Overview: I find this work essential so that you may learn to look at the theater we’re discussing not as an audience, student, or critic, but more in terms of actor/director. This makes the theater much more alive, which is what it should be. The assignments for this unit are: 1.Read through this week’s material (provided under additional readings below). 2.Finish watching Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet.” The second half of the movie. Theater Structure Hopefully, after you?ve completed this week’s assignment, you?ll be much more prepared to be an active theater articipant when watching and discussing our plays through the rest of the term. Creating a Stage Most of you have been to the theater before, and many of you have been actively involved in theater, dance, and showmanship. As such, you know what it means to bring theater to life. Nonetheless, it’s still hard to keep our mind on the process of theater when we’re totally engrossed in a good show. Sometimes, when the lights go low, whether in a movie theater or a live stage performance, we just get totally engrossed in the story. What you need to do for the coming theater experiences in this class is to learn how to be an active audience member. This means that, even though we still want you to be open to the entertainment, you?ll need to be able to dissect the play at the same time, to see and understand how the show is run, and how the points are made. Since I?ve been involved in theater since the late 1980’s as a producer, a director, a writer, and an actor, I have the ability to let you in on some of the secrets, to pull the veil from the Wizard of Oz so to speak, and let you see the man behind the curtain. In this way, it will be easier for you to see why some choices were made in the shows that you see, and to understand how different choices may have led you to a completely different appreciation of the work at hand. What you need to understand first is that the play really is in the hands of the director, and, as such, he or she can mold the work, and thus mold the audience any way they choose, mostly by the use of lighting, sound, blocking, and, of course, the motivations given to the actors. The only absolute condition a director must adhere to is that the actors need to say the lines in the play as they were written. The stage directions, which appear in parentheses, are merely suggestions, which a director can choose to accept or reject. These are mostly helpful when reading the play as literature, but don?t account for very much once a director applies their own vision to the work. With such freedom, you understand, a director can basically say anything they want with the play given. Dialogue & SettingLet?s start with a simple discussion of dialogue, and to illustrate my points, we?ll set down some banal conversation we?ve probably had on the streets more than once in our lives. Eric: Hey, Erica, where you been? Erica: Hey. Eric: Where?d you pop up from? I didn?t even see you coming. Erica: Yeah, I get that all time. Eric: You busy right now? Want to grab a bite to eat? Erica: Sure. You buying? Eric: Wouldn?t have it any other way. Now, I could take this dialogue, and stage it simplistically, have the two meet on the street, stop and talk. They?d smile, stand about two feet apart from each other (keeping in mind that all important ‘personal space’ that we carve out in our lives), then stroll off to a restaurant. Sounds natural and easy. It also sounds pretty mundane. I mean, who cares that two people whom we don?t know stop on a sidewalk to have meaningless dialogue about things they don?t care about, and then, in the end, promise to have more meaningless dialogue over some food, which will probably be fatty and fairly indigestible to boot? Personally, I would opt to go for something more dramatic if I were staging the piece. For instance, you could have Eric walking down a street, turn into a dark alley and be confronted by a gun held out to him. Quite clearly, Eric is now supposed to hand over his money to the gunman (or gunwoman in this case). He will take out his wallet, then squint into the darkness. After a few beats of time, as his eyes become adjusted, he could then stammer, ?Hey….Erica? Where you been?? After she recognizes him, still holding the gun, she?ll respond with, ?Hey.? Okay, now stop, go back and read the dialogue with this setting in mind. No no no, I?m serious. Go back. Read the dialogue again. How would you stage it? Would she put down the gun during the discussion, would she take his wallet, would they still stroll off together? Think about it, and then continue on. Okay, back? Good. Now, however you chose to stage this work, it?s clear we?ve got a whole different play here with a whole different emphasis. The dialogue doesn?t seem so meaningless any longer because the situation stipulates its emergence. Likewise, you could stage the thing in the Men?s Bathroom, which Erica has walked into accidentally. Eric, who had been standing at a urinal, could turn, and, um…a little set back, say, ?Hey! Erica, where?d you pop up from?? Once more, we?ve got a completely different play, probably one that children wouldn?t be allowed to go to see. This then is an example of how a director will work with setting and with the actors to create a scene and an atmosphere that could drastically change your viewing experience. Blocking One of a director?s most important tools comes in terms of blocking. By this I mean the actual placement of the actors on the stage. Personally, I always go for a dramatic blocking, to force a perspective onto and from my audience. For instance, in our real lives, we all have a comfort zone. When we?re talking to a casual friend or a new acquaintance, we usually stand a distance of about two feet away. This is comfortable because it forces nothing; we can speak of anything from the weather to the war; from Eden to Evil. Doesn?t make much difference. At a casual distance, it will probably be polite conversation. Casual blocking will lead the audience to be comfortable with the characters on the stage. The audience will zone out as to where the actors are standing and merely pay attention to the words. Such blocking is good for characters to relay essential information. For instance, any exposition scene that is done in a play will more than likely be had from a casual distance. Take your average detective story. In the early going of this standard tale, you?ll usually get the scene where the Police Captain sits behind his desk, while his Chief Inspector, usually grizzled, just over a hangover and totally bored with detective work at this time in his life, slouches before him. They?ve stood like this a million times. Nothing is forced here. The Captain will tell the Detective about the recent number of homicides and that it?s really important that they catch the Perp responsible because the Mayor who is running for re-election is coming down on the force and promising that heads are gonna roll and yada yada yada yada. Later in the story, we?ll get the obligatory scene where the Captain must ask this Detective to step down from the case because ?it?s gotten too personal.? By this time, naturally enough, the Detective?s partner, usually not as smart but with a better sense of humor, will have been killed; the Detective?s wife will have left him; and the killer will be on an even greater rampage. The Detective will of course refuse to take mandatory leave, and instead hand over his badge, promising to bring down the Perp without any help from the force. This time he?s ?going it alone.? Now, in this scene the blocking will be much more dramatic. The director will have the confrontation handled, not from the casual distance where these two have stood a million times before, but face to face, roughly in the stance that a baseball manager will argue with an umpire. Even common, seemingly casual dialogue, when delivered with more dramatic blocking, will increase the intensity of a scene. For instance, let?s just create a bit of common dialogue and then play with the blocking: Eric: I love you, Erica. Erica: What? Eric: I love you. Erica: I love you too. If we did this at a casual distance, say sitting over dinner at a local restaurant, where the couple has eaten thousands of times their love will seem easy and fairly secure. At the same time, it wouldn?t seem like an intense passion. It would feel like an established love that is not really in doubt. Now if we intensify the blocking, we?ll intensify the drama. We can, say, put these two in the middle of a deep kiss when Eric suddenly breaks it off to offer his vow of love. Now we read Erica?s first reaction as if she had been so consumed by the kiss she hadn?t at first heard him. Or, depending on the inflection of her voice, it could mean that she had been completely distracted even while poor ol’ Eric was kissing her. On the other hand, if we increase the distance between them, say from opposite sides of the stage, we?ll have an entirely different story. Let?s say Erica is at one end of a bar, gazing up at a Bud Lite sign, while Eric is at the other, standing in front of the bar, sipping on a Heineken. He?ll call out to her above the noise that he indeed loves her. We now read Erica?s first reaction as if she hadn?t actually caught what he said. And then, if she immediately returns to gazing at that oh-so-fascinating Bud Lite sign before responding with her own, ?I love you too,? we can see that these two don?t stand a chance in hell of sticking together; and if they do, it?s a mistake. Lighting and SoundA director will use lighting to create certain moods in the play. Watch how Kenneth Branagh uses lighting in the initial meeting with the ghost of King Hamlet ofr instance. Branagh is a lighting genius. I believe you could actually remove the dialogue from one of his works, and the audience will still be able to understand the full import of the work, simply by the tale he tells with his lights. Many directors, including Branagh, will use the lighting in tandem with the sound and music. Pay close attention to how he uses music, when he brings it up, when he chooses to tone it down. A good director (and Branagh is one of them) will manipulate the hell out of an audience simply by introducing the right tenor of a musical cue together with the appropriate lighting. Suddenly, say with several chords from a plaintive violin, and a soft focus of a graying light on a particular actress, the audience will already feel sympathy before she?s spoken a word, before we?ve even gotten an opportunity to meet her. Let?s take the same banal dialogue we introduced earlier: Eric: Hey, Erica, where you been? Erica: Hey. Eric: Where?d you pop up from? I didn?t even see you coming. Erica: Yeah, I get that all time. Eric: You busy right now? Want to grab a bite to eat? Erica: Sure. You buying? Eric: Wouldn?t have it any other way. Now, if I introduced some dark and gloomy bass trills just before the scene began, the scene would appear ominous and suspenseful. I?d ask the actor playing Eric to then offer his line delivery with much more reserve, as if he feared running into Erica, had feared this for a very long time in his life. As for the actress playing Erica then, I would ask her to continue to sound casual. Nonetheless, because of the music and the tenor of Eric?s reaction, we would wonder what?s really on her mind, what?s behind the veneer. Now, if I introduced some light and romantic strains of a violin and flute as the scene began, we would come to understand that this couple are either newly infatuated with each other, or possibly are former lovers. Either way, this will influence the direction I would give my actors, and add a much needed dimension to the dialogue. As for lighting, we could manipulate the audience in the same way. If we, say want to set up a light romance, we could use the soft warm tones of evening to light the stage; if we want to create a more suspenseful scene, we might use the dark foreboding tones of night. Additional Readings These are not mandatory Dictionary of Theater Terms: https://www.capa.com/files/about/education-/theatreterms.pdf Theater Crafts: https://www.theatrecrafts.com/page.php?id=30 Creating the Stage: https://www.artsalive.ca/en/thf/faire/metiers.html Assignment: This week, we’ll be using the commentary from our lecture regarding blocking, lighting, setting, and sound in order to develop our own scenes. What I’m going to ask you to do is to take two scenes from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” and to design the scenes as you would like to see them played if you were the director. Use all the tools we’ve discussed, including some background work for characters, and have at it. You can simply use two of the scenes that you saw in Branagh’s work, and offer an overview of how you would stage or film such scenes if you were indeed in charge, or you can take sections of the actual script and break them down on the page for us, giving us specific direction for actors, lighting designers, etc. Explain what you’re looking to accomplish and achieve with your re-direction. In other words, it’s okay that you set the piece up as a Space Opera, but without a purpose, it’s meaningless. What is your point? What are you trying to say? Please offer two scenes for us to take a close look at by Friday, April 15th, midnight, the day the Titanic sunk by the way. Each should be done in about 250 words or more.
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