The Fab Five Reflection

The Odyssey was an interesting play to say the least. It was one of those plays that made me think “Wow…. Human beings can be WEIRD”. But despite the weirdness, it was still a beautiful production. Even though I didn’t understand what was going on for four fifths of the play, it still managed to fill me with emotion. Happiness, laughter, anger, panic, confusion, sadness; It was all felt.

The types of post modernism that I thought were in The Odyssey are:

–                    Non linear (change in language, change in characters)

–                    Open theatre (you could see props and mic stands on stage, no blackouts, stage managers came on stage, you could see the backstage area)

–                    Macaronic (change in language, shows the conflicts within the family, uses music and physicality to express strong emotion like anger, shows the perspectives of the males and females and makes them very distinct from each other)

–                    Spectacular theatre/use of technology (projection of the man making music on his iPad thing)

–                    Movement Art (there were moments of a lot of movement and very slow movement)

–                    Verbatism (there are moments of solo performances like the main character or the woman)

–                    Dangerous theatre (deals with issues in the character’s life, rape, sex, nudity, violence and a lot of sensory assault)

Scorched Moments

            Telemachus comes on stage in his 80s/90s clothing and starts trying to pronounce the word Angel wish difficulty.

A man in nothing but a diaper starts posing in the middle of the stage looking like Michelangelo. He’s shaking and sweating. In the background Telemachus starts pouring water over his head and throwing himself around the stage. The man posing grabs something out of his diaper and Telemachus takes it and is rubbing it all over his face. His face is red and he is dancing and screaming to heavy metal. This was the most powerful moment for me. It was so filled with anger and confusion and panic.

Telemachus and a guitarist who looks like a stage manager comes to the front of the stage and starts to sing Creep by Radiohead. It’s funny and makes the whole audience laugh, even the Koreans. After, he comes out into the audience climbing over people and chairs and speaking over people faces. The same way the woman came out previously to collect flowers from the audience members.

The other woman in the 2 sex scenes which seemed more like a rape scene… I wasn’t too sure. A Woman in a fat suit walking back and forth chanting “Tak tak tak” (yes) wearing her self out until she can no longer carry on and the her going into a beautiful, epic monologue about the doing of men.

There was an unmistakable sense of pain in every scene.

Black Watch… Oh my god. This play was just mind blowing incredible. I can’t pick out individual scorched moments in this play. For my the entire thing was a scorched moment (although the traditional Scottish songs, filled with beautiful harmonies, were pretty powerful and stood out to me). I can’t really explain what about it was so incredible but those who saw it would know what I mean. It was so emotional and the stories felt so real and truthful that it was so clearly understandable and so relatable even if you haven’t experienced war at all. I also found it so true to its roots. I was worried that this play would be watered down culturally so that Koreans could understand it and so people wouldn’t get offended, but, nope, it wasn’t watered down one bit. There was a whole rainbow of colourful language in the play, the accents were SO incredibly strong that even I had difficulty understanding even though I used to live in a neighbourhood of Scots and one of my best friends was Scottish. It also really brought out the importance of friendship and sticking together (in the last scene with the marching). This message really stuck to me because I’m one of those people who thinks strong friendships are the most important thing there is.

The elements of po mo theatre that I think are in Black Watch include

-       Non linear (it shifts from the interview in the pub to the events in the war)

-       I think it includes open theatre (the stage was very “raw”. It was made up of just scaffolding and containers at either and everything was on the actually stage, including the audience. The audience looked down onto the stage instead of having the standard stage setup)

-       Global theatre (it doesn’t really bring cultures together, but the characters in the play bring up that the people of Iran are more innocent than they are which shows an understanding they have)

-       Black watch is hugely Macaronic (it’s about the people in the war in Iran and how they deal with their problems, mental or physical, their disagreements of the war, their anger about it, and the different thoughts about it from all the different characters)

-       Movement Art (includes marching, extreme athleticism, singing, badpipes, etc.)

-       Verbatism (there are scenes of political monologues, like the history of the black watch, political announcements so that the audience can catch up with that is happening in terms of events and timeline)

-       Technology (there is use of projections for subtitles which is needed to understand what the actors are saying, and there is use of tv screens to show news broadcasts or night vision cameras, etc.)

The Exonerated

By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen

First performed in 2002

Exoneration – When a person is convicted of a crime and is later proved to be innocent of that crime (Wikipedia)

The play The Exonerated is about 6 people who were on death row, convicted of crimes and murders they did not commit. They were all eventually proven innocent of their convictions. This play tells their stories of being blamed for crimes they didn’t commit, their trials and questioning, life in prison and death row, and their lives after being in prison for so long and adjusting back to normal life.

All the characters and their stories are based off of true interview with people who have been exonerated.

1.     I think this play’s most prominent use of contemporary theatrical styles is that it is very realistic because it is based on real people and real stories. Even the characters are based off of the people’s names

Non-linear theatre- Jumps between characters and their different scenes, times and voices.

Macaronic (?) – Most characters in this play experience racism, and it is the authorities’ ignorance towards race, especially African Americans, that causes the characters to be convicted in the first place.

Bricolage – This play is written off of facts gathered in legal archives and off of interviews with these exonerated people

2.     Expressionism – recreation of what the characters were feeling through their experiences.

Re contextualism – Although all the main characters narrate their own stories, the central narrator of the play, who provides transitions between different character and scenes using poetry, also has his own story of being convicted for rape and murder.

3.     The playwright is anything but not alive. The whole purpose of this play is to shine light on the suffering that these wrongly convicted had to live through. None of this play is written from the playwright’s point of view. It is all written from the point of view of those that the playwright interviewed.

4.     I think that at this play is more connected to its society. It reflects the injustice of the American justice system, it’s corruption and just how much the authority bend truths and facts to make these innocent people seem guilty. It shows the disregard the powerful have for the powerless.

5.     I imagined this play almost exactly as how it is written in the script because honestly I think it is the best way to present this play. I imagined there being three chairs on stage (right, middle, left) where the different speaking narrators sat, spotlighted on their turns, with everything around them blacked out. I think it emphasizes the feeling of loneliness and need for freedom or love or something that is reoccurring throughout the whole play by all the characters. I also think this play should be really personal so I would probably have it set in a closed space. Perhaps have the audience sit on the stage circling the performance area (like random acts did 2 years ago on the lyso stage)

Post Modernist Plays notes

Austin - Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo 1917

•  Originally written in Italian
• About an anarchist who fell or was thrown from a fourth floor window
• He was blamed for bombing

• Maniac: is interrogated (He impersonates many professions) and is a judge. He Manipulates the police. He is Clever
• Elements of Surprise
• What is truth, what is not?

·       Includes paradox

• Made not to answer questions, but to question answers

·       Redefining the past

• Realism

·       Reflect realistic corrupt society

• Left open ended. There’s no linear ending
• Written for more than art's sake

George -History Boys by Alan Bennett

• Takes place in an English private school in Britain
• 1950's Feeling even though it is based in the 80s
• About the scandals in a school
• Verbatum Theatre
• Non-Linear Theatre
• Language changes from English to French
• Theatre of Difference (Homosexuality)

Joel - Stuff Happens by David Hare (he grew up in Sussex England, isn’t new to play writing) 2005

• Various Topics (politics, war and moral issues, making decision)
• Comedy

·       A LOT OF STUFF HAPPENS

• Shady boundaries
• Tension (Bush vs. Blair)

·       Big name characters (Osama Bin Laden, Bush, Blair)

• Verbatim Theatre
• Based off real politics
• Dangerous Theatre
• Non-Linear Theatre
• Disconnect between actor and audience
• Live narration

·       Interjection of Song: Amazing Grace

• Global Theatre (deals with worldwide issues)

Reca - Angels in America by Tony Kushner 1983

• Follows the lives of homosexual men
•  Struggle with aids, drugs, fitting in, society
• Huge impact on shaping contemporary theatre in terms of sexuality
• Extremely appropriate, still, in today’s theatre
• Dangerous Theatre - gory, gruesome
• 7 hours long
• A lot of repetition
• Altered states of mind
• Dying of aids = heavenly visions
• Raw and honest to life. Nothing is censored

Andy- Arcadia

• ·      Starts in 1809 and then shifts to the present.
• ·      There’s a character in the play that is mentioned throughout the whole play. Lord Byron (British poet). Play is based around him but he never appears.
• ·      Large table in the middle
• ·      Props aren’t removed throughout time periods
• ·      Juxtaposition / non linear theatre
• ·      Extreme symbolism
• ·      Contradictory strategy (art and science) (classism and romanticism)
• ·      QUOTE!!
• ·      Parallism
• ·      Pacing is very important
• ·      Theatre of priority – adding a song or a dance of some sort.

Virginia Wolf – the hours

Annie – the accidental death of an anarchist

• ·      Maniac is a joker type character
• ·      Po-mo – the maniac
• ·      Realism
• ·      Dangerous theatre – questions politics
• ·      Hyperbolised window : window

Justin – Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmer (tony for directing)

• ·      Intro speech
• ·      She’s from Lincoln Nebraska but also moved around between London
• ·      The looking glass Theatre Company
• ·      Play adapted from poem. Based on the free translation of the poem
• ·      How do humans react to change?
• ·      Different characters
• ·      Nonlinear theatre
• ·      Dangerous theatre- incest nudity
• ·      Re contextualism – distance between immersing in the play
• ·      Anthropomolism
• ·      Art for art’s sake
• ·      Songs, poetry
• ·      Props have multiple uses
• ·      Simple set: only a Chandelier and pool of water
• ·      Repetition

Peter – Eurydice

• ·      Greek tale
• ·      Story about Eurydice based in a more modern way
• ·      Dreamlike – nothing seem linear, aspect of remembering versus forgetting and how important things are to us and whether we forget it or not
• ·      Relief
• ·      Music to tell emotion
• ·      Non-linear – skips between scenes
• ·      Non naturalistic – characters are stones that speak
• ·      Altered states of mind – amnesia, state of knowing who you are. World of dead vs world of living
• ·      Play for art’s sake – written for set design
• ·      Blue for death because it isn’t aggressive, it’s sad
• ·      All about music

Georgia – flu season

• ·      6 characters
• ·      no one has names
• ·      Play within a play
• ·      Storyline in a mental hospital
• ·      Prologue: Hopeful, innocent, romantic dreams. Epilogue: cynical
• ·      Non-linear : a lot of stopping/starting
• ·      Art for art’s sake – language use very thoughtful and artful
• ·      Symbol: snow

Sammy – accidental death. Dario Fo – radio comedian, political playwright. He’s been arrested, trial, beaten for his political ‘openness’

• ·      Use of unnamed characters
• ·      Change in perspective – character of the maniac changes his voice
• ·      Reversed narrative – as it progresses you learn more about the play
• ·      Maniac – impersonated character who the audience is unclear about
• ·      Addresses political corruption
• ·      Play was released at a time when this actually happened
• ·      Verbatim – through the lens of a fallible character
• ·      Non art for art’s sake – wanted to show corruption through theatre
• ·      Maniac – the chaos, random in a scenario
• ·      Colours for the different characters that the maniac plays
• ·      Symbol – chalk outline. You have no idea what was inside of the outline