Dogme for Drama?

With so much great film and TV coming from Denmark I wonder if we can make a vow of chastity for the stage?  

1. Filming must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in. If a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found.
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. Music must not be used unless it occurs within the scene being filmed, i.e., diegetic.
3. The camera must be a hand-held camera. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. The film must not take place where the camera is standing; filming must take place where the action takes place.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable (if there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden (that is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

Looking for clues

What a time it has been.  Here I am staring at my blog so unloved for some time.   Since the last post we have seen  Kevin Spacey in R3, performed in the grounds of the school during lightening  and  had the wonderful Nose2Nose Theatre group with us[see photo].   But I have red eye and I promised to celebrate ANZac day with some folks.  So I must exit stage left.   I have not even begun to talk about the extraordinary voice of Kimbra.   What would Phillip Larkin say?  “I wouldn't mind seeing China if I could come back the same day.”

The uninhabited man

Life is routine with moments of serendipity and coincidence. One of my IB classes is working on a version of Goldilocks. I have asked them to fuse Kyogen and Butoh. Which makes the lovely word: Kyo-Toh. They grapple with the forms of each and decide which to use. Beautifully sliding feet and ugly gazes. Moments of stillness and frenzy. Later that day I drive home and press CD. Richard Thompson is singing The Uninhabited Man; one of my favourites. [title link above] As people drive badly around me I am soothed by Richard. Then I hear his chorus. 'Whose been sleeping in my bed...' and I smile at the happy collisions and coincidence. The IBO asks us to synthesise and make connections. Is it 6 degrees of separation? The next day the class lie on the floor and listen to, 'who's been sitting in my chair...' Today it happens again. An ex colleague and chum is flying into the island from Japan. He does not know that I have had an e-mail about a student transferring from Japan to Phuket. The tsunami of course. My old student may become my new ...er..old new student. Connections. What next today? One of my present students is called Storm. She is Australian and African. I have a feeling I am going to walk through a deluge of rain this evening, past a bar called Gale, and meet a man from Ghana who knows Wole Soyinka but has never heard of Richard Thompson. Life is routine with moments of.....

Curriculum Design: from Greeks to Geeks

That title is enough to put anyone off. Apologies. I have been from Greece to South Africa today working on how to impart the wonders of Theatre to my two lovely IB theatre groups. How do I make it fun yet focussed? How do I link the Oresteia to the Truth & Reconciliation Committee in South Africa. Because we have to make connexions, you see. One student asked about Jacobean Revenge Tragedy and I was off after Webster. And now the plot summary is in front of me for The White Devils. It is complicated. That is Revenge Tragedy for you. Then to Complicite and 'devising from text'. All great stuff. And a stumble into a blog or two. So there we are on a hot sunday. From Greeks to Geeks. This entry is short and shallow.

Who is Joe Louis?

According to wikipedia Joe Louis was the Word Heavyweight Boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. That is a long time in Boxing, hence the longevity of his name. Then I arrived at my new school in Thailand and a local teacher told me something else. She told me that Mr Louis was coming to school. I was non-plussed. I read this a bit later: Sakorn Yangkhiawsod, (more widely known as Joe Louis), the founder of the Hun Lakhon Lek Joe Louis Troupe, was one of Thailand's top puppet masters and the country's last 'Grand Master' of small puppet performers. Six months ago someone warned me that there would be no culture in Southern Thailand. Well, Mr Louis' Troupe are coming to school. Will it be the Ramayana? Will it be similar to Japanese Bunraku? I went to Bunraku earlier this year, for the first time, expecting boredom. I nearly wept when the two puppets committed suicide. The three puppet masters evaporated before me. It is time to do some research. Here is a start: The Joe Louis puppet play requires the synchronised efforts of three puppeteers who jointly control and manipulate the one puppet creating highly animated, life-like movements. This enables the puppet to move or dance gracefully. Unlike any other Thai traditional puppet play, the Joe Louis puppets are able to mimic a range of human gestures and through these gestures, express emotion. For example, the puppets are able to move their wrists to 'wai' (a greeting gesture in Thai culture), or embrace (to show affection), point their fingers or clap, shake their heads or nod. The elegant movements of the puppet flow entirely from each motion made by the puppeteer. [ from the website in the link ] It is a beginning. It compares with Bunraku. Time to go here I think: http://www.accu.or.jp/ich/en/arts/A_THA2.html

Bunraku at last

Finally. After twelve years of living in the Kanto plains I take myself to the National Theatre of Japan. It is a building I do not like. Like many government buildings in Tokyo it is not friendly to visitors. We are kept outside in freezing conditions while the attendants inside busy themselves with minor work which requires no eye contact with the folks who have paid at least ¥5000 stuck outside. Once inside there is a helpful desk to hire an English translation of the performance. This is helpful and vital. It is not free. However the accompanying guide is in English too. But little else.One would have thought that with an 18% drop in tourists more could be done to welcome non-speakers of Japanese. As I looked around I saw no other foreign person. Of course you wonder. Twelve years in Japan. He has not learnt the language? I know. I know. I am ashamed. I am not a linguist. But to the show. We were lucky to get a guided tour backstage. The puppet was revealed. The master explained the manipulations. We stood where they stand. And saw the gully. And the high shoes for the master so that his two assistants can duck below him. The play was a good one. The Love Suicides at Sonezaki. The Osaka company did not disappoint. The tension was exhausting. Would they do it? The title suggested so. But the final scene stretched the chord of tension tight. What did I learn? The singers change and spin in on a turn table. The main puppeter is visible but the rest wear KKK style black headgear. The story is shared with Kabuki. Japanese audience members require subtitles to understand it. The company is male. It held me. I was captivtaed by the manipulation of each puppet. The tragedy and the prolonged death wish. At one point I found that I had not put my ear piece back in and I was still visually held. I liked it.

Complicite in Tokyo

We were at the first night.  Complicite did not disappoint.  The cast enters in a line.  A brief introduction. Then things start happening. Curtains rise.  Birds flutter.  Actors rapidly change in the dusk.

Butoh, Bunraku, Kabuki elements were there.

Physical and ensemble theatre too. 

Tanizaki presents this impossible girl to us. A blind bitch.  And an unctuous servant/lover Sasuke.

A Brechtian narrator.  But mainly magical moments and visual splendour.  Do Complicite just illuminate but not inhabit?

At the end the curtain rises again to reveal white light, a line of actors and the cinematic display of crowds in modern Tokyo.  We are back to earth.

Physical Theatre?

Click on the title above and you will be there.  The music is called 'Dreamer,' by Toni Childs.   

The actors use one prop; a book.  This book allows them to dream of: crossing streams, being pirates, bullying a friend.  Pages get ripped, fences get peeped over and flowers are strewn.

One of the lines in the lyrics is: I sometimes run and chase the view. 

This kept repeating in my mind.  I thought that the use of the book was a way into dreaming and views.  They stand on it and peep over fences.  They dream.  Good and bad.

Starring: Resa, Michelle, Ceci, Andrea, Alyssa, Alisa, Namita and Sofia. Dream.  

Tina! meets Comus

I FELL in love with a band 30 years ago. Comus.  They were unlike anything I had ever heard.  I saw them 5 times in London.  Then they disappeared.  Over the years I caught scraps of news about them but no sighting.  They were another lost band. Dead.

Out of the Scandinavian mists this year came a festival called Meloboat 08.  And Comus were going to play.  I could NOT believe it.  Impossible. They did though.  It is on YouTube. 

MySpace too. Click the title.  Suddenly they are alive again. You can hear them in a third way.  We have chosen their music to be in Tina! the play about Faust.  They are both dark and scary.   It is wonderful that people have waited and discovered them these last 30 years.  Enjoy.

Tina meets Comus

This LP, as it then was, is the first album of this extraordinary band. They played at my college in London in 1972. I was totally taken with them. I went to as many concerts as possible. They were a combination of English folk, Richie Havens, classical music, punk, gothic and something never heard before. They disappeared. Occassional sighting on forums and Amazon. People asking what happened to them; bowing in my dorection when they heard that I had seen them live. Then in 2008 they surfaces on a boat in Sweden. All together but one. And they sang the whole of the first album. You can hear it on Youtube. And now there is a page on MySpace. And then there music went into Tina! Scary music for a scary scene. Enjoy.

At the cliff's edge

There is something perfect about this photo. The light, the perspective, the sense of emptiness. Where did the driver go? What is the significance of the split in the white line? And for the first time since taking this photograph in April, I see myself in the mirror. What else is there full of symbolic menace? It is the start of an Antonioni movie [The Passenger?]. It is the image at the start of my next play, Tina! It is the end of my memoirs! It is ...well? What do you think?

Finding the next Play

The next school play is one of those exciting and excrutiating tasks a drama teacher has to do. It can be a great freedom. No one tells you what to pick. No one insists on a musical. No worries. Well that is what has happened to me. There are 3 questions. How many kids want to be in it? What play has something for everyone and a new genre to challenge us? Is anyone going to be offended? The kids worry about the first. The teacher worries about the second. And the Principal always asks the third. For this coming year the favourite is a pastiche of Marlowe's FAUST. We found it on a Times web page of resources. Someone calling himself Mad Dog [ no it can't be a woman] is the author. That is all we know. Attempts to find Mad Dog have not been a success. Whoever he is, he writes well. It is a joy to read. So 'Tina!' by Mad Dog. It has something doesn't it? [painting = Vision of Faust by Falero]

Out of Africa

We are approaching African Theatre. We have identified elements of common use: dance, music and mask. Two years ago we were fortunate to see a version of the Oresteia set in a South African township. It had chant, dance, singing and musical instruments. But most memorable; the throat singing. The play is called Molora and I have written about it here, a year or so ago. I enjoy the connections that slowly emerge. South Africa, throat singing, Mongolia, Korea, mask. Then a parent asks, "Can a student create a puppet theatre?' We look at puppet making and African stories. Something is beginning to connect. [ the photo above is from Tatyana Baganova's troupe ]

Stefan Sagmeister

I stumbled across this designer when Amazon sent me details of his latest book. Then I watched a 15 minute lecture he gave. Then I was hooked. He talks about happiness and design. Read and be happy:- STEFAN SAGMEISTER (born 1962 in Bregenz, Austria) is a graphic designer. Designed album covers for Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith and Pat Metheny. THINGS I HAVE LEARNED IN MY LIFE SO FAR Complaining is silly. Either act or forget. Being not truthful works against me. Helping others people helps me. Everything I do always comes back to me. Money does not make me happy. Travelling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life. Assuming is stifling. Keeping a diary supports my personal development. Trying to look good limits my life. Worry solves nothing. Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small does.

H + G

This show opens on Thursday 20th March at 5.30 p.m. in the Black Box at YIS. Erika Bleyl has taken a well-known children's story and politicised it. She mixes agit-prop and song into an original script.. She is inspired by the work of Dario Fo, the Italian playwright and Nobel Prize winner for Literature. This is another original show at YIS and furthers her experience of IBT. It is 20 minutes of Theatre. Reviews and thoughts after the show. Break a leg. [ The photo was taken as the sun fell low in the sky at 5 p.m. Perfect.]

Mt Fuji

The nicest spring I had was a winter in Japan. On a clear day one can see Fuji-san from school. And yet we have ignored it in IB work.

The IB syllabus

Good day. After a silence of many months it seems a bit risky to start again with a piece of writing about the IB syllabus. Apologies. But for the 3 or 4 of you who want to know more; here it is. I have tried to put some examples of what it all means, in practice. IB THEATRE • We began a new syllabus in 2007. • There are a number of changes. • We investigate three areas: Theatre in the Making = how do I make a set design, costume, stage flat.....???? Theatre in Performance = come to my 10 minute show about Amnesty International on the roof. Theatre in the World = I am researching Mime performance in Paraguay. It is about witchcraft. Assessment is in four areas: External Assessment 1 Research Investigation : How does vaudeville entertain old folks in up-state New York? SL 1500-1750 words HL 2000-2500 words With supporting visual material 2 Practical Performance Proposal - I am making a play based on the painting of Hiroshige [see pic. above] IBO offers a variety of stimuli HL/SL 1000-1200 words Internal Assessment 3 Theatre Performance & Production Presentation - I am doing a mini TPPP ; 10 minute talk about my first three months. Oral presentation of the 2 years, with visuals SL 20 minutes HL 30 minutes 4 Independent Project Portfolio - I am devising a 20 minute play based on the first scene of Macbeth; now set in IZU. Investigating something not taught in class SL 2000 words HL 3000 words. SL = standard HL = higher

Happy Christmas

In the spirit of the season christmas season I have decided to write again. Watch this space please.

Street theatre?

I made it into my local newpaper in Cornwall, England. Read all about it. Click on the title please.

Fell among thieves

I was directing a play in Tokyo when one night a reliable actor never appeared. He rang me later and apologised with, 'I fell among thieves.' It is an excuse I have used often myself since that night. However, I have found a formidable web site. The British Library has an archive as you can see. Within it are collections of interviews with a host of theatre people. A wondrous source for research material. Please take a look. Everyone from playwrights to back stage people are questioned. Just click on Fell among Thieves. I found it via a Chinese British playwright. www.benjaminyeoh.com