introduction and thoughts of day 2

"I really don't know how this subject will be like, I don't understand the portfolio thing even though I prefer to do that option if possible. I'm also a bit worried about the practice part of the subject, it's not that I don't want to do it but it's just that I don't know if I will be able to do it. Either way I don't know what all this will be about, knowing about theatre will be good though, because after that first test we did I really don't know much of it, we'll see..."

I'm interested in this subject because I hardly know a thing about theatre, I did theatre with Paloma on the first year and I've seen many plays but my knowledge when it comes to theory and theatre history is very limited and that's my major goal when attending to this class. That way I think I will become more interested on plays and appreciate them even more.

Modern British Drama. The Twentieth Century

Summary of the article written by Christopher Innes:

Being the most prolific period in English Drama, it's not easy to make a division or to catalogue the Twentieth Century in just one trend but, above all the different movements, it can be said that British Drama became a playwright's theatre. Its function has been constantly redefined, rejecting the logical structures and reason, it becomes more experimental and the object is now to create an effect in the audience, to make them think, to create a debate by criticizing through irony, parody or portraying the reality of a society they want to change. The three main trends of theatre will be then Realism, Comedy and Poetic Drama.

Keywords marked in bold.

'Night' by Harold Pinter

MAN

Yes.

WOMAN

But my back was against the railings. I felt the railings... behind me. You were facing me. I was looking into your eyes. My coat was closed. It was cold.

MAN

I undid your coat.

WOMAN

It was very late. Chilly.

MAN

And then we left the bridge and we walked down the townpath and we came to a rubbish dump.

WOMAN

And you had me and you told me you had fallen in love with me, and you said you would take care of me always, and you told me my voice and my eyes, my thighs and my breasts, were incomparable, and that you would adore me always.

MAN

Yes I did.

WOMAN

And you do adore me always.

MAN

Yes I do.

WOMAN

And then we had children and we sat and talked and you remembered women on bridges and townpaths and rubbish dumps.

MAN

And you remembered your botton against the railings and men holding your hands and men looking into your eyes.

WOMAN

And talking to me softly.

MAN

And your soft voice. Talking to them softly that night.

WOMAN
And they said I will adore you always.

MAN
Saying I will adore you always.

This is a fragment from Harold Pinter's 'Night' which was first performed on 9th April 1969 and is part of his catalogued "Memory plays", which major and common theme is the conflicting versions of reality between two people. The dramatic principles are tension and silences and it portrays a couple and their difficulties of expression, their lack of communication, as an example of contemporary society. This is very characteristic of the generation of 56, which Pinter was part of.

This fragment is located at the last part of the play, a couple in their forties are discussing how they met but do not agree and in this part is where they finally reach a common point. That is the main theme of the play, the idea of how each person has a different version of reality, their own truth, which is a recurrent theme in most of Pinter's plays, stating that there is not one truth, as he said in his speech during the Nobel Prize 2005, which he received: "There are not hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false; it can be both true and false". Another typical feature of Pinter is placing the action in a small, closed-in set, clearly influenced by Kafka's claustrophobic atmospheres, we do not really know where are these two characters having a discussion but we can assume, as they are sitting, having coffee, that they are in a living room or a kitchen, but the action only takes place in a single room, which makes the scene more isolated and oppressive. That is what readers can guess about the setting. As for the actors, there are no stage directions in the fragment, it is one character answering to the other. The couple must belong to the middle class as their language it is not complex, it's an everyday language and Pinter usually portrays these kind of characters, especially at this stage because he only uses middle class characters which one can easily get identified with.
The "Yes" at the beginning of the fragment marks a change in the tone and the rythm of the conversation that the two characters are having, they seem not to be arguing anymore and start talking more sweetly, there are no more pauses or silences in this part, their moods change. She os the one leading the conversation now and he is accepting what she is explaining, in fact, he says "Yes" two more times ("Yes I did", "Yes I do"), he repeats that he remembers her story and that repetition is used to assure her that he really does, when he probably doesn't. In Pinter's world what is not said it is even more important than what is actually said so that is why it is not sure what he is saying is really what he feels or thinks. Here it is more obvious that what he is not telling it's really what he thinks, and the reader and the woman do not really get to know what it is, he tells her what she wants to hear. This also seems apparent by the use of "And" to start their responses, he continues her story by complementing it. same On the other hand, the woman is no longer talking about emotions but about feelings, as he has been doing all over the conversation, so in a way she is also contributing to that sort of acceptance that they are trying to reach, both are now at the same level. The text is full of words that refer to body parts, ("back", "eyes", "thighs", "breasts", "hands"...) which also emphasizes the importance of feelings at the end of the play.
They are no longer talking about the bridge, they continue their story and leave it behind, which also marks their beginning as a couple during all these years, "And then we had children..."

It can be applied the Actantial model which focuses on functions; this way the woman would be the subject of the model and her objective is to make her partner remember her version of events that happened the first time they met. The opponent would be the man because he does not agree with what she is saying but at the time he ends up being the helper as he finally "accepts" her version of the story. The other way round with the man as the subject would have the same object, to make his partner believe of what he is saying about their first meeting and as the woman would be the opponent, because she does not agree with him, here there would not be a helper because he fails to get to the point he wants.

The last part of the play it is definately the turning point. I personally liked the play and the ending, mainly because it is an open one, you cannot really know for sure what's going on in their minds or what did really happen, which again, makes you participant of Pinter's idea that there is not one truth but each of us has their own, even with his play.

the actantial model

It comes from Vladimir Propp "Morphology of the Folk Tale" (1929).

· Main focus: focused not on character but in function. What matters it's not who you are in the play but what you do in it, it's about functions.

· Main actantial functions:

Subject - the person that it's performing the action.

Object - idea, thing, person... that the object is pursuing.

Helper - idea, thing, person... that contributes to the subject getting the object).

Opponent - idea, thing, person... who try to stop the subject from getting the object.

-Example: 'Lost' TV series.

Subject: John Locke.

Object: make those who left the island return in order to save those who were left behind there.

Helper: Jacob (he helps John to get out from the island).

Opponent: Ben (he doesn't want him to succeed).

{The other way round}

Subject: Ben.

Object: return to the island and become the leader again.

Helper: Jack (he helps him to convince the rest to go back).

Opponent: John Locke (he interferes in his plans though John is not aware of that).

The Blue Room

I first became interested in this play that was first performed in London on 10 September 1998, mainly because its playwrighter was David Hare ('The Hours', 'The Reader') and the director was Sam Mendes ('American Beauty', 'Revolutionary Road'). So when I had the chance to buy the book of the play in London I didn't doubt it.

The play is freely adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's 'La Ronde' and follows a series of linked stories where in each of them different characters of different backgrounds have a sexual encounter and it's always between man and a woman, there are no more characters involved in the scenes. When it was performed in 1998 only two actors did play all the characters in all the different scenes, those were Ian Glein and Nicole Kidman and it had such a commercial success that was brought to Broadway with mixed reviews.

Even though I wans't able to see this play, reading the playwright is good enough to see how challenging for the director and the actors must had been to perform it, with one same scenario that has to be changed for every scene (there are ten scenes in the play) and how the two actors had to be constantly having costume and role changes from one scene to the other. Here are the titles of the ten different scenes:

1. The Girl and the Cab Driver
2. The Cab Driver and the Au Pair
3. The Au Pair and the Student
4. The Student and the Married Woman
5. The Married Woman and the Politician
6. The Politician and the Model
7. The Model and the Playwright
8. The Playwright and the Actress
9. The Actress and the Aristocrat
10. The Aristocrat and the Girl

Here's part of the last scene that I liked the most:

10. THE ARISTOCRAT AND THE GIRL

Aristocrat: Did you sleep well?

Girl: Mmm.

Aristocrat: I was just off.

Girl: What are you staring at?

Aristocrat: On the way the light is falling. The way you woke. You're a pretty girl. You could easily find a man. How old are you?

Girl: 20 in December.

Aristocrat: And how long....

Girl: A year.

Aristocrat: A year. I must go. [...] Perhaps we'll meet again.

Girl: Just ask for Irene.

Aristocrat: Irene. Fair enough. (I've spent the whole night with her and all I've done is kiss her eyes. That's something.) Irene, does this happens a lot?

Girl: What?

Aristocrat: That men leave you. That they just leave you?

Girl: Sure. Everyday.

Aristocrat: No, I mean without... without...

Girl: No. Never!

Aristocrat: It doesn't mean I don't like you.

Girl: I know that. You liked me well enough last night.

Aristocrat: I like you now.

Girl: Yes. But liked me better last night. Don't tell me you've forgotten.

Aristocrat: Yes. No.

Girl: God, you must have been drunk, baby.

Aristocrat: Yes. (Well... it would have been romantic if I'd just kissed her eyes. That would have been romantic. But there we are. It wasn't to be. On we go.) Goodnight.

Girl: Good morning.

Sources: enotes & imdb

Bibliography: David Hare The Blue Room (1998). Ed. Faber and Faber Limited. isbn 0571197884

Rage and Reason. Women Playwrights on Playwriting - Sarah Kane

Summary of the article written by Heidi Stephenson and Natasha Langridge:

In this interview Sarah Kane comes to terms with the critics she receives for putting audiences through a series of depravity acts which she claims to write only because she is representing something that already exists, that theatre can change society and her only responsability as a writer is to the truth, no matter how unpleasant it may be. Infact, she takes herself as the subject of human beings when it comes to violence. She refuses to be a representative of any biological or social group as she just wants to be taken as a writer, and that is how she wants her work to be judged.

Keywords marked in bold.

Giving directions on stage

(click for bigger picture)

The importance of position in stage, it is important to always give directions from the audience's point of view.

The numbers are the amount of revelance it has on stage (being level 1 the highest). The letter consist on how to say it:

.

CS: Center Stage

DSC: Downstage Center - 1, highest level of relevance on stage.

DSL: Downstage Left - 5

DSR: Downstage Right - 3

USC: Upstage Center - 2

USL: Upstage Left - 6, lowest level of relevance on stage.

USC: Upstage Right - 4

If, for instance, on CS there is not nothing maybe nothing is important then.

It is also important the position of the people and objects on stage and their movements, this can be seen with these two concepts:

Proxemics - term that refers to the postition of actors anf objects on stage.

Kinetics - the movement of the people, and sometimes objects, on stage.

--

I think it is really important to become familiar with these terms in order to have a more visual concept of a play, I never had played attention before to the position of things and people on stage and it really makes a difference to notice where they stand and how are things placed in order to put more emphasis on them for her viewer or not.

'Educating Rita' - Willy Russell

Act One, Scene Eight

Rita I went into the pub an' they were singin', all of them singnin' some song they'd learnt from the juke-box. An' I stood in that pub an' thought, just what the frig am I trying to do? Why don't I just pack it in an' stay with them, an' join in the singin'?

Frank And why don't you?

Rita (angrily) You think I can, don't you? Just because you pass a pub doorway an' hear the singin' you think we're all OK, that we're all survivin', with the spirit intact. Well I did join in with the singin', I didn't ask any questions, I just went along with it. But when I looked round me mother had stopped singin', an' she was cryin', but no one could get it out of her why she was cryin'. Everyone said she was pissed an' we should get her home. So we did, an' on the way I asked her why. I said, 'Why are y' cryin', Mother?' She said, 'Because - because we could sing better songs than those.' Ten minutes later, Denny had her laughing and singing again, pretending she hasn't said it. But she had. And that's why I came back. And that's why I'm staying.

Blackout.

Rita goes out.

This is a fragment of stage comedy 'Educating Rita' by Liverpool-born playwright Willy Russell, first performed at the Warehouse in June 1980. The play centers on its only two characters, Frank and Rita, who are different when it comes to education and social class and Russell focuses on the extreme differences and the boundaries Rita has to overcome in order to improve her lifestyle and knowledge.

It is located on act one, scene eight of the play and Rita is beginning to change and realizing that she can no longer relate to her family and friends or educated people as she is in the process of becoming one. In the fragment she is explaining to Frank of an event that happened during a family reunion at the pub, where she realized that even her own mother was not happy with the life she was leading so, in order not to end up like her, Rita comes back to Frank more determinated to learn than ever and that way change her lifestyle. This is the moment of epiphany for Rita, when she really starts to make a transition from the person she was to the one she wants to become.

As we can read, she still has the Liverpool accent with the use of contractions like an', y', cryin', which reveals her working-class status when she talks. This is one of the major themes of 'Educating Rita', education, she wants to learn "everything" in order to change, but as it happens in the play it can be something dangerous if someone looses his/her own personality in the process and Russell condemns this using the figure of Frank, Rita's teacher, who doesn't like at first the person that she is becoming. But she finally reaches a balance between both extremes and finally getting the happiness she was looking for in her life. The scene shows us another main theme of the play linked with the previous one I have just mentioned, that is how a person can develop in a positive and negative way.

Another key theme is class divisions as she tells Frank, "Just because you pass a pub doorway an' hear the singin' you think we're all OK, that we're all survivin', with the spirit intact", Rita knows she belongs to a lower class postion than Frank and that is a boundary for her to learn and become educated, and she knows she has to overcome this even when this sets her apart from her relatives and her husband Denny. This use of the language is a great characterization device as one can guess where this character comes from and her education by knowing how she speaks. Rita tries to fit between the two positions, "Well, I did join in with the singin', I didn't ask any questions" but she has to change from one class to the other in order to make that improvement she wants. Escaping from her previous life with Denny and working as a hairdresser will make her have the freedom to choose her own life, which she can not do if she continues being stuck with them in the pub as if nothing happens, just like her mother does. Rita's mother response to why she was crying in the pub, "Because we could sing better songs than those" it is what pushes Rita to make that change, now in a more serious way than at the beginning, and the tone of the play changes from having a lot of humour, to become a more serious piece.

Here, it can be applied the Actantial Model, and Rita would be the subject, her object would be to have more knowledge and Frank would be the helper, as he is the one who is contributing to the subject to get the object. There may be several opponents, most particularly Denny and Rita's father, as they do not want her to study and want her to get pregnant instead. On the other way round, the subject would be Denny, Rita's husband, who wants her to have a baby and start a family, being that the object. The helper would be his father-in-law as he also wants Rita to have a baby and tries to push her and the opponent would be Rita and Frank, as they do not want that same object for her. At the same time, we could also use the model having Frank as a subject, because his object is to make Rita become an educated person but without loosing who she really is. The helper would be Rita because she is willing to reach that and the opponents would be Denny, Rita's father and also Trish and her friends who influence Rita in a negative way because she starts imitating them and loosing part of her personality.

The figure of Rita can be linked to Willy Russell's own life, as he was born in a working class family and worked as a hairdresser as well as in many other jobs until he returned to full-time education and decided to become a dramatist. In a way it can be seen as a play of the search of self-fulfillment and the struggles one person having working class roots have to overcome and this fragment is a clear exemplification of this.

top girls - introducing a new character

We had to introduce in class a new character that could fit in 'Top Girls' play, and after much discussion and suggestions that went from Madonna to Paris Hilton (taking profit of a sex tape to make a career in show business is quite a remarkable thing) my group decided our top girl would be Lady Diana of Wales, because she got a number of achievements during her life, she used her privileged status, which he did not like, to help in many different charity causes, the most important one was related with the end of cluster bomb tragedies, and because of that she was inspirational to many people out there. This is the monologue and the stage directions we made for her:


[We hear high heels stress aproaching the table. Lady Di (LD) enters the room and sits down next to Isabella (I). When Isabella says: “Oh, it’s a long story” she adds, “Hi Di!”. And Di starts with the monologue (see above).

She is dressed in a red Chanel jacket and skirt. Even though she is powerful she speaks in a low voice, really educated when it comes to manners and makes herself the center of attention even without wanting to, which leaves the rest of the guests at the restaurant fascinated by all she says or does.
Light: a lot of Light, considering that it is a restaurant]


LADY DI: “Well, I enjoyed being a princess for a while, but it isn’t a fairy tale as everybody thinks. You have to follow many conventions, everything you do appears on The Sun, every step you take is being followed by the paparazzi and they were my misfortune in the end. Best of all, my mother-in-law, what a huge “witch”, she always wanted to decide how to bring up my children, my beloved little ones. But I have to admit that the clothes were good. I had everything I wanted, every privilege, but I never felt fulfilled. So I devoted myself to end with cluster bomb tragedies, it was one of the few moments I could feel alive and free.”

Students' group: Pablo Berrio, Montse Casanovas, Mar Fernández, Vicky Izquierdo, Sofia Marimón and Pilar Riba.

Stage proposal for Harold Pinter´s 'Night'

We already did the exercise of doing a stage proposal in class, and while my group and I came with the idea of a living room really crowded with familiar elements to make a contrast between the cold situation that the couple has in the play and their home, a more warm space, I always preferred to explore the other way round, that means, creating a colder atmosphere.

To represent this play I would opt for a void stage with only a table, two chairs for each of the actors and a lamp. Looking for a picture on Google that was close to my proposal I came across this one, which was really similar to my idea except for what you can see behind the table. It would basically consist on a square table on center stage (CS) with the two chairs each of them at the extremes of the table so both actors would be facing the audience. There would be also a lamp near the table, placed on upstage left (USL) and it would be the only source of lighting in the whole stage.

The choice of a square table is mainly because a round table has the connotation of fraternity and a close relationship between those who are sitting around it, so I wanted to opposite of this as the protagonist couple have grown apart over the years. The actors would sit on it not looking at each other directly, only when they are speaking, marking once again that they are not close as a couple. The light coming for the lamp, leaving the rest of the stage in the dark, also emphatises the coldness between them and creates the somber atmosphere that I was looking for.

When I read 'Night' this was the portrayal that came into my mind and I think it is really appropiate for this play.