have been to many plays and know about different theorists, so a balnce has to be met between quantity and quality of the information you provide. My short presentation was an example of quantity, i just let myself go and tried to include as much as possible so that the examiner would know that I know. But thats not the way to go.


We are only a week away from the Paucartambo trip and I am really excited to see all that I missed out on last year, the masks, the dance and the atmosphere of the carnival. I am slightly concerned that I might not enjoy it as much as last year because all that we studied last year about the origins of the festival is now blurred in my mind. So I will have to refresh my memory by reading some of last years sheets and doing some reaserch. But that though made me reflect upon the experience of art.


If a person who is inexperienced in a certain art form, be it drama, painting or music, and has no previous knowledge of it, does he not enjoy said art piece? is he excluded from the target audience? or should he be able to still experience it in a valid way? Is art supposed to affect each and everyone, or only a select group of people with some background knowledge about it?

This has been a relatively short week,as we've only  had three Theatre periods, in which we basically tried to analyse the feedback we had gotten from the play, and try to reach conclusions in terms of what could've been improved on the play.

Firstly, one of the major problems was that even though people seemed to enjoy the play, they didn't understand our game, and were confused by it instead of encouraged. This was apparently due to the fact that every time the audience changed point of views, the perspective through which they saw the characters changed as well, so this constant need for the audience to re-adjust their understanding of who is who, and why their character is seeing another in a different way than the previous scene. This left the audience without constant elements to grab on to, patterns changed to rapidly for them to create a clear structure of what was happening, it didn't allow for coherence to form in their experience.

So our game was too ambitious, we should've only changed the point of view, and not the perspectives, that way the audience would grasp the concept more easily, as it is simpler to understand, that you change character every scene. But the big problem was that the whole changing perspective vs. dimensions and characteristics of the characters was paramount in terms of expressing the idea of power and control. So that  would not have been an effective solution, as a big part of the message we were trying to transmit would be lost. Other ways of improving the play were to add a narrator for example, to sort of guide the audience through what was about to happens, reminding them the nature of the game they were about to experience. A narrator strictly under those terms, as in it would not be involved in telling the story, but only to guide the audience and prepare them for an experience they might not be able to enjoy if not prepared. This last solutions seemed the only feasible one, since others like, projecting what the audience should say once they are spoken to, were not practical, and it would make it too blatantly obvious for the audience to understand what was happening. If the audience need not become involved in what he/she is seeing to understand it, then it becomes boring, there is no challenge, we would be spoon-feeding them.

The other solution was in terms of the script, given that most of our audience isn't English speaking, and some can only handle very simple English, then the script should have been simplified, firstly in terms of terms and words we use, such as minions instead of servants or pawns, and also in terms of making the interactions between the audience's character and the ones on stage more obvious, and to establish who said character is from the get go, so that they are not confused for half the scene to then understand who it really is and have to trace back everything they've just seen in order to understand why things are portrayed the way they are.

All this would help the audience become more easily adapted to the game, and for them to perceive and experience the play in the way we intended for them to experience it.

If due to some technical issue or some mistake in terms of acting or scenery, or even if a single mispronounced word changes the direction in which the plot is left to continue, and the audience get a completely different experience than what was intended, is the play considered to be a failure?

In art, sometimes artist intention is said to be irrelevant, and once the work is published or publicly shown it is completely open to interpretation.

And so, our last school play comes to an end. After months of preparation and hardships, it was all over in only 3 days. 


It was the first time I actually got to see the play, since in previous years I had to act, and was limited only to my own experience in the scenes in order to measure the degree of success we had achieved on said play. I had high expectations in terms of being able to watch the play this time, to be able to see all of our work as if through the eyes of the spectator, and enjoy it as one would.


But as always, reality was far from what I expected, while watching the play I was not able to see it as a spectator would, maybe because I had seen it many times before, maybe because I was focused on the things that could or did go wrong, but I could only see actors on a stage instead of characters in a story. I was not able to experience the thrill I do whenever I go see a play, to be transported to a place that doesnt exist, where gradually you begin to forget you're sitting in a chair in an auditorium and all that exists are ideas, expressed through characters situations and the relationship between what you see and hear and what you feel.


What I experienced these past three days, was only the continuation of my everyday experience, I guess i was completely concious that what I was seeing was completely real, in the sense that I was not able to immerse myself in the fiction, I was not able to play the part of the audience. So I realized that the audience plays a crucial role in theatre, not only as a measure of success but because it is their experience that we seek when we make a play.


Overall the comments ive heard about the play are fairly mixed, some really liked certain parts, specially the shadow puppets scene, and some told me that due to pronunciation issues some bits were confusing and difficult to understand. And even though I appreciate positive comments, I feel relieved when I hear criticism, because it is the only way to really know what the audience thought was lacking or went wrong, and its only through mistakes that we can improve.


If a play is seen as a failure to the director or people involved in the production of the play because of technical issues or sloppy acting, but seems to have been a success to the audience, who's opinion counts the  most, the one thats coming form a person that has seen an unexpressed potential, or from the one who is oblivious of the whole process but enjoys the final product.

This week has been intense, the school play is only days away and there is still a whole lot to do. 

Above all, these last few rehearsals we have been experiencing technical problems, puppets that break to pieces, costumes which make acting difficult on stilts, props which don't stay in place, and unfinished scene changes. Not to mention we still haven't seen the play on one go, we struggle to make it past the first Act without running out of time. 

Something interesting we've noticed is that actors and backstage seem to be fully concentrated in the scene changes, even though they are not all complete, and some things are left undone, the actors are focused. Maybe its the time pressure, maybe its the apparent simplicity of only  moving a few things around and each person doing only one task. But what I do know is that the only moments where I've seen the play come "alive" so far is precisely in the scene changes. The scenes themselves, even though complete, or at least close to completion, lack that factor which changes a stage, actors and words into theatre. And I'm pretty sure that concentration and focus have a lot to do with that transformation. 

Its somewhat frustrating to see actors "pretending" to act, only performing "make-believe" actions, and not immersing themselves in the situation. Where all they need is that little extra push of focus, of believing what they are doing and stop being the actor on the stage, and becoming the character in the scene. I've discussed this with some friends and they all seem to believe that this lack of concentration disappears when the play is shown to an audience, and all the pressure seems to instantly translate into concentration. But I have my doubts about this assumption. First of all I believe that in order for the actors to develop their characters and explore their actions, they have to be in this state of focus beforehand. That in order for there to be coherence or an actual understanding of the subtext the actors must be immersed in their character and the situation around them.

Due to a lack of this concentration, what we seem to get is actors reading out lines, without the right intention, performing actions which have no significance, and expressing empty emotions. The play itself goes nowhere, and the audience's attention will most certainly be lost as well. 

I do not blame the actors entirely, it was our job as directors to express this vision to the actors, to surround them with context, giving them space to play and explore. But our vision was not clear at all, the plot kept changing, some parts seemed unnecessary, some parts seemed to contradict others, and so, due to a lack of vision and understanding by the directors, the actors found themselves confused.

I'm unsure as to how the "last-minute concentration" as my friends suggest, will transform what we have into a working play, or at least an appealing performance for the audience. Now I realize how crucial it is for a director to have a clear vision from the get go and stay true to it throughout, since it is that vision that translates into a play, and it sets the path for the actors to follow. 

To what extent are actors ever a character and not just a person pretending to be a character, and who does this transformation depend on? the actor or the audience? The concentration of the actor or the state of fiction which the spectator automatically creates when going to see theatre? 

This week I revisited my extended essay and decided to narrow its scope due to insufficient results in my workshops to fit the larger idea I was behind. I originally planned to investigate if Grotowski's method of the via negativa was a way to improve the actor's connection between their inner impulse and outer reactions, to reduce the lag time between the psychological and the physical.

From the get-go I knew that 20 hours would not be enough time for the process to actually yield any concise results, because from what i understood in Grotowski's book, this is a process which takes years to sink in and show any significant changes in the actors. Even though this was true, I did observe some significant changes in terms of physical tuning, and the exploration of the body by the actors.

The actors went mainly through a process of exploration, mainly through improvisation. This improvisation had no meaning behind it (in terms of creating a scene), the actor would just move through the stage using different body levels, efforts, paces, and perform different actions, but at no point in time should they think what they were going to do next, that was the whole point of the exercise, for them to experience a constant flow of actions that would emerge one after the other without any kind of pre-meditation.

In the process, problems emerged, and there was a lack of fluency, also called articulation, between the movements, this was mainly due to the actors stopping and thinking what to do next, which variation should they use, or which level had they not used, etc, etc. So I tried to create an environment where they didnt feel inhibitions, where they wouldn't fear doing what their bodies told them to. By doing embarrasing things like sticking the tongue out in front of everybody and opening your mouth as wide as you can, or screaming at the top of their lungs, and generally just trying to build up confidence, and a workspace where we all felt at ease with our bodies. This helped a lot in terms of energy and some articulation, yet there were some technical aspects to it aswell. Both the psychological and the physical had to be tweaked for the exercise to work.

After some exercises so that the body wouldnt injure itself when doing differnet ranges of actions, i though the process had taken the right direction. Improvisations became more fluid, articulated, and after the short sessions of this improvisations the actors were exhausted, yet some were extatic, they actually liked being in that "state" in which they just let themselves go to what their bodies desired, even for a few seconds.

It is a shame the workshops were so far apart form ach other, and momentum was lost, I really thought we were getting somewhere, and am really eager to keep looking into this and maybe start a workshop with people who are interested in some time.

To what extent can the results of the workshop be measured? The objective appreciation (articulation) only shows if the bodies are tuned and the actor can think fast, but it does not necessarily mean that the actor is in a state of  complete psycho/physical connection.

This week were getting closer to the play and there is so much more left to do. Previously rehearsed scenes fall apart again due to lack of practice, revisited scenes which were previously finished are now found to be nonsensical. On average, a disaster on a massive scale.


Yet there is always a beam of light amongst the darkness. Today I saw the shadow-puppets scene for the first time, and it turned out to be much more visually appealing and useful as I had previously imagined. The shadows allowed for exploration of "unreal" elements, such as bloody impalings, brutal gut-severing murders and four armed evil queens. I really enjoyed watching the rehearsal of this scene, and I think it will be refreshing for the audience to watch it since it has never been done before at any school play to my understanding. The fact that it is different will also keep the audience's attention, which is of utmost importance to this year's play, since it is going to be performed in English, and usually people lose interest really fast when they cant understand most of what is being said, so they need something more, they need to be given visual stimulus to keep them interested as well.


Some scenes, like scene 3, which were previously rehearsed without masks, lost something since the masks were added. They lost expressiveness and meaning because the intonation of the phrases was not optimal, or clear in its intention, and without face expression it is even harder to express what little was there already, so the masks posed a challenge, but in a way, it showed us what had to be done. The characters on that scene, especially Deborah will have to be tweaked around in terms of characterisation and voice, because the character seems flat, and uninteresting to a certain extent. Reference from other sources, such as movies, books or other plays, about similar characters will help greatly in terms of understanding the behaviour and intention of the characters, that's why actors should be encouraged to invest some time in terms of character exploration in their own time.


What still worries me the most is the use of the human sized puppets, since I have been missing out on the last few rehearsals I still dont know if the movements are organic and believable, or if they still remain rough and non-flowing. this is a major issue in terms of puppet handling, and an issue we knew was going to emerge the moment we chose to use puppets for the play. We were warned that puppeteering was a trade that took a much longer period of time to master than the time we were allowed for this play to be produced, and the idea of the puppets not looking as if they had  a life on their own on-stage is one of my biggest concerns, and could be one of the deal-breakers for the audience's attention.


Not much time left for the play to premier and we still have lots of work to do.
Does the mask hinder face expression in able to allow for body expression to be more focused? Or is this effect just a natural outcome of there not being face expression, without intensifying the already present body expression?

This week we worked hard on the rehearsals for the play, were not only getting results on the production side, in terms of the puppets which are well under-way, but also in terms of the actin itself. For the first time I think we have almost finished a scene.

While doing scene 9, which is basically Deborah's conscience coming to haunt her, we decided to make a big choreography with 10 actresses which would represent her conscience. At first it was challenging to get the actresses to perform group actions and concentrate. The biggest problem I actually encountered was working with such a large group of people to do the same thing.

Firstly I struggled in terms of what was to be done, i knew the outline of the scene but didnt really have a vision. Would Deborah's conscience be totally against her? would there be a split personality game going on? So the first few sessions were quite disastrous because I just tried incorporating choreographies without any type of coherence to the overall sense of the scene.

Usually when directing people I picked out characters individually and tried to make them explore the possibilities of their characters, be it physical or voice. But when dealing with such a large group things change. When establishing a certain type of movement or a way for them to speak, issues emerge. First of all they cant all do the movements in the same way, some do it faster, some stronger, some use different levels, so its hard to get an even scene.

Once I realized that homogeneous movements just weren't going to work due to the variety of different commitment and energy levels from the actresses, then having each one have her own way of moving inside certain parameters seemed to work much better. So after a few sessions of trying to establish a regular motion for them to work within, the work became much easier to cope with. After that, only small details had to be tweaked in order for the scene to be nearly finished.

Now I realize how in a scene such as this one, where a lot of motion is involved, if it is well coordinated, then the text becomes secondary. The thrill of the scene is on the movement itself, on the differnet levels and the motion of the group as a whole.

In order to establish certain control of the actors on scene, I found that being empathic towards the actors as a director isnt very effective. Yet im unsure whether being totally dominant and not letting the actors have any creative freedom reflects positively towards their motivation. Is there a balance between the two?

This Friday I watched the play "Hebras" for about the third time if im not mistaken. Although this time there were a few changes. As I entered the theatre I noticed the circular formation of the seats for the audience, but this time there were pieces of tape stuck to the ground, which I hadn't seen before, these were put in a random manner throughout the floor, kind of like a game of Mikado 

[A game of "Mikado"]

The actors were standing still at the centre of the stage while the audience arrived, and as the play started, the lights faded and then came up again when the actors were at the starting position. This position, with the two bodies entangled with each other, almost as one unit, seemed to represent a sort of unity, of definite attraction, which is then lost throughout most of the play. 

The losing of this initial symbiosis between the two bodies, allowed for a relationship between them to emerge, one of fluctuation between attraction and repulsion. At times attraction was mutual, as well as the repulsion, but it was when one of the bodies experienced an attraction and the other a repulsion where the most interesting actions happened. I think it is because at that point, subjects such as power, dominance and submission come into play, a game we as audience have all played, and are active participants of in our daily lives when dealing with other people. 

Something that did change this time in terms of my understanding, or at least my perspective towards the play as a whole was the fact that, before, due to the obvious attraction and repulsion (and some symbols like the throwing away of a ring) of the bodies, I assumed they were a couple, a couple with some romantic quality to be precise, regardless of sex [since i have seen the play being performed by a male / female couple as well as male / male like last Friday]. This time, I saw it not as a relationship with a strictly romantic quality to it, but as any human relationship at any scale, because through our eyes, for there to be a relationship between two people, be it good or bad, there has to be a certain animosity between them. We seldom find friends or family members which share the same attraction simultaneously, let alone couples. So by enlarging my scope, I felt that this sort of interaction between the two bodies goes beyond romance and couples, but can apply to any human relationship where there is some sort of emotional response to one another.

The lack of words is something I really enjoyed in the play, specially when all we could hear were breathing sounds. Somehow I felt that more emotions were transmitted to me this way, that pure movement and body language were much more true to feelings than words. Usually words carry meanings by themselves, as well as many different connotations, so they tend to lead the emotions astray from their authenticity, like trying to describe a painting with numbers only, I feel words are not a successful or even accurate way to express emotion. In this sense, I think body expression does a much better job, since it seems to be a more direct medium to what we feel. For example, when you get scared, or are about to cry, body expression and some breathing sounds, or short noises come much before words do. Not only that, but they also seem to come naturally, and some positions like going back to the fetal position when one is scared, or closing ones fists when one is angry are global, they seem to be part of our nature.

Even though I had seen the play a few times before, there has always been an aesthetic beauty to the precision and balance of the movements on stage, regardless of meaning or intention, which still captivated my attention this time. Movements which involve falling or jumping, or a general lack of balance seemed to flow without any impact which hindered or lowered the pace, this to me was the key to the aesthetic value of the movements. Because no matter how strong or hectic a movement was, there was an inner balance of the forces inside the actors body, which manifested itself in an organic, free flowing stream of movements.

In the game "Mikado" when one extracts a stick from the pile, he has to do it in such a way that none of the other sticks move. But it is designed, and is ultimately destined to not only make it increasingly difficult for a player to make a move without affecting other sticks, but to fall apart completely eventually. Human relationships share the same delicacy and tend to fall into imbalances inevitably and eventually chaos, only to put the sticks back together again and start over, from a balance which is imminently destined to be destroyed again.

Is it possible to have a relationship with another human being without any animosity? Only to recognize the other person's existence and live without wanting, wishing or depending on said being?

This week we started practising for the upcoming PPP's. We were given a stimulus and we had to start analysing it and extracting what we could from it. In my case it was Caravaggio's painting "Young Sick Bacchus". At first, we just had to analyse the stimulus itself, which was rather simple, just state what I saw. But unlinke predictions, this part of the process, the recognition of elements, is not as obvious as I thought it would be. Details such as shadows, contrast and composition are important elements on the painting, not only what you objectively see. 

"Young Sick Bacchus"

For example, Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and fertility is often represented in paintings as a chubby character, with a full pot belly, and a red blush on his skin. He is always surrounded by large amounts of grapes and fruit. In this painting, he seems to be the opposite of the image most of us have about Bacchus in our heads, since he is pale, thin, and only has few fruits around him. The contrast between the stereotype and this representation gives us the idea that Bacchus, and all he represents (Fertility, abundance, joy) is no more, he has become sickened.

 From the analysis of the stimulus we now have to create a concept and a vision. Take away important elements and then use the broader concepts (abstracting from the painting completely) to envision a play. The process itself becomes much easier when you have a clear concept, because from there the vision just flows naturally, you have a backbone from which to guide yourself so that the whole process has coherence.

I'm still unsure on where to start, or what concepts I can extract from this painting. The first part always seems the hardest. This is because you have to be careful not to over-interpret the stimulus just to include your own ideas. One should only focus on what is there, and after taking out the concrete elements, start interpreting them. For example, saying that wine is poisonous and bad for humanity because Bacchus is eating the grapes, which make him sick. Nowhere in the painting does it imply Bacchus is eating said grapes, and even though grapes represent wine in our culture, they may only be grapes for the sake of grapes in the painting. That's why a clear analysis of the stimulus is essential for an adequate development of the PPP.

Is it incorrect to research about the historical/personal context of the stimuli and its creator? Since, it would probably change the lens through which you interpret it. 

Trying to direct the scenes for the play has proven to be difficult. Not only because we are lacking a clear storyboard-like vision for the play, but also because it is hard to control a group of students which dont come into the rehearsals with enough motivation. 


For example this Saturday I was in charge of the rehearsal of the first scene's dancing choreography, and had no idea whatsoever on what to do. Since the actresses will use yoga-balls as their dance partners, then I had to include the balls in the choreography, but unfortunately we didn't have the balls with us. So the fact that they were working with imaginary balls, made it harder for them to keep concentration. Concentration was main issue #1. How to achieve it? Thats what i tried to figure out throughout the rehearsal. At one point i was so desperate that I actually made them lie on the ground and relax and then make them move their body parts and balance the space. This exploration proved futile, because the actresses seemed to experience a sort of shame. Shame of their own body expression. They weren't actresses preparing for a play, they were individuals that were still concerned about their appearances.


I couldn't understand how, being in a theatre, surrounded by fellow actors and actresses, which are aware of the process and shouldn't judge you, but in turn show admiration for the theatrical work, these students would still feel shame towards their own exploration. They only did the minimum required and wouldn't move an extra muscle to try and explore their movement capabilities.


This will be a big problem in terms of creativity coming form the actors themselves, which is mostly present in our plays. 


The second problem was the fact that I had never created a choreography before and we had to make a very energetic one. And given that we stil dont have the balls, there is no way we are going to be able to visualize it. Maybe all the work weve done so far will be rendered useless once we get the balls, be it because they dont bounce as much, or because movement with them will be too difficult. Im certainly not very optimistic towards how the play is going to look in the end, but, before I think about the future, I have to focus on how to solve the recent problems that have been emerging.


Since concentration exercises dont work on younger students, how should we make them understand that they should have no fear of their bodies?

Puppets, puppets, puppets. Its all I think about whenever im thinking of the play. It is becoming increasingly apparent that we are not going to be able to produce the amount of puppets that the original play required, not only because of time we are lacking but because we have such a small "workforce" to manufacture them.


So how do we fix this awkward situation? Well, for one we could just reduce the number of puppets in the play and replace some of them for plain actors. But then it would look odd that a very small amount of characters are represented by puppets, it wouldn't look consistent. Another solution could be to simply adapt the play so that only one type of puppet is included, say only pirates, or only peasants, and then rewrite everything. But By far the simplest solution that came up was to find a way to reuse the puppets, so that they served more than one function. So that a pirate in one scene could be dressed to be a merchant in another. Though this will prove difficult in terms of the striking resemblance between one character and another, with the right change of clothes and props it could work.


This wee we also had a workshop with Martin and Maria Laura, the puppeteers that taught us how to make the puppets in the first place. In this workshop they taught us how to maneuver the puppets and what things we should learn before handling them. Something very useful they taught us was that the puppets must keep their axis, as in they must keep their posture, be it straight or crooked, it should remain the same throughout the performance because our posture is not really flexible, and if the puppet suddenly changes the way it stands then the audience loses the illusion. The other important aspect we should always keep into account is the direction or focus in which the puppet is looking at, because this is usually what guides all the movement.


We were put into groups to try and show what we had learnt on some puppets. I had a three-man group to  maneuver only one relatively small puppet. The result was quite catastrophic in the sense that the movement in the puppet seemed segmented and artificial, and not all part of the same impulse. This was due to the fact that there wasn't much coordination between the legs arms and torso because each person in charge of their body part wanted to do different things at different rhythms. We later realized that becuase of this, it is much simpler to control a puppet with less people, for that way the puppet will be fully synchronized.  I realized that in order for the double puppets to work on our play, we would need to either video-tape the puppets in movement and then show it to the actors to see how they can improve or to just get a big miror so they can practice.


Is there a way to fixate a certain expression in the face of a foam puppet without stressing the hand? Since this could be used to differentiate merchants from pirates.

This week we had a workshop about puppets and puppet-making, given by both Martin Molina and Maria Laura Velez, who are part of a puppeteering group called "Tarbol"

At first they introduced us to the history of puppets and their use throughout history. What impressed me the most about that part was to understand that puppets have been entertaining an adult audience for most of its history, and only recently has there been a change to more infantile audiences because of their didactic use. So right off the bat the introduction to puppets changed my whole perspective about the potential use of puppets, and how there is much more to them than just slapstick infantile entertainment. They have the ability to express anything, from family-oriented fun to politically and socially challenging messages, and that they have super-human capabilities.

At first I thought that these abilities were merely aesthetic, as in more pronounced body features, almost a cartoonish approach, but they go beyond that. In one of the plays they presented to us called "Santuario de Febriles Sonrisas" they made a puppet start levitating at one point, defying the laws of gravity, and it looked really poetic, like the fading away from reality and entering his own world, or a struggle between conciousness and dreams.which wouldve been really difficult to do with actors. It gives performances a completely different spectrum of tools they can use in order to get messages through. Then the other play that Martin and Maria Laura showed us was a more family-oriented one, and it included a ghost a dog and a cooking woman, all of this with hand puppets. So it is definitely useful to have puppets not only because of their aesthetic or physically defying aspects but because of their practicality, all you need is one or two actors, and small amounts of material to put on a whole performance. Yet, by making the puppets so small, they are only intended for small audiences, reducing the amount of people that can be influenced by it, but making it a more personal experience.

But the personal connection between the puppets and the audience is not due to the size of the audience, but because their ability to interact with it. For some reason it seems easier to a member of the audience to respond or communicate with a puppet than it is with a person. I still cant figure out why this is, maybe because the puppets represent only fictional characters, while actors cant hide their human condition when interpreting the character. Much like speaking directly to a character rather than to person acting as medium to the character.

The making of the puppets proved tiresome and quite frustrating at times because Martin made it look so easy, and then we tried and reproduce what he did and wound up with very different outcomes. But I guess the diversity of the results is also giving us more ideas and ways of making the faces, drifting away from the conventional and entering a realm of imagination. For example Esteban's puppet which had tentacles and at one point movable eyes, or Nicole's puppet which had round bold features and a really small mouth, which made it look very cartoonish

Why arent puppet shows more frequently directed towards adult audiences? When did this tradition stop taking place and was replaced by infantile shows? Why?

This monday we went to watch "La cocina" a play written by Arnold Wesker at the centro cultural Britanico. The play was entertaining to watch and it had some really interesting moments not only in terms of the dialogue but also the way the stage design elements interacted with the play.


Something I found really interesting was the way the stage was constantly changing. At certain scenes the cooking equipment and tables would be moved around in different arrangements. In one scene two tables are put on each side of the stage, there had been a fight between two characters and each occupied one side of the stage, the arrangement of the tables allowed for this idea to be clearer, and also to be able to see which characters sided which one. Since we as an audience do not know about the relationships of the characters right away, a simple division like this is immensely useful to get an insight into these relationships. In one of the choreographies when the kitchen is supposed to be working on full throttle, the tables are moved and put together across the stage, allowing for us to see what each character was doing, all facing the front, now if the stage would've been fixed, then this effect wouldn't have been possible. Once the tables were put in this arrangement, we were not only able to see every character and what they were doing, but it also gave the feeling of a factory, a production line. Now, we usually imagine the culinary world to be very artistic and sophisticated, and a factory certainly doesn't come to mind when we think of cooking, but this is the feeling expressed in the scene. I guess that just like the many cooking programs in TV like "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" and "Top chef" this play was also trying to show the actual inner workings of a kitchen, and tries to de-glamour it. It also shows us a real perspective on how life is to these people working on the kitchen, where prejudice, fights and sex are always as present as they are outside of the kitchen. 


In a couple of moments in the play, there would be a sudden fading of the lights and only a spotlight would illuminate only two characters, as they talked and interacted, everything around them would happen in slow motion. Instantly it made us focus our attention towards them, suddenly the feeling is more personal, we were now watching the intimate relationship between two people, we were forcefully put in a situation where we were invading their privacy. The fact that everything around them as happening slower made me feel that even though everything is still happening around them, nothing but themselves matters. Also, communication is much faster than words, so maybe all we saw transmitted in the dialogue was the full extent of their communication, subtext included, that's why I think everything around them was happening slowly, because their level of communication was faster. And even though spotlights seem cliché, in this particular moment in the play, due to the slow movement behind, and the attention to detail, it seemed a tool to convey the extent of a relationship, instead of an easy way to grab the attention of the audience. 


Overall the play had its ups and downs, there were moments where I was totally drawn into it like the spotlight moments, or the choreographies in the kitchen rush hour, but there were also moments where the dialogue became too monotonous, and nothing was really happening.


At some parts of the play there were a lot of noises and different conversations going on, for examplw when they were all sitting at a table in the front, some actors were giving the back to the audience, this made it seem like a realist play, trying to imitate life, but then it completely changed when they moved the arrangement of the furniture and started making choreographies and the sounds were not life-like. Is there a name for a play which mixes these styles?  

This monday we saw a play called "Vedova in lumine" It showed the life story of a woman through the use of puppets to represent different people in her life. Or at least that is as much as I could deduce plot-wise while watching the play.

The play itself was a dull experience, while watching the play the only things that would take me out of a state of complete boredom were some of the design elements, like the use of the puppets or the mood changes created by the different lights. To be honest, I didnt think the play would end up being boring once the play started. I liked the movements the actress was performing, and the use of puppets were effective, as they seemed to have a life of their own even though we could physically see the actress moving them. But as the play progressed the movements seemed repetitive, and lost their initial charm. It seemed more of an elaborate dance routine rather than a play, which im not used to watching, and maybe that is why I did not enjoy it as much as I could, also given that I was expecting to see a play and wasnt prepared for what was to come in the next hour and ten minutes.

But focusing on the positive aspects, the play featured the use of puppets, which were useful as inspiration for our play. One of the most useful things I could get from the performance that can be applied for our play is the way the actress used the puppets. This solved a major logistical problem I had been worrying about, because when I pictured our play, I couldnt get my head around how we were going to maneuver them without making it completely evident that there was someone behind them. I thought of dressing them completely in black like kokens, or make people get inside puppets, but watching the play made me realize that it isnt strictly necessary to hide the puppeteer. Even if he/she is evident, its the way he/she uses the puppet that counts, if done properly, the audience will focus more on the puppet at certain moments, and the puppeteer also has the power to take that attention away from the puppet and back to itself, making communication possible between the two.

The only other aspect which really made an impact on me in the play we saw on Monday was the use of the lights. More specifically, the mood they created. At moments the light would be blue-ish and dim, with a mixture of warm light, which made the house in the background look like it was nightime, almost Arabian, all this with only the use of the lights. Also at one point, all the lights suddenly became red, in an instant, the whole mood of the scene changed, it struck me because it was quite powerful, almost surreal, and this had only happened to me when seeing films, so it got me really excited about the potential the lights can have on a play.

Is it possible for puppets to work as characters without a pupeteer? What is it that turns the prop into a character?

While planning for this years’ play we stumbled upon a big roadblock, deciding the game. Usually the school pays don’t include much of a game, but rely more on conventions, like last years’ play  Miyuki, which relied heavily on the set Kabuki conventions of not only physical movement but voice as well.

We had to devise a game for the audience (as was the splitting of the audience for the one-act play “Split”) and we didn’t get very far. Eventually with the aid of the IB year one students a game was set. Each scene would occur through the point of view of a specific character (which changes from scene to scene) and this character would be the audience, thus breaking the fourth wall, making the audience become an active participant in the play.

Now, even though this sounds like a great idea, it has problems too. The fact that the audience gets involved is a good thing, but the degree of this involvement is what could make it a success or a failure. For example, in order for it to be clear that the audience is a specific character in the scene, the characters on-stage will have to address such character at some point, leading to the issue. When this interaction occurs, (audience/character is addressed) there will be no response, because the audience wont intervene, so there will be a short pause of silence in which the character is supposed to be speaking, and then the character on-stage would have to react to the invisible answer. I am unsure of how that is going to be effective, because pauses don’t work very well on these types of performances. The only alternative to these pauses is that the audience/character be referred to, but not directly addressed to, this way it wouldn’t have to participate in the dialogue. But if this happens, then whats the difference between the audience being a character or just a passive spectator, after all, it would not participate in any way. For all they know, the character that is being addressed could just be an unseen character, which just happens not to be onstage, but there is no way of relating that unseen character with the audience. And the fact that this character is supposed to change from scene to scene makes this interaction ever more difficult.

And the only way of physical intervention from the character which the audience is representing would be to actually place an actor on stage to perform the actions, which would make no sense, because then it would become just like any other character, and the audience would become passive spectators once again.

Ruling out dialogue and physical interaction, the audience will never understand the game, or at least will understand it but wouldnt work for them in any interesting way. So unless we find a creative way of interaction between the audience/character and the characters on stage then this system will not work. The decision we take on this will influence how the script works aswell, so until we make a clear decision, the script cant be finished yet.

Can the audience ever participate physically on-stage as a character without any kind of surrogate? Has this ever happened?