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?