I would say that overall in this semester the concepts and terms we have encountered have broadened my horizons and helped me to understand the giant scope of performance. To be frank, there wasn't an article that I had a hard time overcoming, though some were hard to get into my system, I believe all articles gave me a new perspective on events and performances that I didn't fully register. Like when do performances occur? All the time? My gender? My race? My sexual orientation? PERFORMANCE IS EVERYWHERE.

One that stuck out to me, mainly because I had a hard time reading it was Judith Butler. The idea of performing sexuality and sexual orientation, the simulacrum a copy of something that doesn't even fully exist. This struck a chord with me because I feel that I have always been a person that finds themself to be unique but in reality when you break it down, we are all copies of something mashed together. Humbling, but also reassuring that really, there is no such thing as an original, but also upsetting that so many of us still try to live up to an idea of what is good, right, or dare we say normal.

I will also say that an article that has stuck with me is the article we read on props, by Alice Rayner. In fact the other day, myself and some of my fellows MFA brethren, where pulling props and furniture for our thesis shows, shelves and rooms filled with objects. As I was wandering about the room looking for my materials, my classmate Timothy said, "look at all these objects, waiting to become things".  Then I stood in the room and looked around, all of these objects said so much even in a storage place, and in truth, I got a little chocked up. All of these objects were just waiting to be used, waiting to do there job, that article gave me a new found respect for all those objects waiting in their rooms.

I have not only learned alot about the field of performance, but also about myself, and with this knowledge of performance theory, I have a new set of eyes to look at the world and future work. Hopefully I stay away from deadly theatre, and hopefully theatre will change the world, because in  the depths of me, I do think what the world needs is theatre, we need to relate and comfort, to awaken and unveil. One thing I know above all, is you know what my life needs? THEATRE.

Colorblind

Colorblind casting is a great tool for the theatre to use. Not only does it redistribute the roles that are available to actors, but it also gives the opportunity to see shows in a different light. Colorblind casting can also act as a placebo for the issue of doing plays that are racially significant. Performing a play written by the privileged whites, cast with a African American actors doesn't mean we are getting a story of the African American experience.

Thinking of a specific example that I have seen, would be a high school production of the King and I. The leading male character being of Thai decent, was cast with a handsome white male, with golden hair. Of course this is a high school production and it should not be judged as critically as professional theaters, or should they? Think about it, for me personally the first time I ever saw a play was when my sister was in a play in her high school, I actually think, that most people's early experiences with theatre are through the school system. Perhaps your friend is in the play, or a family member etc. and it's still not a ridiculous price to go to the theatre. Shouldn't high school theaters think of their seasons just as much as a professional theatre? Also they have the guise of being kids still, so major issues that could be confronted in a safer space than a professional theatre. 

Ok, with that in mind, back to the King and I, we see this caucasian teen playing a Thai man, with makeup added for a more Thai effect, and the kicker is, the script has a Thai dialect written into the script, which only added to the stereotype to Thai and frankly, all Asian culture. The play just shouldn't have been done, the casting was a terrible idea, and the mockery the young actor was doing, only distracted the entire show, which became comical. But the school and educators allowed this stereotype to happen, though the intention was not malicious,  however this sends a certain message to the students and community members that see the show. This is an idea of this particular race, it is a generalized representation of a culture that can leave a negative connotation to that race.  Imagine if you were one of the few Asian kids attending the school, how would they feel being represented in such a ridiculous way? High schools try desperately to have kids drop stereotypes, when sometimes, we don't even realize the effect a simple play could have. We are perpetuating those stereotypes, and allowing that short behavior to occur. He school should t have focused on doing a big name show, perhaps instead they do a play like Dog Sees God, that confronts being a teenager straight on, and would be appropriate to cast with the students at the school. Of course like I said it just a high school production, but I think we need to remember just how important that early theatre is.

This is one side to colorblind casting, but as I said at the beginning of the post, I do like the concept of colorblind casting and have seen and heard of many productions that were successful. I think moving forward, we need to continue to broaden our horizons and find more stories of, by, and for under represented races and cultures.

The world needs theatre…or does it?

I agree with Maggie in her prompt on the ongoing cynicism and apathy that we currently face in our societies, and our art is a reflection of the societies we live in. How do we combat that and bring on a new wave of change? Honestly, I feel that there is only so much theatre and art can accomplish, art is the beginning of a conversation, a jumping off point to begin change or to simply address that there are issues that need to be brought up or that need to be remembered. Photography, music, theatre etc. evoke empathy within us to make us think, assess where we stand on what the art has to say. What I feel the larger problem is, is that we ingest our art, we feel something, and then immediately move onto something that will evoke feeling again, similar to and addict, we get we need and then we wait for our bodies to tell us the next thing we need to be fulfilled. Our society has become to focused on our own personal experience and not enough in the collective whole that we are a part of. The reason why we are like this, in my opinion, is that the higher powers that be, which actually have the power to truly bring about change do not move forward. We write a song about it, maybe have a charity event, or dump ice buckets on our heads to address that there are troubles in the world and then move on. I think that generations have gotten used to the fact that change can only go so far and that until the older generations die off will we be able to take charge of the societies we want to build. There is not enough emphasis on the future and what will possibly be better for generations to come. The phrase, ‘my opinion doesn’t matter’, rings true in some ways, because we all have an opinion that will be negated and then we will move on to our daily life problems that effects us most.

I suppose theatre could continue as it always has as being the begining of those conversations, however the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, so we can’t stand still. I think a good direction for theatres to go in, would be to actually pick shows that have a general mission statement.  For example, we are doing this production of, Clyborune Park to expose the race problems we face in our own city of Baton Rouge, now let’s see how everyone involved in the production supports our mission statement. Too many times theatre seasons are chosen to please the public and to give the theatre itself more notoriety, I am not saying that doing theatre for entertainment sake is bad, in fact I encourage it, but let’s have everyone involved be aware of why we are doing that show, perhaps adding more fuel to the fire will help bring art further into the realm of action and away from commentary and awareness.

Switching gears to wars, genocide and horrific events, I actually feel that theatre is probably the best way to keep a certain awareness to the privileges we take for granted. How do you frame it, who do you offend or not offend? The truth is someone will be offended, it is impossible to avoid, and someone will always disagree and have an issue with the work. So my suggestion would be to take these issues on, half verbatim theatre, half neofuturist. Collect testimonies from people on all sides of a given event, lets say the Holocaust; Jews, Germans, Nazi’s etc and have these testimonies ready for performance, numbered 1-20. When the audience arrives they get to pick the order in which the pieces are performed, calling out numbers of the testimonies. The audience has control of the sequence of events, this way, the writer or director is not allowed the artistic choices of how the event is told, instead you are getting facts from these peoples experiences that aren’t framed in a way of telling the audience what to think or what parts of the event to focus on. These are real peoples experiences being told about a real event.

Is Invisible Theatre the only way to bring about change? Sometimes I think so, people aren’t willing to deal with certain issues until they affect them, or if they are put on the spot and called out for their behavior. Not until we have a personal experience to draw from, can we fight for some sort of change, because we haven’t felt it, and unfortunately people aren’t interested in other people’s pain or issues unless we can relate. Empathy is invoked from a distance, we hear stories and watch the news and feel sad, things shouldn’t be that way and then quickly are forgotten when we scroll though our Facebook news feed and see a funny video of a cat.

Social Change

After moving here to Baton Rouge almost five years ago, I have seen a lot of different social community issues than I had up north. Among the major race differences and economic differences, what I have noticed the most is the difference in education, specifically public elementary and middle schools.

Before I started my MFA here I worked with Playmakers of Baton Rouge, doing education outreach and educational tours for the youth of the greater Baton Rouge area. In my time there I had done three separate tours, and the one thing that kept catching me off guard, was the overwhelming lack of funding for the public schools, and the quality of teachers at the schools. When we would go to some of the schools, they had to take the gymnasium and separated classrooms with pieces of fabric, and curtains, grades 2-4 would be in the same room. The schools overall were in bad shape, some in minor cosmetic things but also within areas like the lunchroom and libraries. The teachers, though I know they do all they can, were very rude to the kids, more yelling than anything else going on, the students were always riled up, and had a hard time taking on discipline. In contrast, when we went to the private schools, the facilities were excellent, teachers were orderly and so were the children. I realize the private schools are paid for by outside sources and the tuition paid, but I do not think that justifies the state of the public schools being in such disarray. I went to a public high school and received just as good of an education as the private high schools students.

So, my cause for social change would be to fight for the children and teachers to increase funding in the schools. This is an important cause because I think that we are perpetuating the problem of distinguishing lower and higher class. We aren’t giving the kids the chance to have an equal education, and have an environment that is conducive to a healthy educational experience. In addition, we are giving the teachers more and more hurtles to jump through to do their job; standardized testing has become the main objective for funding these schools, so the tension level is high and the kids are left in the background.

How would I bring about social change?  Oppenheimer lays out an array of tactics, training and overall advice to protestors in training. I think the best ways to tackle this issue would be to do a two-fold tactic approach. The first tactic would be to do a parade; I think this would be a great approach particularly here in Baton Rouge, since the community and culture here already has an admiration for parades, it wouldn’t be an off putting approach to the community. Instead of throwing colorful beads and party favors, they would throw black beads, tee-shirts that say, “Education is a right, that is why we have to fight”, or “Why does my kid loose while you save?” Parents, teachers and students would participate in the parade, wearing all black, and instead of upbeat party music, various chanting would occur, phrases like, “ Fund our future, Fund our schools”. The parade route would go through the neighborhoods of those in legislation and school boards denying the funds in addition we can also take the route through all the neighborhoods with private schools, continuing the chants.

The second half of the protest, if needed, would be a reverse strike, for instance, on Friday afternoon, once school is done fro the day, the teachers setup chairs our side the school, wearing all black and sit outside the school until Monday morning. Through this part of the protest, social media would come in handy; teachers live Tweeting the event, Facebook and Instagram being used to express the message to a broader range of audience. Any of these social media outlets could be used to the schools advantage, giving it national notoriety and perhaps sparking a domino effect in the other schools in America.

How long will this last? I would propose that this happens as many times as it needs to until it is noticed by the powers that be. Perhaps once a month or every weekend until waves of change occur, but since this is an ongoing issue in and outside of our community, these acts of social change may spur a movement that could gain ongoing support, and in result share the weight of this issue. 

Real Talk

Our society is always interested in the ‘real’; we want the truth and want to see real things happening to other people. Reality TV, sports, You Tube and many other forms of entertainment are always consumed more when we know something really happened. Twitter plays, durationals and futurist pieces are all about embracing real time, performing right here, right now. The time and pace of these forms of theatre are more believable to an audience, as opposed to going to see a play that covers a substantial amount of time. Take for example; since we all saw this play, Frankenstein, this play covers duration of two years in these characters lives. But obviously we aren’t sitting in the Shaver Theatre for two consecutive years, (which sounds like torture), the actors, technicians and directors have to help the audience believe that the time has transpired, which is asking the audience to suspend the disbelief quite a bit, to make the story feel real and truthful. We do this by changing costumes and having monologues that fill in the moments that aren’t played out, hence the reality effect we have been talking about can not be fulfilled, at least not to the most believable degree.

This is what Twitter plays do for us; they take out that suspention of disbelief and make these plays as real in time as possible. As we read for example, Such Tweet Sorrow, the carrying out of Romeo and Juliet in real time, Juliet making comments like, “It happened, cutest boy ever”. This seems more enticing to us because the characters lives are more relatable to audience members, instead of actors and playwrights, bringing you into their parameters of time, we get to share time together. I can relate more to a dramatic tweet that is posted at 3:00AM that says, “I can’t sleep, my boyfriend has to get out of here in an hour, so my parents don’t freak out #starcrossedlover”.

Relating back to my example above, Frankenstein takes you through a vague timeframe of two years; it would be interesting to do a Tweet play that has the pace of really being performed over the course of two years. Pace is an interesting part of the Twitter plays that allows us to indulge in the time it takes for some of these characters to go through these huge moments in their lives. We see the example of the, Next to Normal Titter play, that is performed over a duration of thirty five days, this in it of itself makes the drama more realistic, as two hours doesn’t do justice to the amount of time this family has to deal with their issues.

An example of pace and time that I think was very effective, was the durational film, Boyhood. This film documents a boy aging from a child through his early twenties. Now this is not a special effect or Benjamin Button situation. The director cast a young boy and took 12 years to film the project, watching one person literally age in real time. Not only did we see the same actor age, but also the entire cast remained the same. This to me was a major commitment to time and pace, allowing a project to take the time it needed to be as real as possible. You could also argue that the Harry Potter movies did the same thing, we watched pace and time be used to watch real people really getting older.

Regardless if the work is on Twitter, a stage or film, time and pace are tools that can really change up the way we entertain and effect the public. We can use new ways to reach out to an audience that is always focused on right here, right now.

Site theatre can be a very useful and bring a new wave of hope for theatre. The idea of putting theatre into the actual space it is to be performed, brings a new view to naturalist theatre. Everything is a little more believable, the audience doesn't need to suspend any disbelief, they don't have to imagine they are in a hotel or insane asylum, they are in it, experiencing it.

So an example I was thinking of, is the cult classic, the Rocky Horror Picture Show. If you were to set it in a remote mansion in the middle of no where, maybe even have the audience meet on the side of the road and walk to the mansion much like Janet and Brad do. The whole mansion can be creepy along with a laboratory that the audience can go to to see Rocky come to life. Maybe even invite the audience to the dinner scene? This would be a great production to do, you could even mirror the idea that the production of Sleep No More did, and make the audience all be time warpers, that way they can be a part of the show as well and be more willing to participate in the production.

As for the quote, I do think to an extent that theatre has been neutralized. Especially when it comes to popular theatre that caters to the happy musicals and Christmas plays, however, I don't think this in entirely the theatre's fault. I think that our society has lost a certain capacity for theatre and confronting issues head on, and appreciates entertainment that makes people feel good, rather than deal with harder material. But I think that if the theatre tries to use it's powers to invite and celebrate all walks of life we could get it back into the interests of society.

Are we in danger of loosing the only present art form? I think this depends on the artists such as our selves to keep it alive. We as theatre people can read these articles and express what is present what is performance, when really, it is up to the audience and the world to decide. When Addie referenced Acconci's, Seedbed, I would definitely  say that the general public would not understand this, and would for the most part not consider this to be art. However, they can't deny that it is present, since we can gage when a person has completed this particular act, it is very in the moment.  It is a real action with a real result, which can't be faked in order to leave an impact, which is what art is all about. We look for shock value as a society and I think the general public feeds on that, which is why in certain performance, doing something for real will invoke a feeling in the audience, where imitation will not. We could loose theatre, I think it's very possible but we have to commit to bringing the theatre into the 21st century.

I think that Huyssen's idea on 'imagined memory ' is interesting, and reminds me of my time just before I moved to Louisiana. Right before I moved here, the giant oil spill happened. Everyday at my waiting job I watched CNN report on the spill. How the community reacted, the state of affairs for locals and fishermen. This made me apprehensive to move to Louisiana, also at this time hurricanes were hitting Louisiana. All of these events reported on the news put a different idea into my head about Louisiana in general and added to my apprehension of moving here. I was very nervous when I left, and was convinced I was moving to an area of crisis and devastation. When I moved here I realized that the media made all of the events seem as if they were more intense then they really were. Those events happened, but the locals point of view was drastically different to what I had seen in Colorado on the news. It goes to show, that the media has a large hold of our opinions and effects our point of view in a huge way. The media can come up with its own version of truth and make it a reality for all of us watching.

Dark Matter

"Dark matter comprises whatever is materially unrepresented onstage but un-ignorable. It is not a finger point- ing at the moon but the tidal force of gravity that pulls at us unseen." -Sofer

I was thinking about the concept of Dark Matter, that Sofer had written about, and the best examples kept coming to me in the form of a scary movie. I personally hate scary movies, but one that I remember and enjoyed was The Village.For those who have not seen this, the movie is about a small colonial town that has strict rules about the boarders of the village. The citizens of the colony are told that the woods are forbidden and that if they venture into the forest, they will become crazed and possibly exiled from the town. There are monsters that are also in the woods that the entire village is aware of, they are sensitive to the color red and could do harm to anyone in their path. Ok Amanda, where's the dark matter? The entire film they are told by the elders, "do not go in the woods, it is forbidden", the outskirts of the village are the dark matter, always being referred to yet we never see what is in the woods or beyond the woods. Are there other villages? Why can't the characters leave the village? Whats beyond this place? However, it seems the elders know whats out there, not until the end of the movie do we finally see what's there. As the Sofer quote states above, some of the younger villagers are stuck in that gravity of dark matter that pulls them to the unseen. For a double dose of dark matter, I won't tell you the end of the film, watch it, it's quite good.

Ok, so the Holocaust, this is a tricky situation, I do see what Adorno is saying, in that we really aren't honoring the Holocaust but simply honoring ourselves for not being 'bad people'. However, I would be lying if I said I didn't like art about the Holocaust. I personally think art is a way of remembering and honoring the lives that were lost in such a horrific event. I think that Adorno has a very closed minded point of view of what people take away from the art they ingest. Some probably do look at these films, plays etc. and think we are such a superior generation, but I think it's more of a reminder of how we can loose our human empathy when faced with fear and constrictions of our society. That we can turn on each other and act as animals destroying each others lives. We should never forget these events because as the old saying goes, 'History repeats itself', and we should always carry that awareness to try and be that better generation that we claim to be. The best way to keep that awareness, is to make art about it and not let such a tragic event be erased over time. 

Theatre and Truth

Thank you Joe for a wonderful prompt!
Let's see, two productions that come to mind... I will have to reference shows I have been involved in. The first production that pops out in my mind, is Children of  a Lesser God. I was in this production in high school, and to this day I still remember the reaction from the community. This show is one that I will always be happy that I was a part of, due to the fact that the plot really struck a chord with those that came and saw the show. The show is a about a deaf school and the trials and tribulations of being deaf and also finding your voice even if you may not be able to hear it. This production is closest to my heart, because we worked with fellow members of the community from the deaf school in town and really got a hands on experience from them, an insight of what it is really like to be deaf and live in such a loud and noisy world. This reminded me of the article Scott Magelssen wrote about the American Iraq performers in the Sand Box, having a first hand point of view to hopefully change the way we communicate with each other in war situations. We used the community to help us which, in turn brought and even better audience to the theatre because they knew we were trying to convey the closest  truth as possible, walking a day in their shoes, so to speak. Many times we had an entirely deaf audience, which finally called attention to them and gave them a piece of theatre that could reflect a sort of truth within their lives, which is not always represented in the art world, and society in general.

A show which I think brought about a new spin on truth, was a production of Flags by Jane Martin. This play is about a family that looses their son on a deployment to Iraq and how they deal with the distress. The family is angry with the media and their over invasive reporting and the governments motives for going to war in the first place, and as an act of protest, they hang their American flag upside down in their front lawn.  This spins the community into a rebellion against the family, and members of the community that were before honoring the son that had been lost, now torment the family for hanging their flag, spitting on them, robbing them, breaking windows and eventually rioting around the home to take the flag down, resulting in the shooting of their other son, on the roof of their home, while trying to remove the flag. This brought about a new sense of truth for the audience; that we act as if we support the fallen soldiers and the war abroad, when in reality we are still fighting our own wars at home, we may very well be part of the problem, and though we don't have the outward appearance of a war torn country like that of Iraq, we still can turn on each other, when we need each other most.

Personally, I think that verbatim truth, performances that offer truth, both are striving to awaken and ignite some kind truth which we may or may not be aware of, and that any theatre that is trying to spark thought and recognition is a good thing. Which is better? I don't have an answer to that, but what I will say, is that it is better to try and make a point and bring about change than to just comment on it, and pretend as if there aren't issues and injustices going on in the world and societies around us.

Performative Utterances 

There are many performative utterances that we use, to signify a completion, or official end of an event-taking place. Examples we spoke about in class were, 'I do', 'I hereby name this ship' etc. What about Happy Birthday? When I looked into this further, the utterance, 'Happy Birthday', is a statement we use to wish someone to have a happy birthday, rather than, 'Sad Birthday', which would be, well, sad. We use this utterance in the form of a song, that we typically hear before our delicious cake is served to us; this whole ritual is a performance we have every year, in fact, singing this song almost completes this experience of our birthday, making it in a way, 'official' that our birthday has occurred. Happy Birthday is a song we hear once a year, and rarely do we have someone sing it to us on the other 364 days of the year. 

Thinking about a specific example, the classic moment in history when Marilyn Monroe sang, 'Happy Birthday' to President JFK. Video link is below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqolSvoWNck&sns=em

 As we can see, the song was set out to wish JFK a happy birthday, which I think was done by Marilyn, but in a way that he or maybe even the world didn't expect. Typically when we hear this song, it is an upbeat caring tune to express the love from family and friends and celebrating the completion of another 365 days of life, but Marilyn took a turn in her performance that completely changed the context of the song. Her rendition of Happy Birthday, was a sexy, sultry interpretation, which was saying way more than 'Happy Birthday', the amount of sexual undertones in her performance changed the meaning of the song. Though Marilyn was still wishing him to have a happy birthday, she was also hinting at, possibly, how she could make it a happier birthday, or how she now made it a happier birthday than before. What also should be mentioned is the fact that the song was elongated and added lyrics to make it personal to the president, which is also a disruption of this performative utterance that we all have come to expect. 

The other part of this example with Marilyn brings me to our Butler article we read about gender and sexuality. Clearly Marilyn is giving into a social view of what it is to be a sexy woman. She is repeating an idea that she has learned about her gender, the breathy voice, the glam gown, all point to what society deemed attractive and effeminate. In many ways people can argue that she was an original character, but she made herself that way to be the most loved and likeable version of herself for the public, to try to establish a feminine norm. 

Needless to say, Marilyn was definetly remembered as an icon, of the feminie mystique, that many women to this day still admire, so in a way she was the birth of a new female norm. We remember her beauty and her rendition of Happy Birthday, for they disrupted our way of thinking, and the social norm that was established at that time.

Theory, Theory, Theory

After reading Carlson, Rayner and States, I realized that there is so much more that encompass theatre, than what we generally perceive. Not only that, but that performance is going on all around us all the time, whether we acknowledge and define it as performance or not.   My biggest question or spark of thought in this particular round of readings is:

 Is performance defined by the awareness of the performer and acknowledgment of the audience? Or is a performance not consensual, meaning, is it a performance if we aren't aware that someone is watching?

The answer to this question above, could be answered in Carlson's work. Carlson talks about performance in everyday actives, emphasizing that the audience judges if a task is done well, lets say for example, parallel parking. We may be trying to park our car on a city street trying to wedge our cars into place, as a security guard across the way watches to see if the driver parks the car correctly or not. Carlson makes a point that this could be considered a performance, and that classifying a performance is not the responsibility of the performer, but of the observer.  Carlson also talks about the double consciousness of a performer in a performance, that not only are we aware of the audience themselves, but also that we are aware of the performance from the performers point of view. Carlson uses the analogy of the basketball player being interviewed after a game, the commentator has an opinion of how the game went, but they also ask for a self assessment of the game from the players perspective, this almost makes it feel as if it is a dual performance, for the spectators and the athlete.

States, kind of blew my mind, too many big words there, however, I found his thoughts on phenomenology and semiotics to be interesting, and that for art, and more specifically theatre, we need to have a balance of both phenomenology and semiotics. Looking at this balance as a binocular vision, and if we don't look through these glasses, we end up weighing the scale to much on either end. States gives a great example of this with taking the bus home, mixing in what we see everyday and the emotional response we can have to our surroundings. As we had mentioned in class, if we all looked at the world strictly phenomenologically we would have a mental breakdown. This I think is a great way to describe character work, finding enough semiotic relation to your audience but also endow a character with enough phenomenological perspective, that we audience can empathize with the character and hopefully spark an emotional response in the viewer.

Alice Rayner was probably the most intense read, and I will forever look at props in a holy way. As an actor I tend to forget the significance of props, and as Rayner suggests, the transformation from object to a thing. I especially liked the reference to the old building that had furniture that artists hung from the ceiling, these things had their own story and their own point of view. The props dictate the response from the audience just as much as the actor does.

There are so many elements of theatre to analyze, but I should probably say, so many elements of life to analyze, as it seems that our daily life is a ongoing performance, whether we are alone, on stage, or parking our car.