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Describe a performance that you have seen in which you were moved by a vivid scenic image. What elements of the image make it memorable for you? How did they enhance the meaning of the play (or film) for you? Do you think the image fit the director's interpretation of the play (or film)? How did it help convey the mood? When describing the image, incorporate terminology from the text and ideas discussed in lab.

So the show that has a scene in it that really touched me was Ragtime. I didn't really know anything about this show when I went to see it - I had gotten the tickets from a family friend as a graduation present and I love theater (obviously...) and went obliviously (note to self...words like obviously and obliviously shouldn't be used so close together bc they confuse me). Anyway musical theater is definitely the kind of theater that affects me most...the music is what really gets inside me and sticks in me and is the part of theater I remember most. Music sets the tone of the scene and can change the audience's feelings towards a character depending on the voice, etc. The music in the show doesn't even have to be a song that is sung, but background music in a show also really sets the scene and the mood...of course this is along with lighting, staging, etc. that make the mood but for MYSELF the music is really the key to what I am feeling. I am a musically oriented person and music controls a lot of my emotions when I hear it.

Alright so I don't even really remember what was going on in the show at the point that really touched me. But I'm pretty sure that there were three clusters of the different groups in the show, the different clusters being separate and showing the conflict between them and the inability for them to interact amiably. There is the fatehr and daughter immigrants on upstage left with the father's arm around the little girl's shoudlers. In the center of the stage is the white upperclass family standing together but not actually touching. and over at stage right is the group of African Americans also close but not touching. And the stage is dark except for lights on these three groups making it even more distinct that they are separate. And they are all looking forward at the audience and not at each other. Hold on I am going to look up what song it is that they are singing..................................I'm pretty sure the song is "Till We Reach That Day"...anyways so there is this definite tension in the air onstage and it is silent...then an African American woman appears from a side door and walks up the aisle through the audience... she starts the song with a huge huge gospel churchy voice that just makes you hold your breath. Then eventually the song picks up and the whole cast is singing, screaming, angry, upset about their situation in life at the moment...and when the song reaches its peak THAT is my moment that I will never forget...on top of the whole cast singing out angry and passionate...the black woman starts her gospel belting again and it is just Heart Wrenching and her voice gave me chills and the mood was so angry and intense and her voice was a wailing, crying, asking, pleading, grasping...and everyone else is angry, mad, sad, upset...and the moment was so FULL and big and the music was overwhelming and the lights were soft and the staging was dramatically separate. I started bawling it was so intense I couldn't handle all the emotions it was amazingly beautiful and painful and bittersweet all at once. One of those moments you want to hold on to and sort out all of the opposing emotions you are feeling all at once but you can't because it's gone so suddenly.

So...out of the components of theater that really made the moment, I would say that the least important were the costumes and set design...although the costumes were truly necessary to help distinguish the differences between those three groups of actors. I guess they didn't seem important in the moment because the costumes hadn't changed since the beginning of the play, but to initially create the distinctions between characters the costumes were needed. The set in the background was not important for this moment because most of the stage was in darkness and so it couldn't be seen anyways...the three groups of people were also all supposed to be in different places, so the scenery would have detracted from that. It was ultimately the staging, together with the lighting that made the mood, and most importantly the music, the song, the type of voice and the instruments used that made the scene what it was.

Sept 26

I haven't written in a while...just have a lot going on a lot on my mind...I've realized how unimportant the things are that I am constantly worrying about in life and that I need to spend more time appreciating things. Ok onwardssssss...tangent! Today in class I volunteered to do the cold reading type thing and ended up feeling absolutely great. I always forget why I really truly love theater until I'm actually performing and then it all becomes so clear to me and I remember...it's just that with acting you are able to completely forget your life and take on the life of someone else. And you have to feel their emotions and BE them and so you feel what that character feels but you can forget everything everything else. It is really nice to be able to channel the passion you are feeling in your life into something constructive when you dont know what to do with yourself...anyways I just got really passionate about the role which was kinda ridiculous but it was really nice to be ANGRY and SAD and UPSET about something that was unrelated to me but I could just get those emotions out into the world and yell....we all need that sometimes, right? I need it now! I got to be Rose in a really great scene - (note to self maybe our team awesome wants to do this scene?? remember it...) where Troy tells her that he has been cheating on her and is going to have another child. Anyways this scene is just so intense and so passionate and she gets to be like WHAT the HELL and its really intense...

Ok so in class today - we talked about directing...I've always found theater stuff comes to me pretty naturally but it's true that there are a lot of things I've overlooked. I've never directed anything before and every choice I've made has been onstage as an actor...Fusi today made me realize how important every decision the director makes is when he was talking about the scene that we acted out. He was saying how the director chooses if they want Troy in the center of the stage - his stuggle, his revelation to Rose, his confusion and the audience should notice him the most in this scene. Or Rose could be in the middle - her anger, her frustration, her shock that the man she has been married to for 18 years has cheated on her. Her reaction to the situation and the pain she is feeling could be what the director wants the audience to focus on. Or the director could want the focus on Gabe and how Rose and Troy are fighting and he is between them and Troy is taking his money and using him and Rose is giving him food and helping him and Gabe really just wants to impress Troy and make Troy love him and Rose is in his way right now...anyways that's when it really hit me how important the dircetor's small choices are because they completely shift the focus of the play and the meaningfulness. I liked how Fusi said the director "brings everyone together and tries to maintain some sanity". How true...I also liked how he said the director always has to know what he/she wants, and that once you don't know what you are looking for, then you have a problem. The director always has to have his/her vision and not let it go, not let it slip, not let insanity take over.

movement

I've decided to start sleeping more. It's just hard to convince myself to go to bed at a reasonable hour when there are always cool people around to talk to and homework that I haven't started. But the class on Monday made me realize that sleeping is a good thing...really...bc movement is important and it was probably the last thing I wanted to do that morning. I just wanted to sit in a chair and listen to a lecture. But, hey, it woke me up and it was pretty fun too - I just don't have the energy to do that every morning.

Movement in theater...yea it is a pretty important thing that I don't really think that much about. The best part of movement in theater is picking little quirks or movements that you can give your character to make them more realistic, more individual. I love watching a really good actor or actress and seeing how it is all of those small artistic choices in movement that really make the character come to life. Some people do the same type of movements no matter who or what character they are playing, but it's the people who can completely become a new character down to the smallest movements that are really impressive. So I thought the class brought about some good points - even though it's really hard to get much accomplished in a class of 80 (60?? how many people are there I have no idea...). So I thought the class was good to the extent that it made me more conscious of realizing that every decision in movement that I make affects my character and how developed she is, but I didn't really feel like I learned anything from the class. Ok that's all for now. I think I will go practice being an egg and evolving into a walking human.

Why write??

I don't ever really think about the reasons behind why someone writes or why I write, but that is a pretty interesting topic to think about...I haven't written much recently but last year I definitely did. I feel like a major motivation behind my writing is when something emotional, traumatic, dramatic, or thought-provoking happens in my life. Looking in my notebooks its odd that pretty much all my writing is depressing and at times when I'm feeling depressed...writing becomes my escape where I can let everything out without anyone judging whatever I'm feeling and knowing that once I get it out of my head and on to paper I can often times understand myself more thoroughly and realize what I'm actually feeling. A lot of times I have trouble with sorting out what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling what I'm feeling, and writing is such a good way to sort everything out and be able to really know myself on a deeper level. and hey, who Doesn't want to know themselves better?

Other reasons for writing...political reasons, wanting to remember certain events or feelings, wanting to explain mental thoughts, ideas, reasonings, etcccccc. Writing is also simply relaxing, lets you express yourself, lets you get out of your mind whatever it is that is in there. It lets you share a part of yourself with the world. You can make a statement, whether it is political, social, emotional, religious....whatever you want can be told to the world and put in a play that is shown to an audience. And for the duration of the play the audience lives in the mind of the playwright and sees what he/she has to say on a subject or what kind of fictional stories and characters they can think of. It's a slice of their mind shared with a group of eager people listening and watching...anyways I need to do another blog to make up for last week I think I'll do it tomorrow morning...peace out

Sept 12

The lecture today by Prof Tanglao-Aguas was pretty intense...I guess this class has more surprises in it than I would have thought. What better way to really learn and understand a play than to talk to the playwright himself?? Although I was thinking about this earlier today and connecting it with this Worlds of Music class that I am taking. In the Worlds of Music class we were talking a lot about how the composer of the piece can only put so much input and meaning into the piece when you talk directly to the composer - he/she can only explain to you the extent to which the piece affected them in its creation and what the intent of the piece was. The rest of the meaning of the piece has to come from the audience and the listeners...the meaning comes from how the piece of music (and now I am saying that the play...not necessarily the script bc a play is not written with the sole purpose of being read, but the production itself) or how the play affects the audience. The audience gives the work meaning by how it affects them and what they take away from it. I just thought this was an interesting tangent - that we are learning from the playwright himself which gives us a greater understanding of the meaning behind the play, but that this does not give us the whole meaning that the play has to the world - that it also must come from the audience itself and how they are affected by it.

On another note...the main thing that I took away from today's lecture in relation to playwriting and my own life is that you really need to write about issues that affect you personally so that you can put your true emotions into it...whether they are painful issues or not they need to be something that you are passionate about in order to get your ideas across to the audience. I mean I guess this is pretty obvious...who would want to see a show that someone wrote and didn't really care about the issues in it but what I really saw with Prof Tanglao-Aguas was that even after having spent ten years on writing this play and however many years now teaching about it...he still has that same passion and goal of wanting to share this story with the world. So even though I really wasn't into this play when I first read it, after hearing Prof lecture on it today and seeing how alive with emotions and impassioned he still is talking about this play I realize there is so much more significance in it than I originally thought. I also did not know much about the political and social issues of the Philippines and their interaction with the US. Seeing Prof's passion about this really inspired me to do some research into the history of the Philippines and really figure out who all the figures were (ie Marcos) to have a greater understanding of the play...at this point I still see it on such a surfacey level and I want to be able to really appreciate it. I will look into some research in the near future

When the purple settles

I already really regret not having blogged after reading the play but before the class discussion bc my views of the play have already totally changed!! Note to self: blog first impressions right away...I find that this happens to me a lot - that I will read a novel or play or poem and analyze it to the extent that I can without getting very far and then when I am able to analyze it in class/with a teacher I begin to understand the writing on such a different level that I appreciate it so much more...(ie Remains of the Day - thought that book sucked until I realized that there were so many literary devices and things that I just hadn't understood on my own).

But anyways...When the purple settles....I really think this was one of the most cracked out plays I've ever read...I definitely look at Prof Tanglao-Aguas differently! But I really respect how he attacked all the issues in the play, that instead of shying away from the difficult issues of rape, torture, pain, abandonment, colonization, family issues, etc....he really just went at them and used as much sexuality and vulgar language as was needed to show all of the pain that really accompanies these issues. In class we talked about Sor Lucy Pera and I realized that I had not understood at all what he/she was in the play. First of all, I didn't realize that it was supposed to be played by a man being a woman - is it supposed to be obviously a man? What does this mean? Why is it a man playing a woman? Does this have anything to do with Sor Lucy Pera also being Lucifer - the Devil? The Devil is often portrayed as a man, so maybe the character is supposed to be played by a man playing a woman to make the audience question why we see the Devil as manly....in the same way that people question why God is portrayed as a man. So I understood that Sor Lucy Pera was evil but I didn't see that he/she was the Devil. And why does she particularly pick on Junior? She is determined not to let him write his script the way he wants to. And why is he/she so obsessed with sex? Maybe it is a continuation of the way that the Philipino people are constantly being 'raped' by other countries for cheap labor and products...bc in the play Sor Lucy Pera is constantly raping different people and it seems to be the only way to distract him/her...through sexual distractions (ie when Momma puts on the George Hamilton mask so that Junior can write the story the way he wants...this part was very amusing and sickening...pretty much the entire play is amusing but sickening). I think that's all for now but I will definitely post more bc this play is supadupa complex.

Thursday Lab

I really enjoyed Thursday's lab...as much as I like the lectures and just being able to absorb information I really do a lot better in small settings where everyone is engaged and participating. I'm thinking that the labs are going to be my favorite days of class...I can't wait to really get started on picking a scene and acting and doing costumes, scenery, etc. The class is really making me think of my class at Lookingglass in Chicago last year where the purpose was to introduce us to all different aspects of theater (lights, sound, costumes, acting, etc...) and not solely acting on stage. I am so excited to get to know my own group better and get to work on our scenes. I'm not sure if that is all we are going to do in the lab - work on our scenes? We spent almost the entire class introducing ourselves which was fun but I'm not really sure what to expect for next class!

FENCES

This question is so overwhelming to me right now...isn't every choice made in the text is an artistic choice? So I will look at a few different ones. I feel that the major theme that Wilson wants to convey to the reader/audience is that of the complexity of the racial divide and how it permeates not only the social atmosphere of the time but into individual families as well. While Troy felt the rejection from the society of the city in his job and in his baseball abilities, Cory was rejected by Troy and didn't have him as a loving father, and Troy's wife (I forget her name) was rejected by Troy as well when he cheated on her with another woman after having been married to her for 18 years. Troy also rejects Bono at the end of the play when he moves up to the driver position in his job and does not spend as much time with his friend. Troy also rejects Gabriel his brother when he turns him in to be put in an insane asylum so that he can get some money out of it. Troy rejects Lyons too, and pushes him further away from him and his new family...treating Lyons roughly and blaming him for not being closer when the truth is that it was initially Troy who separated them. I want to somewhat change what I think the theme and Wilson's point of the play is...I feel that Wilson wants to show how the racial segregation and injustices that were present in that time period affected all aspects of African American lives. Troy is unable to fully connect with any of the characters in the play. He eventually rejects each of the characters and outcasts himself.