TSD Humanities Blog Post 3

THE GIRL IN THE RED HOOD by I Theatre (Singapore)

Where is the wood, who is the wolf, what is Grandma and why does the girl wear a red hood? Three girls all in red make their way through a timeless forest. Destination - Grandmothers house. They confront wolves, relatives, one another and themselves. Who will live and who will die? The Girl in the Red Hood - a reflection of what society sees in little girls. But is she the innocent helpless victim or the teasing temptress? Travel with us to discover as we craftily interweave several versions of this time tested tale. Specially for the older children and teens from ages 8 to 14 years old!

As part of exposing myself to the form of children's theatre, I decided to go attend this play along with some other TSD classmates. Little did we know that since we had booked the tickets so early, we ended up with front row seats! Being seated among scores of children indeed made us feel out of place. But I must say admit that watching a children's play can be as exciting and interesting as those for grown-ups!

This play was really intesresting especially in terms of how it presented its thematic issues. It managed to use the timeless tale of "The Little Red Riding Hood", and adapted it in such a way that the play was able to showcase society's perception of females as well as the many "big bad wolves" present in society today. What really enraptured me was the fact that the play showed how Little red riding hood was allowed the opportunity to change her own tale - finding a way to save herself without the help of the woodcutter. It was through four hilarious attempts at trying to change her own tale that showcased the feminist ideal that females are not necessarily damsels in distress, and that there is no need to wait for a male to save them.

Finally, the play was brought to current time, where it was subverted to show the male counterpart being the "damsel" in distress! And of course, with the female playing the role of the bad guy. All in all, this play was not only extremely enjoyable for the children, but definitely for the adults as well. It never fails to amaze how seemingly deep issues and themes can still be brought out without the use of extravagant theatrics.

TSD Humanities Blog Post 2

Performance Evaluation of Group Practical Assessment on 11/05/10

My group, 4.5F, had our practical assessment a few days back. In our piece, we wanted the audience to realize that it is difficult for one to reconcile all our different identities. Our aim was to help them reflect on and think about the issues we were presenting and not be emotionally caught up in the piece. Also, our piece was a response to the Ant Play, an anti-war play. In the Ant Play, there was limited perception of war and we felt that the characters were too one-dimensional. Characters seems to be merely blindly following orders which was the main reason why we did not agree with in the war context. Our group felt that human would surely have conflicting opinions and might be facing individual problems. The Ant Play was more focused on the war itself, whereas, we wanted to shift the focus on the characters to portray the theme of identities in war. As a result, we looked into practitioners who used war as a context to comment on society and that is where we decided on Bertolt Brecht.

We had two layers of techniques to the acting style in Brecht. Firstly, we used the Stanislavski Method of "becoming" the character and using the Magic 'IF', in which we thought of how we would react/behave if were the character. This is needed in order for us to understand our characters even better and know his/her background. However, one of Brecht's acting technique was to PRESENT the characters instead of BEING the characters. Hence, during rehearsals, each of us read our script in the 3rd person's view - the use of she/he instead of I. This allowed us to be emotionally detached from our character so that we can PRESENT the characters and also switch roles quickly.

One unique key feature we supplemented was the use of Physical Theatre. This was the main problem in our assessment as we were unable to bridge the link between the principles of Brecht and Physical theatre. Brecht elements were minimally used and it was difficult to balance/merge Brecht's style and Physical Theatre. Hence, we decided to look back on previous productions which has inspired/influenced us. One significant piece was "Woyzeck" by The Sadari Movement Laboratory.

We were inspired by The Sadari Movement Laboratory's use of physical theatre and chairs in the play "Woyzeck" and decided to use their creative process and style as a guideline for ours. This is a short clip of their performance:

The Sadari Movement Laboratory made use of chairs as their key prop in the entire play consistently which was a symbolic representation of Woyzeck's minscape and emotions. It was interesting to see how the could use chairs to create so many different structures that could bring out the range of emotions and effects. It was simple but creative. Their movements were precise and accurate, and their ensemble was extremely tight and synchronized. The choreography was entertaining and could show what Woyzeck was feeling and the different states of emotions at each moment. Chairs were used to shape environment, bodies, background, emotions and situations. They made the piece more dynamic.

(photos are too large, unable to see full image. Alternative source: http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?pid=5942797&id=736791139)

We decided to use their style of performance and hence have to further to research on their use of Jazz music and multimedia.

Lastly, we found it difficult to contextualize war incidents to a Singaporean audience because they have never been to a war. We had to bridge more links between our performance vision to the modern Singaporean audience to either create awareness and lesson learnt after watching our performance.

TSD Humanities Blog Post 1

Homeboxes -Presented by Paper Monkey Theatre Ltd in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay as part of The Studios

Boxes, a medium that we use to pack our things and stack them away...with it out memories and unsettle feelings. Putting it all aside, we move on - out of sight, out of mind. Then one day, we chance upon these boxes. The memories and emotions that were carefully tuucked away surfaces uncontrollably. Carefully but with hesitance, we go through the cherished items kept within.

Through the voices of six actors, a collection of three stories will be shared as the boxes unfold stories of dreams that had been long forgotten, quarrels that were unsettled, hopes that were dashed and love that was shattered. This performance features puppetry, song, movement, drama and culinary as one complete experience while we take on a journey about the fragility of relationships with loved ones and feeling for these stories that is close-to-heart.

On the ninth of April, I went to watch Homeboxes, a play put up by a local theatre company. It was a cathartic experience indeed. The play started out with the 6 actors singing a medley of songs originating from the 1970's till modern day. It was not only fun for the audience to watch, but we could also tell that the actors themselves were having a ball. ( we found out later that the director put this sequence in to allow the actors to have some fun on stage.)

The stories dramatized by the actors were stories that the audience could definitely relate to. A mute man trying to profess his love, a young girl trying to achieve her dreams despite her father's objections, a daughter being embarrassed by her own mother, and a broken family. With the emotive performances by the actors, and the stark parrallels that the stories portray to our reality, it left the audience laughing in their seats, and countless others crying.

One interesting thing to note about this performance was that the stories were not performed in a chrnological order. Instead, the various stories were segmented into different parts and then distributed throughout the play. The one thing connecting one sequence to the next, was the same recurring symbol. The ringing of a telephone. And ironically, the caller was never revealed. I found later in the post show dialogue that the director deliberately portrayed the stories in this manner as he did not want the audience to be lulled into a sense of them knowing what was going to happen next. Instead, he wanted the audience to question, and in doing so, keep the audience interested.

Puppets was a major device used in this play, especially with the director (Benjamin Ho Kai Wai) being a puppeteer himself. I felt that it was simply ingenious how the actors were able to manuever the puppets in such a way that a simple emotion was able to be conveyed with a just a similarly simple movment of the puppet. Different types of puppets were used - rod, shadow, hand, human - showing the versertality of the puppetry device.

Homeboxes was indeed an enjoyable play for me to watch, especially since it was a relatable, amusing and heartwarming performance.