Blog #8: Waaaldo!

Description:

The fouth week of May is gone and this time the school play rehearsals involverd continuing with last week's work; which included building the first scenes of the second act of the play. Throughout this week, the actors were once again in groups with people from the same scenes. In my case, I continued to contribute to the process in a practical way, working on the first scene of the second act by implementing the character I previously built during the creative process on the first few rehearsals. I worked with one scene, the “Estación 4” (a.k.a. scene 6) Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday respectively.

Analysis:

The "Powerpuff Girls" were back, which meant that part of the direction of the rehearsals was alleviated from our shoulders, but many work still had to be done. In my case, I had to continue working on the characterisation of my character for the "Estación 4" as the audience has to be able to understand what is the role of my character in the play and what effect it causes on "El Hombre". Roberto suggested that I should try implementing a voice in which it appeared that my character had nasal congestion although he didn't. In my opinion this would intensify the creepiness and weirdness of the character since his voice would be contrasted with his body characterisation and thus generate both humor and weirdness in the scene. The powerful and menacing body characterisation would still be mantained; having the chest slightly pronounced outwards, the shoulders now slightly raised, the legs close together when standing up, and separated when playing with levels, the fingers and hands reassembling a spider and my face expression consisting of the wide opened eyes, the mouth remaining neutral and smiling by showing just the teeth when saying something cruel or listening to something, and the sudden thrusts and movements of the head which I consider that reassembles the wriggle of the worms or snakes. All of these manages to make the character of "El Jefe" special as his body, face and voice depict the idea of him being weird and creepy, as if he had been molded to be like that. The sudden contrasts and changes between having the legs close together when standing up and bending them and separating them when playing with levels and when using the border of the tower to talk to "El Hombre" creates a feeling of imprisonment and constrain, as it gives a visual impression of "El Hombre" being covered by "El Jefe's" body which appears to be more prominent due to the fact that it is raised and since many shadows are created in the backdrop on stage. 

The sudden smiling by "El Jefe" is mostly used after he has said something that makes "El Hombre" feel miserable, for example after he says "Si has llegado hasta acá es solo porque tu curriculum no fue tan malo como el de los demás,¿lo sabes no?". "El Jefe" is trying to highlight the fact that "El Hombre" is useless, and the only reason that he is bestowing him the interview is because there are other candidates out there with even worse qualities. He makes this clear, and then smiles as if he gained pleasure from making other people feel miserable. This makes more clear his wicked mind and the fact that he has full control and domain over what is done in the company.  This also works with the eyes that remain at all times wide open and without actually blinking, which gives the idea of monotony as if "El Jefe" was saying and doing everything monotonically without processing what he is saying or doing. It also gives the impression of him having lost his sense of perception and no longer feeling any emotions, he has been robotized and fully molded to the demands of the society in those times. This increases the weirdness of the character and makes it even creepier as the audience feels threatened by both, his stare and unconventionally awkward movements. Moreover, when Waldo and Bonzo, "El Psicólogo" or "El Doctor" are doing the tests to "El Hombre", "El Jefe" is in his tower looking at everything that is going on without saying anything; therefore the use of actions in these moments is really important. Roberto told me that the movements had to depict and show the craziness and madness of the character. Therefore, I consider it interesting for the character to kneel down, and just show to the audience his head and part of his shoulders. He would be grabbing the borders of the tower and wriggling his head from side to side maintaining his face expression; with sudden smiling which will show his pleasure towards the suffering of "El Hombre".

Moreover, I can say that this scene also evokes a sense of humor which can be shown by both; the pace and agility of the dialogue. For example, the first part of the tests (Prueba de Conocimientos), Waldo and Bonzo say their dialogue in a fast and rapid way which creates the idea of overwhelm on "El Hombre". The fact that Waldo's and Bonzo's dialogue complement each others', the audience perceives an idea of unison and somehow of a single entity. Can we say then, that Waldo and Bonzo together represent one single character? In my opinion yes, because they both talk one after the other and their dialogue is totally coherent one with the other. Their contrasting body characterisations are so different yet complementary as they show different attitudes and personalities; all of which a person has. Bonzo's upright posture and low pitched voice is complemented by Waldo's high pitched voice and more loose posture. The fact that they both are saying their dialogue without leaving any gaps between, adds tension to the scene as the audience realizes that "El Hombre" is being bombarded by queries that might sound ridiculous yet menacing. The rapidness of these responses help to create humor as their robot-like physicality gives the audience an idea of repetition. The fact that they at parts surround and go around "El Hombre" looks unnatural and funny as "El Hombre's" reaction of confusion and astonishment helps to build up humor since he appears clueless and totally confused. Moreover, the song and incongruent movements done by the "enfermeros" helped to create humor also. Joaquin's and Emilio's characters move like oompa-loompas and the fact that they are both goofy and useless when performing really simple tasks create humor. For example, when they sing the song whilst trying to put on the robe over El Hombre, the clumsiness and bad coordination while doing so make El Hombre look totally lost and without idea of what is happening. The fact that these two characters show pleasure and satisfaction after unsuccessfully putting on the robe give the impression that they believe that they have done the job in the best way possible; which ironically creates humor on the audience. 

Connections:

I believe that the first connection that can be made is between "The Great Gatsby" and "El Hombre" itself. Why? Because both of them suffer in an attempt to mold and become what society expects from them. In the case of Gatsby he is inspired by the love of Daisy; she is his inspiration and what she aspires to have. On the contrary, El Hombre indirectly fights with these different stages in his live in an attempt to survive and be accepted by everyone. If we look back at the context of German Expressionism, we can see that in those times, the German society was struggling to find an identity and personality. In this case, El Hombre struggles to find his defined personality. When he confronts El Psicólogo, the audience is exposed to many background information. We realize that he has never found love, that he has never been praised or value by his family, and that he has been overshadowed by his cousins. This gives the idea that he does not have a strong personality, that he is easily breakable and that his weakness precludes his ability to defend from the outside world. It is not until the end of the play in which we are going to see the outburst of emotions...which at the moment I don't know how it is going to be.

Reflections:

The implementation of dialogue to the scene gave it a completely different mood and pace. As I mentioned last week, in scene 6 the questions posed by El Psicólogo to El Hombre really help to encourage his moral decay as they make the audience understand El Hombre's past; we get to know that he was never valued for what he did, we was never congratulated for his accomplishments, he was just diminished by the greatness of his cousins and relatives who were more successful than him. I have also noticed that the pace of the scene determines the mood of it. If it is faster it will tend to be funnier as we can see with the parts of Waldo & Bonzo and with the two "enfermeros". They both increase the pace of the scene by using the song, their body and the speed at which they say things. On the contrary, a slower pace will create a more tense and weird atmosphere. We can see this in the part of El Psicólogo and El Jefe since we both elongate words and give certain stretches to certain vocals which give the effect of time passing and intensifying El Hombre's pain. Since this type of theatre was not intended for entertainment, everything was to be presented in the most crude and real way; therefore it not only tried to show something real, but something twisted about reality.

How can we merge contrasting personalities to create one single entity? Is it always effective? Does it rely on the pace of the scene?

Blog #7: Candidato número 379

Description:

The third week of May just passed and this time the school play rehearsals involved starting to build the first scenes of the second act of the play. Throughout this week, the actors were once again in groups with people from the same scenes. In my case, I began to contribute to the process in a practical way, working on the first scenes of the second act by implementing the character I previously built during the creative process on the first few rehearsals. I worked with two scenes; including the “Estación 4” (a.k.a. scene 6) and the “Estación 5” (a.k.a. scene 8) on Tuesday/Thursday and Saturday respectively.

Analysis:

This week, since the “Powepuff Girls” were in Tambopata, we (the Form Vs) had to be in charge of the direction of the rehearsals. On Tuesday, Roberto gave each one of us specific scenes to either direct or to be part of. In my case, I had to be part of the “Estación 4” which is the scene in which “El Hombre” goes to apply to a new job and after briefly speaking to “El Jefe”, he undergoes a series of tests which clearly show his deplorable psychological and physical state. This scene, rather than depicting the idea of monotony and repetitiveness like scene 1, it created a feeling of overwhelm and constrain, as all of the tests done to “El Hombre” made his weaknesses more noticeable. For example, in the case of Juan Pablo Tabja’s (Bonzo) and Carlos Leon’s (Waldo) characters, the fact that they were to both standing to each of the sides of “El Hombre” and were constantly dazzling him with questions and short responses, created this sense of confusion and bewilderment as we, the audience, could physically see “El Hombre” being surrounded and somehow covered by these two. The fact that Juan Pablo’s and Carlos’ characters are somehow opposite yet complementary, manages to increase the idea of overwhelm as it helps it to get stronger. What do I mean by this? Well, Juan Pablo’s character had a more upright posture, with his back straight, his hands and arms close to his body and both of his legs were close together with his feet mostly in a parallel manner. On the contrary, Carlos’ character didn’t had an upright posture as it was slightly bent backwards with his belly being pronounced outwards; he also had his arms mostly hanging away from his body and his legs were more separated. The idea of having two characters with different body characterisations created this idea of double personality and thus made the tests done to “El Hombre” more abrupt and rough. Since Juan Pablo’s character appeared to be more stylized than Carlos’ who rather looked more physically strong and grotesque; the audience somehow perceives this idea of mental and physical strengths put together. Bonzo had a more delicate yet threatening posture than Waldo who was more grotesque but clumsier at the same time. Bonzo appeared to be more mentally menacing that Waldo who looked more physically threatening; this created the idea of “El Hombre” being judged and overwhelmed in many different ways. 

On the other hand, since we are starting to rehearse with part of the scenery that will be in the play such as the risers which help to create more visual levels on stage, the fact that Bonzo and Waldo are constantly changing between the first two levels and walking behind “El Hombre” when doing the tests to him, who remained seated throughout this process, gave the sensation of always being surrounded by something and in a way being always imprisoned without being able to do something about it. This helps to represent visually “El Hombre’s” state of mind since we know he had just being fired from his previous job and now is looking for a solution to his problem, he also comes from having a pretty tense discussion with his family who now rejects him and is therefore searching for his new identity. Therefore this part of the scene creates a visual image of depression and overwhelm by the fast pace it has and how “El Hombre” responds to this. Anyways, this day Roberto explained what was going on in the scene and after briefly deciding who was going to play which part, we began to propose ideas and act the beginning of the scene. 

In my case, being “El Jefe” of this new job, I was not totally sure of how the voice of my character should be. Since “El Jefe” has a lot of power and depicts clearly the idea of superiority, his voice also has to reflect this. On the last riser on stage, there is a new level create by gigantic wooden block which reassembles a tower in which “El Jefe” stands and from which he speaks and acts. The idea of power is clearly shown by this contrasting level on stage which makes “El Jefe’s” image stand out and give the visual impression of hierarchies. My body characterisation is somehow more defined as I had previously done some research on physical stimuli; however I had to find sets of actions to do while being up on the tower since the space is reduced. My character has an upright posture with his back straight, his chest out with my hands and arms close to my body. My face expressions consists of wide opened eyes and a mouth which remains mostly stationary depicting the idea of coldness yet fear. When talking to El Hombre I found it quiet useful to move my hands as if they were spiders while maintaining the rigidness of the body to create this effect of weirdness and exaggeration. However, since I didn’t know my lines at the moment, I was limited because I rather focused on reading the script than setting a series of actions to do whilst the other characters are speaking. Roberto said that the height of the tower was going to be lowered to create some sort of gigantic podium. He suggested that I should explore this new idea, using maybe the podium’s front to hide my body and only show my head which could move from side to side making sudden thrusts; maintaining at the same time my face expression which might changing depending on what was going on during the scene. I think this would create a clever effect of “El Jefe” always haunting “El Hombre” as the audience will always see him and understand that his always present, judging everything that goes on in the workplace. Once again, the idea of overwhelm is created by this using scenery (the tower and risers) to create a feeling of imprisonment, but at the same time using “El Jefe’s” characterisation to intensify the idea of threat and menace. 

This day, we also helped Carlos’ to find a characterisation for Waldo and ended up having this character who had the belly being pronounced outwards, walking with his legs spread apart, reassembling a little bit a penguin. He also had to explore different ways and intentions that he will use when saying his dialogue, for example when “El Jefe” says to him “Ahi realizará la prueba de conocimientos” and Waldos responds with “La prueba. Venga por acá.” When Waldo says “La Prueba”, he know what “El Jefe” is talking about, he know how menancing that is, he knows that El Hombre might not be able to withstand the pressure; he know all this sort of things and therefore the intention with which he says it should not be the same as the intentions when saying previous phrases. He should say it in a rogue way, varying the pitch of his voice making it a little high pitched to show both his excitement and his willingness to get started. This will create an effect of foreshadowing as the audience will understand that the tests that are about to be done to “El Hombre” are not conventional and will be really weird and demanding.

Moreover, we also began to rehearse the part of the scene in which El Hombre undergoes the psychological tests. El Psicólogo, played by Arieh Chrem, is seated at downstage left on a big chair giving his back to the audience and facing a wooden plank. El Hombre is standing in front of the wooden plank facing the audience and is being questioned by El Psicólogo who asks him a bunch of personal questions. El Psicólogo somehow intends to make El Hombre feel miserable about his past and the fact that his family didn’t give him the attention and love he deserved. We had slight problems with Arieh’s pronounciation because he sometimes rushed to much the words, and since he is giving the back to audience it is even more difficult to understand him. I pictured his character as a more mysterious one, who takes his time when speaking and rushes his phrases whenever he wants to interrupt El Hombre. Since he is giving the back to the audience, this generates a more threatening atmosphere, as the audience is unable to see his face and therefore his identity. However, the audience empathizes with El Hombre and understands how he must be feeling; confused, scared and somehow judged as the questions posed by El Psicólogo are personal and deal with issues that outcrop his weakness and disabilities, this is another convention in German Expressionism, in which bizarre actions reign over coherency and comprehension.

On Thursday, I was in charge of the direction of the Estación 4 (scene 6), therefore this time I contributed to the process in a different way. This scene has four different moments being; the confrontment between El Hombre and El Jefe, the tests being applied by Bonzo and Waldo, the test being applied by El Psicólogo, and the tests applied by El Doctor. In the moment in which Bonzo and Waldo apply the tests to El Hombre, I found a problem with both of these characters being too static. This part of the scene at first just involved El Hombre seating down and Waldo and Bonzo each to one side of him. This could become repetitive and rather boring so I had in mind the idea of them changing positions one with the other and using the first riser to walk behind him. I also wanted them to walk in front of him when changing places, one going behind him and the other one in front of him since I don't consider upstaging would be a problem as the idea here is to create this sense of imprisonment and roundedness. The fact that when moving they move in opposite directions and through two different pathways, an effect of tornado will be created; we will be able to perceive this moment as the moment in which El Hombre's life begins to twist and waddle around. The visual effect of confusion is therefore generated by the movement on stage of these two characters who might not be as threatening as the others, but their actions intensify the fear and abhorrence they create. 

Connections:

Time to start connecting...yay! The first connection I found was between scene 1 ("Estación 1) and "Proyección Privada". In "Proyección Privada" we are able to see a strong contraste between the woman and the husband, since they both have opposite personalities. As I mentioned in my play review, the woman is identified and represented by the rabbit, an animal which represents comfort and vulnerability whilst the husband is represented by the horse, an animal that represents power and freedom. These two attitudes help to intensify the idea of being totally different but at the same time manage to transmit one idea; the fact that love diminishes over time. Likewise, in scene 1 of the school play; the two contrasting attitudes being presented are the ones from the "Sindicalistas". For example, Jose Alex's character has this sort of aggressive momentum and presence which is clearly depicted by his voice and body characterisation. On the contrary, Patricio's character is more delicate and sagacious; which helps to intensify his mental power. Although both of these characteristics are not the same and somehow different (mental vs. physical) they are complementary at the same time. The fact that both of them are "Sindicalistas" gives the audience the impression that they can tackle problems from different points of view as they can easily relate with the workers in the factory. Therefore, I can say that the use of contrasting characters is really useful when trying to represent a somehow strong and complementary idea.

Moreover, I also find a connection with "El Ultimo Ensayo" and the first two scenes of the school play. In "El Ultimo Ensayo" there are no clear changes between the scenes; lights do not fade nor they turn off, therefore the use of of props and music is essential in order to make a clear contrast between scenes. Likewise, we are trying to implement this idea of connecting scenes with music and slight changes in the use of lighting and props. This intends to maintain the energy, pace and attention of the audience at its fullest. As I previously mentioned, the use of music accompanied by a series of actions is really effective in the transition between scenes 1 and 2. The progressive changes in pace is useful to create another level of reality from scene 1 onto scene 2, the grotesque and bizarre movements made by the workers give a sense of dreams and illusion. Therefore I can say that the use of music and lighting will in fact be helpful in order to help transitions between the scenes of the play. However, this continuity will demand a high level of concentration and energy from the actors who will be on stage most of the time unless they have to leave because they won't appear again.

Reflections:

I have realized that the creative process of making expressionist scenes in the play continues to be developing well. The implementation of dialogue to the scene gave it a completely different mood and pace. For example, in scene 6 the questions posed by El Psicólogo to El Hombre really help to encourage his moral decay as they make the audience understand El Hombre's past; we get to know that he was never valued for what he did, we was never congratulated for his accomplishments, he was just diminished by the greatness of his cousins and relatives who were more successful than him. We also understand that since El Hombre never found love, he has never been truly happy in his life. The audience understand El Hombre, because we know that love is one of the things that make people happier and since he has not experienced that yet, his life has continued to be a constant pit from which he cannot escape. Referring back to German Expressionism conventions,  we know that rather than focusing on the self discovery and relationship between the actor and his character, German Expressionism seeks to represent those emotions and use your body to transmit that idea without restrictions or constrains. This is clearly being shown in the scenes of the play; taking as an example scene 6, both Bonzo and Waldo use their bodies clearly to depict the idea of weirdness and craftiness by using the face, especially the ideas which constantly move from side to side. Since this type of theatre was not intended for entertainment, everything was to be presented in the most crude and real way; therefore it not only tried to show something real, but something twisted about reality.

I will close this entry with these questions
How can I manage to maintain the deepness, slow pace and loudness of my voice? Will voice characterisation help to intensify the power and hierarchy of El Jefe? Will having a higher pitched voice have the same effect on the scene?