Sharpe's theater Blog

last blog

Good work Triffles group! I am so proud of how our scene went. Ladia and Marie I can't belive how well you memorized all of those lines. Marie you had excellent timing a way to slow down the play which worked well to set the mood. Ladia you instincts for when to stand and sit worked beautifully. Jon the choices of songs worked so well. That added a great intro and just fit with the piece so well! Courtney nice setting and lighting it really worked well after we kept moving stuff around. Overall congrats to all and good luck on your papers.

I think we've got a good start on our piece. I am happy with how John has been driecting. I really like the emphasis we are putting on the canned food, wanting to help, comfort Minnie and not really having the means to do so. Marie, I'm in awe of your quilting abilities. I like that you did the research to find out what a log cabin design was and then crafted a quilt using those guidelines. It's a really necessary addition to our performance. Courtney you are very good at emulating a male. You don't over do it, it's very believable. Ladia, your also really coming into your character. You have good instincts of when to stand and sit. You'll be able to rely on them during the show!

John, you asked really good questions to get our group focusing. Courteny I think It's interesting how you see the objects as having the power. That is an abstract thought to me. Marie, thanks for having the guts to make our group get together and get on our feet. I think That will help us imensly. Ladia, it's interesting that you think Minnie could be the most powerfull. Each person has had a different view on where the power comes from it will be interesting to see what we decide.

My group, week 1

I am amazed how much we accomplished in just one meeting! Ladia you really had a great idea of how to make the play just a little different than the script by incorporating a shadow figure of the murderer. This helped jumpstart my thinking about the set and a little staging. Jon, you were a good leader keeping us on track and deciding roles. I really like your genuine enthusiasm of our plays potential. Marie, you read your piece very well I'm excited to see how your charactor developes. Courtney you also had some good ideas. Thanks for being flexible to what parrt you play.

To me the theme of Triffles seems to be ostracization. The women are pushed in their place away fromt he men. The poor wife is completly isolated from the rest of the community because she has no children. I think because Triffles was written in the style of realism the show should be done with a fourth wall set up. I don't see how it would be possible to really involve the audience more into the performance. We should enter into staging the show by setting limitations so that we have a structure to spring board off of during our performance. To extend the aura of our play I think it is important to have the kitchen open up so that the audience feels like they are in the kitchen with us. I also feel like the kitchen should be cluttered with lots of cans as described.

What is an actor?

The activity that we did in class in which we went around the circle and each made a different noise and action to send around the circle reminded me of what Grotowski would want actors to do to help eliminate the itimelapse of inner impulse and outer reaction. In that exercise you weren't allowed to prepare what action you were gonna do it just had to come, a quick outer impulse. I think what Grotowski is saying is ultimatly the same as what Stanislavski is saying. Both are ultimatly about perfection being a spontaneous unihibited moment. Stanislavski's terms make more sense to me though. The actor must be the charator so intensly that they become that person and are able to improv as the person. I understand what Goffman is talking about with people acting for their peers, but I don't like that idea. I think that what a person gives off is truly there personality, it is natural not decided and chosen. I do however agree that what a person intends to give off and how that is interpreted by their audience, because two people may draw very different conclusions from the same person's actions.

What I liked about "He who says yes/He who says no" was that the boy did have control of hi life. His dissions affected his life. I also liked that breaking the "rule" lead to a good outcome. I thought it was a n interesting statment about how rules or customs sometimes aren't the best thing to fallow. There are better solutions if you use your creativity. What troubles me was the end of Taniko, "they stood together heaving blindly, none guiltier than his neighbor." I don't like the idea that the custom overruled the responsability of killing someone. Just because it's tradition doesn't mean that anyone should be okay with killing another. I guess it's fact that there is no guilt or remorse, makes life seem so unvaluable.

Stage blood

How is Stage blood a comedy and a tragedy? Well maybe because death occured over a toilet. I guess I think it's funny because no one ever stops to care or contemplate the death of the father. The jokes keep rolling, laughing over "you know he'd only let you have this role over his dead body." There is so much emphasis on constant jokes and absurd statements that the tradgedy becomes hidden.

Hamlet and The Laramie Project, not too structuraly simaler

The piece that Hamlet would most easily be compared and contrasted with is Oedipus, but that was done in class, so I guess I will use a little brain power and make some new observations. First of all The two stories run a different time line. Hamlet takes place in one coherent time line, while Laramie Project jumps between different interviews not necissarily in the sequence which they occured. Hamlet also has a much more defined setting with necessary props and scenery. The Laramie Project is much more subtle in where the play is taking place. Hamlet requires the audience to believe in fiction with a gohst where as in the Laramie Project everything seems to be factual or at least realistic. More differances are present with How the story is told. In Hamlet we have solliliquois where characters directly tell the audience what they are feeling or thinking. In Laramie project we learn about Mathew by other peoples observations of him. Laramie you never meet the central figure (protagonist), Hamlet the lead actor is the protagonist. My final differance between the two is in there ending with the Laramie project I feel like the end is really the begining. It feels as if the writers are just now going to go write this play and spread the word. In Hamlet however it end in tragic death, everyone one is dead there is nothing past this point. Some simalarities, they are both tradgedies revolving around death. They both take place in specefic cities.

Oedipus Rex

So Oedipus solved the riddle of the spinx, so the spinx flew up and became a stutue. We are supposed to believe that the reason for oedipus being let in is because of his problem solving skills, but he is the rightful heir. Maybe the sphinx just knew that oedipus was the right person to let rule. Would interpreting that scene differently change the theme of the play. I say no because if there is a chunk about predestination, oedipus was at birth predestined for the throne.

1/25/05

The style of the Laramie Project is not what I expected. I had assumed that the play would just act out the events leading up to and after the murder of Mathew Shepard, but it was much more. Instead, the writers chose to blend interviews and journals together to create the story. Even the people interviewed for the play didn't expect it to be contrived in such a way, "Now, how's he gonna use that in his play?" (15) says Allison Mears. It was so cleaver that the authors were able to use that quote and it brings humor and insight that this is a different sort of storytelling. It is also cool to use the journals and the interviews because it seems more like a documentry or a 60 minutes episode allthough much more creative than something they would air.

Trifles was written in a much different style, a style which I am more familiar with and expect theater to be like. Triffles is a straight forward creation. The audience can imagine all of the events in the story as actually happening. Triffles transports the audience into the house where the death occured. Triffles also has a clear messege--the trained are not necessarily the best for the job. What I mean by this is, it is the women who are mocked for paying attention to detail that find the possible motive that the men need to sway the jury. The quote that best exemplifies my theory is, as they are leaving the houe the county attorny mocks, "She was going to--what is it you call it, ladies?" (211). He is mocking the ladies for wondering if Mrs.Wright was going to knot or quilt. It was attention to detail such as this that helped the women find the dead bird.