What is a Director - Exercise

Aim of Task: The aim of this task is for students to have their first experience directing.

Description of Task: After making groups of 4, we were assigned a certain set of "steps" that 3 actors had to follow in a scene. The fourth person assumed the role of the director. Some directors chose to be strict and authoritative while others chose to include the other member's of the group ideas. Our director was Vincent, and the other two actors where Arshia and Nashua.

Vincent came out with a great scene for the group: a bathroom without any walls. Vincent decided to take the "dictator" role as a director so he made up most of the story. Although, we gave him ideas of how to solve some problems in the story. In the end, we came up with a very funny story about people having misunderstandings inside the bathroom without walls.

Reflection: Having a dictator director sounds worst than it actually is. I think it made the storyline more congruent and logical for everyone. It makes the expressions and attitudes of the authors more "homogeneous." I think it can help a lot to make the story more understandable.

I will like to work with a more open kind of director as well to see how working with him will be different and compare each of them.

Conclusion: I now understand better why a director is needed when preparing a play. He helps keep the ideas of the actors consistent and moderates everything to produce better art.

I now know having a very authoritative director has a lot of advantages. I don't think that, when doing teamwork in my other classes, being "bossy" is good, though. In other subjects it is better to incorporate everyone's ideas to make them feel motivated and efficient. I'm really looking forward to have my first experience as a director (perhaps as a democratic one).

What is a Director?

Aim of Task:
To start considering the question "What is directing"?

Description:
Together, as a class, we read the worksheet on "What is a director?" with a spider graph on it. We agreed that a director is a leader: he is a decision maker on the scene. He is:

• "And interpreter of text decoded and analysed for the stage."
• "Leaders who ensure all aspects of the production are moving in the same direction."
• "Facilitators who want to enable the actors to find their own meanings and characteristic."
• "Dictator/manipulators who wish to use the actors as puppets for their ideas."
• "Persons who want to realise their vision of the text on stage."
• "Sees the performance from an audience perspective. A view outside the actor."
• "Decision makers. Team builders. Team members."
  

Reflection:
In the directing exercise that we did, I found out that the whole play depends on the point of view of the director. The director unifies the actions of each of the actors, the director is responsible for the actions between each of the actors. The script can have the dialogue and some of the actions, but the play can change so much just changing the director; because different directors have different points of view.

Conclusion:
The director is just as important as in how the play is going to be seen by the audience. The director is like a "theatrical god." He is a person who determines what each of the actors is going to do: everything that he says has to be done by the actors.

Worksheet Exercises

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100 Years of Solitude 10.0

Aim of task: Watch a theatrical performance to better understand the concept of theatre.

Description of Task: All theatre students at LPC went to see the play which was called 100 years of solitude. It was based on the book written by Gabriel García Marquez. The play had a very abstract meaning, it was not the usual type of play most of us were used to. There were a lot of actors, at first, many of them where dressed in white. They walked from one side to another one while making different gestures. There was only one actor who was dressed in black, seated on a chair looking away from the audience. All of the actors who where dressed in white started making different gestures, sometimes pointing to the right side, they sometimes stopped. You could see these people almost in all of the play, but many other things were introduced as the play progressed such as lights, people shouting, etc. It is difficult to explain due to the complexity of the acting. One important thing was shown with the projector though, a message that said something like "Of such a culture deserves such a revolution." There was a lot of lights and sound effects, and it ended with many of the actors dressing with casual clothes and walking in the same direction they were walking before.

Reflection: The abstractness of the play made it difficult for me to understand it. I really enjoyed seeing the coordination and expressions of the authors though. It was definitely something enjoyable. I think the play had to do something with the change of a culture, from a conservative to a liberal culture: at first all of the actors where dressing the same but in the end they where all wearing casual clothes. I think the actors shouting and doing different kinds of stuff that was out of the normal was a representation of what people go through when going through a cultural change; the stress and anxiety people can experience. I cannot relate any part of the play to the title though; perhaps the guy that was seating, looking away from the audience might have been representing a feeling of being alone, a feeling of solitude. I can also see the play as the thoughts of this person in his solitude. Probably the play and the actions of the actors represent how this person feels through the 100 years of being alone.

Conclusion: There are definitely very different types of theatrical performances, we have to think outside the box and be open to more unusual, abstract types of acting. I think it's own abstractness was it's major strength and weakness at the same time. A part of the audience might have enjoyed looking the awesome lightning, preparation and coordination of the elements in the play. However, another part of the audience might find it confusing and hard to understand, like most of us. I think this also taught me that, in the end, the meaning of the play is what the audience perceives. I would definitely like to see another play which is as abstract as this one after my two years of studying theatre to see how I interpret it different after knowing more about the art.

True Lies and Journal Writing

Aim of task: In this task, we had our very first experience with acting. We started doing our job as actors and "distorters." In this lesson we also learned the concept of a theatre journal.

Description of task: First, our teacher told us two stories. He also told us that one of them was a lie but the other one was true. We had to guess which story was a lie and which story was true.

First, he told us a story about his driving lessons. He told us that while he was taking his driving license exam, somebody came and broke the window of the car. Even though both him and the examiner where shocked by the situation, the examiner asked him whether he would like to continue the test or to stop and fail it. Steve decided to continue but he could not concentrate on the driving and did not pass the test.

Then, he told us a story about his teenage years. He said he was in a period of his life where he really liked heavy metal music and started mentioning a lot of bands our class could identify with. Then, he told us that at that age he wanted to paint his room black but he stole the paint from the place he worked in to do so. He used a lot of detail and expressions when telling the story. He also told us that his mother got really mad when she saw what he had done.

After the two stories were told, we raised hands to vote for which of the stories we thought was true. I voted for the first one and got it right. In the second part of the activity, we divided ourselves into pairs. My pair was Jose this time. We had to do the same thing Steve had done. We told two stories to our partner, one true and one false.

Both of the stories I told him took place in my previous school. First, I told him that we once had a female teacher who came as a substitute of a previous teacher who left in the middle of the school term, and that nobody liked her. I told him that in one of her classes, she was very angry at something that was her error, and many of us where frustrated because of that. I told him that my best friend and I walked out of the classroom while everyone else followed us and we went to the principal's office and told him why we were not comfortable with the teacher; and did not want her any more. The teacher got fired a few weeks later. The second story I told him was about an inappropriate picture of one of students being passed around cell phones on school. I told him that the principal checked everybody's phones and that everyone who had the picture on their phones got a one day suspension. Jose thought the second story was the true story, which was actually the false one. I might be good at lying after all!

Then, Jose told me his two stories. The first story was about a bird whom he had burried and found out in front of his house a day later. This had happened one year ago. The second story was a story where he was with a group of friends and they all accidentally went into the girls' bathroom. I realised the first story was the true one because it is very unlikely that a group of people wouldn't have noticed the women sign at the entrance of the bathroom.

After both of us told our stories and guessed which the correct answer might have been, our teacher, Steve, introduced us into what would be this journal. We learned that, in order to learn the theatre material better, we would be keeping a journal where we would write four things about each lesson: the aim of the task, the description of the task, a reflection and a conclusion. We also learned that this journal would not be a diary, that in this journal we had to keep our feelings and perceptions of the lessons; and that is how this blog started!

Reflection: It was interesting to see how Steve wanted to make the second story seem to be real. He used a lot of detail and expressions to make the story more intense for us. However, many of us noticed it! It was a lot of fun to guess.

I tried to use similar tones and settings when telling both of the stories so Jose wouldn't be able to tell which one was true and which one was false by something specific. I tried to make it as natural as possible: I think that is one of the things that an actor tries to achieve on stage.

I'm also looking forward towards writing this journal throughout the year. It will be nice to see my improvement in theatre, and the changing of my ideas and feelings. It will also be nice to see the improvement on my English writing as the year progresses.

Conclusion: Actors make lies seem true. That will be our job, and that is what we were introduced to in this lesson. I now have some experience in making lies seem real, something I will be doing continuously as an actor.

What is an Actor?

Aim of task: To start acting in our class, it was necessary that we started to understand the basic concepts of theatre such as an "Actor." In this lesson, we learned what an actor is and is not.

Description of task: First, our teacher, Steve, asked the question to the whole class, "What is an actor?." He wrote it down on the board and made a circle around it, to start building a mind map. Each one of us started giving ideas of what we thought an actor was. The adjectives that Steve wrote in the board in the end were:

• Communicator
• Storyteller
• Entertainer
  
• Pretentious
• Fakes feelings
• Emotional athlete
• A mirror, a distorter
  

We learned, though, that an actor is also a "distorter." His duty is to present a story in a way distorted by him.

Reflection: I think it is undeniable that an actor is some kind of liar. An actor lies to entertain. I really like the part of being able to tell a story on stage though.

Conclusion: Throughout this course, I will develop the attributes that we listed in class. All of us will become actors, we will end up with these attributes. It is now clearer for us what our role on stage will be.

Introducing myself

Aim of task: Apart from building trust, knowing each other is also an important part of building a group that can work as a team.

Description of task: For the introducing ourselves exercise, we had to write, in separates pieces of paper:

1. Why we chose theater?

2. Our name and several adjectives that describe ourselves.

3. A picture we can identify ourselves with.

Then, we put all of these in one place with an object that we brought to class, which was supposed to represent ourselves. I had a wristband that my third year left me here. Then, we looked at the other person's papers and objects.

Reflection: It was nice to know what other people had written on their papers. There were some things I would have never guessed about them. It was a very nice thing to do, to get to know how everyone sees themselves. It was also a good feeling of "knowing the environment" that I had at that moment, after one week of arriving a completely new environment.

Conclusion: I can say I did not only got to know other people but myself too. Now I can know everybody else's personality and I will now how to work with them if problems arise. I think that it is a very important thing when working as a team. I'm glad I'm working with these people.

Building Trust

Aim of task: The name of the activity is very self-explainable; the aim of this activity was to start building trust between our other Theatre classmates. Since we are going to be working with them as a group, it is very important that we feel comfortable with each other right from the start.

Description of task: Our teacher, Steve, introduced us to the course and the lesson of the day.

We started playing a game that previous theatre students have already played. All of us made a circle and we started passing a ball between ourselves. We could not touch the ball twice and we could not hold the ball, very similar to how volleyball works. The objective of the game was to achieve as much “touches” we could without dropping the ball. The game requires a lot of teamwork because every person in the group needs to be calm when receiving the ball so he can throw the ball again in such a way that the ball can be continuously passed around. Although our third years had achieved a very high record of over 50 touches, the most touches we could get were around 25.

After that, we went back into the classroom and we were divided in groups of five to start playing a game of trust. A person was in the center and the other four of us stood around that person. The person, then, had to close his eyes and cross his arms and pretend as if he was falling. The other four people had to hold the person and prevent them from falling. You could easily see how some people were confident when falling but others did not seem to trust the group yet. It was fun when I went into the center though, since I was the heaviest one of my group and everyone else had to push really hard to hold me!

After that, we made a another trust exercise, but in pairs. One of us had to put one of our hands in the other person's shoulder. Then, we had to guide the person to walk around the room merely by applying a slight force with our hand. After that, we took the exercise even further by guiding the person only with clapping, they had to follow the direction in which we clapped.

A final trust exercise that we did was with the whole class. We made a big circle and Steve let one of us close his eyes and walk forward, inside the circle, with his eyes closed. The person had to be caught by the person on the opposite of the circle, and turn them to another angle, so they could start walking with their eyes closed again. After the activity progressed, more and more people were walking in the circle with their eyes closed. Three people was the maximum and everyone in the circle had their turn to go. When it was my turn, I felt that being guided by the others was comfortable; because I knew they were not going to do me any harm. While walking, though, the distance I walked seemed much larger than the actual distance I walked. It was an enjoyable experience, indeed.

Reflection: The game where we had to pass the ball was a lot of fun. We had to be careful of contributing to the group by passing the ball well. In the other activities, I felt very comfortable in every activity where I had to close my eyes. I knew the others were guiding me.

Conclusion: The activities helped us believe in others. I think my subconscious realised something at the end of the class: I can trust these people. This will be something very useful while performing together, it will make team work so much easier.