My vision of Ruined

The play occurs in a dive (a bar) in the Congo. There is a general air of hopelessness, helplessness. Props must be the minimum necessary to permit the play to proceed and must convey a sense of shabbiness. Sound effects must be harsh and abrasive to convey a world outside that is dangerous and unforgiving. Costuming must convey the roles of the actors while generally contributing to a sense of neglect, as if dressed in leftover rags. Lighting must cast harsh shadows and accentuate the shabbiness of the set. Characterization in Mama Nadi’s girls must be flat and artificial. They cannot possibly love the men they are serving; the same paper emotions will be displayed to the next man who pays for their services. The customers are caricatures of the people they represent.

The play is performed on a traditional stage in Manhattan. The target audience is a cosmopolitan mix of urbanites that have never known, and may have no concept of the life in the Congo. Its goal is to provoke sympathy for the women whose plight is shown, and to explore what people will do to survive when the thin veneer of civilization is stripped away.

The stage is a traditional ‘window’ on the action of the play, but there are stairs that permit actors to enter from the rear of the theater and mount the stage. The audience will experience the world outside as the soldiers, miners, revolutionaries and tradesmen march through them to get to the bar.

The set is the bar. The bar is minimalist; only what is needed to provide the expected services. It has obviously been neglected; the owner feels no pride in it. If something has been broken, only the minimum necessary repairs have taken place. The furniture is cheap and flimsy. If you sit too hard in a chair it will break. The space is low; the bar is not grand or tall, but more like a cave. The walls and ceiling are suggested by panels that create the impression of worn boards, almost like the space was assembled from the broken remains of another building. The front door to the bar is the ramp from the audience onto the stage and so is not shown as a frame other structure. It is suggested by the motion of the characters into the bar. There is one table with a few chairs where the patrons will sit, and where Mama Nadi’s girls will first encounter their customers. The bar is toward the rear of the set where Mama Nadi serves up drinks. There is a round raised platform standing about 10 inches high where Sophie sings.

Costumes are role-specific, creating caricatures of the roles they support. Mama Nadi wears robes and turbans. The clothes are neat but clearly not new or expensive. They portray her as someone who wants to create the impression of success without actually spending the money. The girls are dressed in traditional dresses that have been slit up the sides so their legs show as they walk around. Their heads are uncovered and their hair is short, almost shaved. Sleeves are short, to expose their arms, and the necklines are low. They are ‘available’ without being alluring.

The soldiers wear fatigues that appear to have gone long periods between washing. They carry automatic firearms that they occasionally fire into the air to proclaim their manhood. Their heads are covered in red berets. Their boots are scuffed and dirty. These uniforms lack insignia; they are merely suggestions of uniforms. This contributes to the general sense of shabbiness in the artistic vision.

Rebels are dressed similar to the soldiers; there are just enough differences to make it obvious they are not soldiers. They carry different and lower quality firearms. Their headgear is bandanas rather than berets. The point of their attire is that, for Mama Nadi and the girls, there is really very little difference between the soldiers and the rebels. They are equally abusive opposites in a conflict that has no meaning to those who run the bar.

Salesmen are dressed in suits that that are clearly worn and a little too big for them, almost like a high-school boy who borrowed a suit from his father. The shirt is white. The necktie is bright and colorful.  Shoes are shiny on top, but there are holes in the soles. The overall effect is one of an attempt at the appearance of success without the actual effort.

Lighting contributes to the cave-like atmosphere in the bar. Lights have a yellowish tint that casts shadows into which it is hard to see and makes props and sets appear dingy and dirty. Periodically, a mask is applied to the lights that project bars on the faces of the actors, as if they are in jail. The light gets brighter for action during the day, and dims to suggest candle light when the action occurs in the evening or night.

Sound effects convey the environment that remains unseen. There is occasional chatter of gunfire in the background. Sometimes there is screaming. Sometimes there are voices shouting or the sound of someone being beaten. These sounds are never loud enough to conflict with the dialog, but they are ever-present reminders of the environment in which the action lives.

When the soldiers enter, they fire their guns in the air to announce their appearance. This gunfire is loud and startling.

When Sophie sings, the musical accompaniment sounds like an old and often-played LP record. It is scratchy and the scratching sometimes hides the melody.

The overall effect, as described in the artistic vision, is one of a dangerous, dirty environment within which each member of the cast attempts to survive.

The live performance

You cannot even compare a live performance to a movie. The bond between the actors and the audience during a play and the excitement that they share towards each other is impossible to create in a movie theatre.  For the actors playing on stage the audience is just like a metronome. When the audience laughs, the actor knows she/he should take a pause before going to the next line. If the audience is too invisible than the actors knows that she/he should play it “louder” in order to reach everyone’s reaction in the audience.

The energy bond between the actors and audience can be interrupted so easily just by any noise. I’ll never forget how while watching the Dearly Departed suddenly someone’s cellphones went off. I watched so carefully the reaction of the actors’ faces and noticed the how for a second, just for a second one actress needed to take an extra breath so she could go on with her line. She swallowed visibly as she regained her composure. This made me very aware of how involved the audience must be in helping the play succeed.

Because they cannot be involved in the play, a movie audience has no problem eating, talking, texting and disturbing the rest of the audience. In a live performance, people even wait until the intermission to go to the toilet.

The movie shows me the smallest details of each scene. There is no room for my imagination. In a live performance, the background, the props, and the action can be expressive; my mind fills in the things they leave unsaid. A simple window frame makes a wall. The arrangement of furniture creates a room. A door can stand alone, and be the boundary for the action. It doesn’t have to be real or realistic; it just has to stimulate my imagination. It allows me to get lost in the dialog. It lets me focus on the interaction of the characters. The power and the emotion of the acting is more important than cinematography, and is more powerful.

As I watched “Dearly Departed”, I was amazed by the teamwork on the stage. As each actor played his or her part, they performed a complex dance a little bit like watching a team sport. Each part was different, but the dance lost its rhythm and its beauty if the parts were not played properly. What was even more amazing was watching three actors play two completely different characters. In doing this, they stayed true to the characters; I was barely aware of them being the same person. I had to look at the program to be certain.

When a movie ends, I get up and leave. There is no way to get involved with the characters. I cannot cheer them. The most I may do is comment to a companion that I did, or did not enjoy the movie. When a live performance touches me, I can express my appreciation to the actors through my applause, and the actors will soak in the approval like sunbathing at the beach. The more I approve, the longer I clap, and the more the actors know that they touched me with their art.

Being part of the audience.

Anna in the Tropics

A poster for "Anna in the Tropics"

I was running late. Rushing out through the campus I felt that excitement of getting to see the live performance. It has been a while since I went to a theatre, so the opportunity to go to a live performance was very pleasant, not to mention that it was happening right on my campus.

As I was getting closer to a theatre and saw two old ladies standing by the entrance and collecting tickets, a smile appeared on my face. The theatre begins right here for me.

I went through the open doors and immediately saw the seats, the stage, and decorations. I could smell the theatre. It has this dusty yet sweet smell that not even movie theatre can imitate. To my surprise the audience was full. I stood right in the middle for searching a better seat. I wanted to have the best seat in front of the stage in order to be able to observe everything during the play. And then I found one.

While waiting for the play to begin my eyes start wondering around. I have noticed how diverse the audience was. Before my arrival I was so sure that I would see only students in the audience, but to my surprise there were husbands with wives, elderly citizens, and just people who came alone like me. We were all different in so many ways…the age, ethnicity, occupations, and maybe social levels, but there was one thing that engage us, one thing that connect us tonight. We all came to watch the play “Anna in the Tropics” directed by Walter Kmiec. We were one big community.

The performance begins with a song by Buena Vista Social Club “Chan Chan”.  People in the audience stopped talking or using their cellphones, everyone got silent. Through the entire play we all respond like one organism. We laughed together if characters on the stage said or did something funny. We held our breaths together if someone in the play cried or suffered from pain.

I realized how beneficial the small stage was. I was loosing the notion of being outside of the play and feeling instead the strong participation in the story. I saw every detail of the costumes and make-up, even the sweat appearing on actors’ faces. The smell of the hair spray reached my nose.

There is always a bit of a sadness coming into your heart once the play ends. It feels that now you have to go back to your own reality and play that “you” role, but the only difference in your play is that you have no director who tells you what and how to perform. You have no script to refer yourself if you forget something while “practicing”.

While driving back home I could not stop thinking about the characters I was with for almost two hours. I was comparing my life to theirs as they were comparing their life to “Anna Karenina”. These two hours of live performance gave me the incredible energy and part of this energy was coming from the audience I have shared this experience with.

Modern Mime

      Modern Mime

         μίμος

Mime is the earliest self-expression tool. Before people could speak they would use mime to communicate with another’s. After language was developed, mine has become a form of art.

The origins of mime art are found in Greece and it was separated into several categories, it rarely alienated from dance and speaking theatre. However, Romans took over the existing art and start renovating into their love of spectacle, which included everything from pantomime to mock-naval battle. They disengage the dance and speech to give the birth of, what was call the pantomime. Roman pantomime involved improvisation, such as burlesque scenes, portrayed current events, and themes of love, adultery, and mocking of the gods.

After the fall of the Roman empire, the Christian churches closed all the theatres including the mime associations. Only the basic form of this art survived. It continued to amuse through the middle ages, and reached it’s height in sixteenth century in Italy, such as Commedia dell’Arte.

But let’s not go to deep in there and focus on modern mime. In 1811 Jean Gaspard Batiste Deburau, a member of famous Bohemian family was performing at the Funambule on the Boulevard du Temple. He performed in this theatre till his death. Deburau is considered as the main creator and master of mime. The famous “Pierrot” was created by Deburau. He converted the crude slapstick form of Mime, to the art form that is known today.

Soon after the Second World War, Marcel Marceau (1923-2007) appeared. He created in 1947 his own character  “Bip” with  his famous short jacket and a hat with a flower sticking out. There is a similarity between the Pierrot and Bip such as white make-up face, and dramatic appearance on the stage.

However, Marceau was the  true builder of modern mime as we recognize today. His performance was limitless. His character Bip was his alter ego.





References

The Origins and Development of the Art of Mime. 1996-2010.  http://www.mime.info/history-lust.html.

The history of Mime. Billy Krahl 1996. http://members.tripod.com/kiko_mime/history.html

Felner, Mira. Orenstein, Claudia. The World of Theatre. Tradition and innovation. Pearson and AB.

One of the latest performance of Marcel Marceau.

Zeami Motokiyo

The origins of the noh theatre is coming from playwrights/actors Kannami Kiyotsugu (1333-1384) and his son Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443) performed for Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358-1408), who was the ruler of all Japan at that time. Ashikaga Yoshimitsu was so amazed by their performance that he gave the highest social status to both actors. Zeami wrote many plays which are still performed today and he was called the father of noh theatre.

Noh theatre was developed in 14th century in Japan and was influenced by Chinese performing arts such as sarugaku, which includes music, dancing and sometime juggling. Also traditional Japanese dance called dengaku (rustic music) which was used during rice planting and harvesting time. The word "Noh "means Buddhist and it refers to a mental state of mind between performers and the audience. The play is usually performed by male actors wearing masks. The movements of actors are very slow and deliberated. The gorgeous costumes makes an incredible impression on the audience. The main character always appears from darkness and slowly walks to the center of the stage accompanied by flute and drums. The stage itself is made from the cypress-wood and has the painting of a pine tree on a back of stage, which indicates the world of a spirit.

This picture shows us the traditional stage of noh theatre. The members of the choir are seating in the back of the stage and the main character is performing right in the center. The costumes have at least 5 layers of fabric and exquisitely embroidered.

5D markⅡ × 能面

On this beautiful video we can cappture a uniqe moment of noh actors preparing for the performance. The whole process not only includes putting on cosumes, but also to get the right state of mind for the play.