IB THEATRE GROUP PROJECT LITTLE RED RIDDING HOOD SELF EVALUATION 1

February 22, 2012

Today, me and my group had our first time performance of our interpretation of the play “little red riding hood”.
Watching back on the link, I realized that we had some notes we has to work on:

Note	What we did	Improvement	Justification/Effect
Flash light at the start (entrance) needs to be more purposeful and stronger.	When Natalia came down the stage, the audience didn’t realize until they where able to see her, as she didn’t make use of the light that was given with her touch. Because she just illuminated her face, the audience didn’t know she was coming down and therefore they just thought it was a late start, slowing down the tension of the beginning. As her walk was slow, this defeated the tense, daring and scary atmosphere we were trying to create since the very beginning.	I suggested to Natalia, that she should use the spotlight as a tool to attract the eyes of the audience, by pointing around the stage with it, and even at them. Also, I told her that it might be helf ful for her to decide what kind of character she wanted to be, whether a challenging, aggressive and daring girl or a scared one, and that she should try walking down the aisle trying each personality out, to decide how she wants to interpret her character.	By moving the spotlight around, It already sets the scene as being a dark place, with no light and therefore it makes the audience feel unconfortable. It also allows them to enter into her world, as they are now part of the setting and this makes the audience feel more engaged and drawn in. By adding purpose to her walk, helps the audience identify her character quicker and therefore knowing what impulse or force is driving her e.g. if she runs, its as if she is running away from something, however if she takes sharp, strong and grounded steps, she seems superior and confident.
Projection of voice	I was told that I needed to project to the audience better, as when I talked to Natalia sideways about the “starving beasts”, my voice was evaded from the audience and they could no longer hear and missed parts of the script.	Instead, the next time we performed I kept my face facing the audience and stood slightly back from Natalia’s shoulder, whispering to her ear almost.	By this, not only the voice was clearer and the positioning made it creepier by the use of a stage whisper when talking about my dread towards the “starving beasts”, but also we managed to establish the relationship between mother and daughter as being very cold, from the quote “cold weather, cold hearts”. We manage to establish that their relationship was obscure, untrustworthy and not loving.
The realization of the connection between the grandma’s hand and the wolf’s paw.	This was a very crucial moment of our play and probably the point of highest climax, and I felt as if we were mistreating its value as me and Natalia didn’t pay as much attention to the hand and we didn’t make eye contact.	For this, we changed the music of the background to that of a faster beat and lower note, to help create tension. Also, we created a stronger eye contact at the moment when Natalia picked up the, and held it for longer until the lights cut. I also thought it could be effective to add a scream of a prolonged “No!”.	I as the grandmother exaggerated my facial expressions of fright and whispers of “No, no” as I clumsily moved back from her to help add to the intensity of the moment, as well as to help foreshadow my death. Natalia also did  by staring at the audience with a very focused and aggressive stare, and after looked at me. By prolonging the stare, the audience feels anxious and panicky about what will happen next, and my scream at the end assures the audience that she will not let her live, and that a brutal and demonic end awaits her.
Transitions in the forest scene	In the video, the transition into the forest seemed too preset and unreal, as mike would walk on stage, kneel down and wait there until the lights came on him, and the audience could see this obviously	Talking to Ali, we found out that out of the lights could be improved, and there fore he wouldn’t be seen when standing up, and that is what we did. Also, to add to that surprise feature of Mike appearing suddenly in the forest, Natalia, choreographed her walk, distracting the audience from the skrim guiding them with her eye contact and change of direction	By the end, this effect looked beautifully crafted and the  back lower spotlight form behind the skrim was dimmed in very slowly, contrasting with the fast walk of Natalia and therefore seeming as if he just appeared from behind the trees. Also, the shade or orange/red helped create an sick, impure mood.
The grandma’s beating	As we can see in the video, the last scene of the Grandma’s beating wasn’t as effective as we thought as the limited amount of people we had crushed the strength and power of the beating, making it comical, as my exaggerated screams went overpowered the force created by the people beating me.	For this, we had more people join the scene, (all males to match the phobia recognized at the beginning of the play for men by the women). Authority, and we choreographed the beating, so that with the help of the skrim which enlarged their figures, the movements would become tougher and fiercer, signifying an uncontrollable need to hurt and kill. To stylize this scene even further and improve our narratives, we incorporated a line in the text which said “down with the witch, lets beat the witch!”	The scene had much more dominance and aggressive. This I felt was crucial to leave the audience very affected by the cruelty of the people we created. The line we added to our script was said by Natalia. This was a curious choice we decided to do, as we thought that if the villagers yelled it it would make Natalia’s part less important, as it would take away from the fact that she was the one telling everyone that her grandmother was a witch. This sign of evilness  and mistrust was important for us as we wanted to tell the audience that there was no sort of compassion between the characters, as they had grown cold.
The ending		Our objective was to think about how a disturbing visual could be created as the lights fade with Natalia on stage. We improved this by using a voice over to connect with her actions on stage, which was her smiling and the audience with satisfaction.	This helped with that idea of viciousness, lack of love and thrust for damage. The lights fading instead of a sharp black out gave a sense of continuation, as though it would never prosper, and the town would stay the same. This created a great irony and a nice juxtapose of appearance versus reality as the voice over we chose to use said “She lived in her grandmothers house, she prospered”.

IB LRRH Grop Evaluations

Evaluations of Little Red Ridding Hood Performances

March 2, 2012

Tony, cheo wan, Daniel, Katy….

    Things I liked!

I thought that the sounds used (the water flowing, the chops by the knifes, the sound of the kettle on fire) were very good ways of introducing the action taking place in the kitchen,  as it was easy to relate to previous sound of making food. Also, the repetition of this sound I thought gave a monotonour, functional sense, descrining the insipid routine of the villagers life.

I thought that Tony’s choice of interpretation of the mother was effective- he kept a masculine, low and harsh tone of voice when talking to Cheo Wan, he adopted a manly body posture using sharp strong movements and was very tough  when talking to her. I noticed that he didn’t try to be feminine in any way, but however this was a good way of introducing conflict of feelings and relationships as well a the conflict between men and women in a clever way. He was trying to show also the contrast of personal characteristics between characters making Chaeo Wan the victim. As well as this, they took a lot of artistic liberties when narrowing down the script, and a lot of the lines they used (e.g. Dialogue between Tony and Chaeo Wan) was not included by the dramatist in the script, however I personally didn’t mind as I was intrigued about in what direction they would take it and how they would make it their own.

The ending of the piece was very powerful as it showed the change in to evil, as Little Red Riding Hood acted as a nice, innocent, delicate little girl and that quick changed made us feel like we had been betrayed by her since the start of the performance. She broke the fourth wall and used the dramatic teqnique of “Aside” to address us with an evil smile of satisfaction, while having blood in her hands was an successful way of transmitting us that she is really demonic, although no one else knows it.

Snapshot of the fighting scene with Daniel as the wold and Cheo Wan and LLRH

Things I disliked
Their fight scene was very quick and sudden, and lacked impact with sound,  and use of lightening.  They had no expected music, no empowering music, and therefore the scene lost its strength, and the fight movements were very stiff from the wolf, as although he might have been interpreted as a man like in ours, that feeling of hunger, incest, need to attack and aggressiveness wasn’t there. Also it wasn’t engaging as the time in between (the gap of silence) was too vast and it lost power, its “Adrenaline”.

Their use of ironic music used for the beating of the grandmother wasn’t effective as although it made us giggle, it wasn’t suitable to the seriousness of the play even if they where trying to create a contrast of tone and rhythm.

 The Video

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZbyrBtCySQ&list=WLB1250EC59495135D&index=1&feature=plpp_video

Juliana, Lloyd, Katy, Amanda….

Things I liked

I specially loved their use of multimedia, as I think they really contributed as potent dramatic values to their piece.

To create a effective sense of people living in the area, ignoring that they were only 3 actors, they used the scrim and the spotlight to their advantage beautifully, mixed with effective characterization of the physicality’s of each minor character from the village, as every time they passed they would adopt a different posture. The scrim was used well as although it is of a transparent substance, when the yellow light was thrown ontop of it from behind it became opaque, showing the silhouette of the actors. For example Lloyd went from being a slow walking old man to a woman wearing a long dress and walking fast. This I thought, along with the fresnel light with graduated lens that threw a yellowish soft  and defocused beam of light  giving a strong impression of a sick, scared village, as they also chose not to show any relationships between the characters, which made me thought that everyone was very reserved from the very start. The church noises helped give a sense of urgency, as if it was time to go home and the rain illustrated a rainy, cold village which also helped the audience get into that sinister setting.

Juliana and Katy as the mother and daughter from behind the scrim

To show levels and age, they used the scrim one again very cleverly making Katy much smaller that Juliana (the mother), and what I really liked was their play of projections and shadows, introducing themselves as characters, as this allowed then to quickly change into other characters just by adopting another physicality and wearing something different. It was also interesting to see how they chose to introduce symbolic props  to us, the audience, by again holding the sword, which gives the audience straight away a strong sense of danger foreshadowed, s the mother gave the sword with our acting to her little daughter.

For the next time, I noticed that the picture of the forest helped me so so much when getting into the setting, and it made me realize that sometimes you don’t need very complex installations to help your audience understand where you are, as this was a simple projection but yet I really enjoyed being taken there with out the need of imagining my own.

What I specially loved was the recurring music they used, which turned our to be expected music as they kept introducing it in the scenes. As katy sang it, it was diegetic and it gave a stronger sense of truth and closeness to her character that I thought made her seem very vulnerable, and the melody of the song was slow, like a lullaby, that I think was excellently used to contrast the fight scenes, violent lighting of red and Orage as well as the aggressive screams.

Things I disliked

Although I liked the timings they used from scene to scene, for example when we can hear Katy suffocating back stage until the new scene comes on, I thought that although it took a while, it was effective as by this time the audience was already drawn in, however, some transitions like when the grandmother would come on stage, were a bit comical as she just let herself fall on top and the lights were already on her, meaning any movement she did was visible. I thought this could be improved by coming in with the bed earlier, and so could have the narrating tone, as it was completely monotonous and it lacked purpose and emotion, so it made the story disengaging (specially when finding the hand, where I would have used more pauses to create tension between the audience, or when talking about things such as her grand mother having a fever and shivering, because those are crucial lines that needed intensity).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?

The video

v=zBhgzxL2kFk&list=WLB1250EC59495135D&index=3&feature=plpp_video

IB THEATRE GROUP PROJECT LITTLE RED RIDDING HOOD SELF EVALUATION 2

For my self evaluation, I recorded myself talking about how my work as a costumes and make up designer for our adaptation of the play "Little Red Ridding Hood" went, as i thought this communication tequinque would allow me to express myself better as i was reflecting on my own job. 

As i recorded myself, i found out that i had a  lot to say, anD ideas about the play just kept on popping up. It was really interesting to evaluate my own work and to think about all the things i managed to create and how that helped my group! :))

OUR VIDEO!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Zap_0PILg&list=WLB1250EC59495135D&index=2&feature=plpp_video