The Followspot

Saturday, December 29, 2007

On Wednesday, the entire group of O level drama students met up in the black box, (or hopefully will be named The Play Ground) to showcase their work in progress.

We did our performances and gave each other feedback.
Prakash and I performed with one music short.
The performance was not too bad and some useful feedback was given.

1) My improved movement with the fan in part 2 worked.
I bought a fan from Chinatown a few days back and decided to use it in the performance when I am playing emperor. The fan is a symbol of the high and mighty in China as only the rich afford it. Hence the decision to use it.

2) Why go scary in part 1?
Well, we wanted to show "the dreams of life becoming a nightmare" kind of thing. But due to the lack of music to set this mood, it came as abrupt and shocking for the audience. They suggested something gradual as scary worked for the lines.

3) Music has to be lower in volume!
This is the first time we worked in the blackbox and we do not know how loud the music is as we are acting. However, this is key to take note as with loud music, the lines will be drowned out.

4) Find the meaning of the lines you say.
Due to my discomfort from my health, i forgot to interject some emotions into the lines and I feel that that is what caused it to come across as meaningless. The meaning of the lines were clear to some and not to others.

5) Who are you?
This is a question ONE person asked. The rest made it clear that the starting movement bit showed that Prakash and I are the same person. However, the chances of another few people in the audience getting the idea is still there and we need to fine tune the movement.

6) Play more!
The child in us have to come out more during part 3!

7) Famous eunuch tableaux
We might consider doing the tableaux of the famous eunuchs as mentioned in part 3 to boost the understanding of the audience.

8) More liquified movement and a buildup in the beginning.
Definately worth working for!

It was a fruitful session! Now we have more materials to work on.

(PS: this is not a drama ATC blog. its a drama journal for o level drama students!)

The actor froze at 4:37 AM

Saturday, December 15, 2007

And yes, it is yet another day of rehearsing and another meeting with mrs kamal.
After a relaxing holiday in bali, i almost forgot all my lines! (Sorry Prakash!)
Today we did the same drama experiment again.
Blindfolded, with a slightly altered space and Afiqa and Sofihah calling the emotions.
We experimented with Longing, Realization, Anger, Scary, Happy and Curious for the lines today.
The blindfold effect did not work as nicely as in the MPS because the freshness of the experiment was lost. Instead we tried something different.
We played a game for group dynamics.
Prakash and I had to sit back to back and get up mainintaing body contact. We then had to move around the room and constantly allow different parts of our body to touch at different instances. (perverted as that may sound it only involves hands and legs and backs).
The whole idea was to forge a common throughline to show that both of us are actually the same character and make it clear to the audience that both actors are one character.

After the rehearsal, my idea is that we use a choral effect for the first lines of
"i have come to realize of late that dreaming has become the center of my life"
As we do that "ritual" to symbolize that we are one, finally ending off with both of us saying the line.
It will include the fade in and out effect we wanted as well.

That's all for my touchy touchy experiment. More to come with other rehearsals! Ciao!

The actor froze at 4:28 AM

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

A very few days ago, on the 30th of november,
Prakash and I had a meeting with Mrs Kamal.
After laughing at the silliness of our first scene together,
We explored other possibilities.

First we went the melodramatic way.
being both drunk actors trying to find their way.
I felt myself laughing harder.

Then,
Mrs Kamal took blindfolds for us.
she made us put them on and start groping around and saying our lines.
The experience was magical.
In the dark, you lose your sense of vision and you rely on your other senses.
In turn, this will make you feel around as if you're searching for something.
As we said our lines, Mrs Kamal called out emotions for us to modulate the lines
And as we progressed, we got scarier and scarier and scarier!
This would be the new feel of our first scene since we liked it so much.

However, i want to talk about the magic of being coincidence.

Sometimes, the things you do wrong will become magically right.
For intance, at times when either of us forgot our lines,
the other person gave a hint by personally saying it out.
This allowed the other person to recall his lines and deliver them.
As the other person delivered their lines, the first person faded out.
This gave the effect of two actors being one same person.

Another conincidence that occurred was the effect of one person standing up and the other moving down. As we were behind the blindfold, we didnt know what each other was doing and magically, at more than one instance, prakash stood up and i went lower to the floor and vice versa. the way we reacted to each other's voices was also extremely interesting.

With this meeting, we discovered new insight and areas to work on with blindfolds.
Also, i learnt that when we tape down our performance and look at it, we learn and gain much much more.

Super productive rehearsal!

The actor froze at 8:14 PM