Here are the E&M presentations from last week. The first is my group's non-continuous routine, for the class assignment described on the video page:
The second is a routine we put together to perform at the Leeds Juggling Convention last Saturday. It didn't run nearly as smoothly there, but seemed to get a good response from the audience. The goal was to combine acrobalance with club passing and manipulation, and for the most part this worked out. Rehearsals were before class started (so, 8-8:45 AM) every day and during lunch breaks, but it was well worth it:
Oh, and we called our group "The Thieving Magpies."
Then at 2AM that night we performed with Slamboree again, at the Beavertown night club, but this time it was on a slippery stage with barely enough space to stand, let alone juggle. I did base some acro on the floor in front of the stage. I'm considering burning those clothes after they were pressed into that floor...
Sadly, these are the last presentations I will have at Circomedia. I will post soon about the Christmas Show, and try to get some of the videos of it.
Wednesday, 12 December 2012
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Three shows in two nights, two out of three.
[side note: Half-term break and preparing for the physics GRE delayed editing and publishing on this, hence its lateness]
The week of Halloween, I got my first sample of physical theatre in three shows at St. Paul's church, Circomedia's space for performances and other classes. Halloween night was a double-feature of Tom Wainwright's Buttercup and Superbolt Theatre's Centralia, and the following night was Articulate Elbow's Mother F. It seems the term physical theatre fits anything that is driven more by movement than by speech. It is a crossover between dance and theatre, breaking down the traditional script/character/prop, and is flexible enough to include Commedia dell'Arte, mime, slapstick, clowning, performance art, burlesque, grotesque, and improv. Pieces, such as the ones discussed here, tend to be devised rather than scripted, and often play with the relations of performers to characters, audience, set, space, and props in ways not generally used in drama.
Buttercup
Buttercup was about a forty-minute long one-man show, comprising two monologues with an audience interaction in the middle. Tom takes the role of Buttercup, an overweight woman of less-than-average intelligence or morals, distinguished by a habit of stamping her foot and waving a hand behind her rear, suggesting a cow. Buttercup is a disgusting, dystopic vision of a person in total decline yet content. She never brushes her teeth with the logic that "nobody will ever kiss me anyway," and spends all her time eating junk and watching television reality shows.
Each character was defined by an object, animal or some other caricature, sometimes even casually referring to themselves as such. Two judges on a cooking show were a potato and a fish, for example. At times they referred to themselves as such. A star from "The Only Way is Essex" took on a kind of Popeye physicality, contrasting with his timid and wide-eyed partner. This technique allowed Tom to define mannerisms unique to each character while implying more about their character than the lines could deliver. The Popeye character, for instance, was playing excessively macho in order to compensate his affections toward his male friend.
Most of the local pop culture references were over my head, but I enjoyed it no less. The first story was of Buttercup taking part in Jamie Oliver's experiment of teaching people to make spaghetti and meatballs, so as to motivate them towards healthier eating. She becomes so good at cooking over time that she opens her own restaurant, and then competes on an 'iron chef'-like program called Masterchef. She also discovered that she was pregnant at the time, by noting that she grew "bigger and bigger" until she had "to take a poo, and out came baby!" In a surreal and grotesque twist, Buttercup cooks her stillborn child as her dish in the competition,to the judges' approval and her triumph.
This first monologue bit was smoothly followed by a bit of audience interaction, in character, in which the audience was invited to ask questions about her life or for personal advice or about global matters. The first question, of course, was if Tom thought there was anything wrong with cooking infants. I don't remember the response. Another asked who would win the American election, which Tom confidently answered would be Eddie Murphy.
The second half's story followed along the first's, and was of another of Buttercup's forays into television. This time, after her restaurant burns down and she moves in with other family, she's asked to take part in a version of "The Only Way is Essex" for her own town (Lancashire), a show which I understand to be a bit like the Jersey Shore. The storyline becomes a bit more realistic, but no less funny than the first, with Buttercup falling in love with one of the other stars only to have him taken away by his jealous co-star, an overly-macho man who's secretly in love with him.
The show was an unique experience of theatre. In my experience, narrative monologues are some of the most difficult to deliver, since they don't give an immediate scenario for the actor to be in. The usual approach to telling them is to tell the story while living in it – to ignore the fact you're telling a story and act as though you're living it. The audience interaction of this show, from asking to borrow lipstick at the beginning to the bit in the middle, served to break this illusion and make it clear that when Buttercup was speaking, she was actually telling the story to us. The show was her telling this story, and
Mother F
Mother F defines itself as a "raucous and touching tale about mothers, told through physical theatre, ridiculous choreography, ghostly projections and hilarious songs.." Unfortunately, about the best I can of Mother F is that it at least seemed like the performers involved were enjoying themselves. The style of humor was cheesy and weak, seeming to scream "hey, look! We're entertaining you!" with an ill-defined storyline broken up by painfully bad standup bits. The performers took the roles of two sisters rummaging through their mother's old things in the attic, and each object conjured up a memory. The use of props to create flashbacks is a solid technique that was effectively done, if a bit unclear in revealing the family's background. It was clear that the mother had at one point been a burlesque dancer, and that the older sister had left for New York after college, and that the younger sister was pregnant as a teenager, but these points were more factual than real. The scene of the sisters talking about the pregnancy and departure was touching, but otherwise I had no sympathy for the characters. The backgrounds were presented out of order, and there was no progression of experiences that could bring any kind of bond between the sisters and their mother.
I skipped the talkback session, but am told that the performers explained their style as drawing from vaudeville and cabaret, styles of disjoint and blatant humor that was certainly present in this show. Perhaps this would have done better with a different theme – not motherhood and mothers, a subject most audiences will have strong feelings about. Mothers were cheekily presented as, maybe, they may feel sometimes – machines that tidy toys and change diapers – but with no deeper sense of the profound relation between mothers and their children. In addition, the show often dismissed fathers in the hackneyed 'dopey hubby' stereotype, with no real role in their childrens' lives. "Mommy takes care of me, but Daddy is so funny!" As someone raised with two brothers by a widowed father, I took some offense to this.
Overall, if the cast had taken less time to try to make the audience laugh and more time giving them something to connect with, Mother F could have been a light-hearted take on the role mothers have in our lives. Though there were some heartfelt moments, these were swiftly drowned by shtick.
Centralia
Unlike with Buttercup or Mother F, the three remain the same characters throughout the show while recreating different scenes of their home life and telling the story of the Centralia mine fire. They discuss their daily ritual of taking gas measurements and soil samples, and how they transport them around town by balloons and ziplines. They tell the almost-tragic story of a boy who was nearly killed by falling in a chasm, and survived because his shoes protected his feet, which prompts a quick dance number on the importance of protective footwear.
While most of the show was an ironically lighthearted comedy about a tragic story, there was a nervousness to the characters that flickered up now and then, like they were held at gunpoint and told to be happy. It seemed that the characters were a little too eager to prove how much they loved living in Centralia, despite its emptiness and dangers, because admitting a single fault would crack their illusion of how wonderful a place it is. The ending of the show did just that. When one character tells the audience that he's requesting a work permit and visa to come live in Bristol, the realness of the show breaks down. The three start moving in a slow motion struggle, with lights darkened or flashing, miming melodramatic interactions. The abstract bit builds to a peak, when a papier-mâché balloon flies across the stage on fishing line, illuminated by a single flashlight, as recordings of former Centralia residents play. The finish is beautifully dark and abstract, a final acknowledgement that the source of their comedy has been a tragedy.
As a final note: the American accents were pretty good. It took some time for me to catch that they weren't American actors, though they clearly weren't from Pennsylvania – the men sounded more midwestern, and the woman sounded Jewish New Yorker.
The week of Halloween, I got my first sample of physical theatre in three shows at St. Paul's church, Circomedia's space for performances and other classes. Halloween night was a double-feature of Tom Wainwright's Buttercup and Superbolt Theatre's Centralia, and the following night was Articulate Elbow's Mother F. It seems the term physical theatre fits anything that is driven more by movement than by speech. It is a crossover between dance and theatre, breaking down the traditional script/character/prop, and is flexible enough to include Commedia dell'Arte, mime, slapstick, clowning, performance art, burlesque, grotesque, and improv. Pieces, such as the ones discussed here, tend to be devised rather than scripted, and often play with the relations of performers to characters, audience, set, space, and props in ways not generally used in drama.
Buttercup
 |
| Image courtesy of Total Theatre Reviews |
Buttercup was about a forty-minute long one-man show, comprising two monologues with an audience interaction in the middle. Tom takes the role of Buttercup, an overweight woman of less-than-average intelligence or morals, distinguished by a habit of stamping her foot and waving a hand behind her rear, suggesting a cow. Buttercup is a disgusting, dystopic vision of a person in total decline yet content. She never brushes her teeth with the logic that "nobody will ever kiss me anyway," and spends all her time eating junk and watching television reality shows.
Each character was defined by an object, animal or some other caricature, sometimes even casually referring to themselves as such. Two judges on a cooking show were a potato and a fish, for example. At times they referred to themselves as such. A star from "The Only Way is Essex" took on a kind of Popeye physicality, contrasting with his timid and wide-eyed partner. This technique allowed Tom to define mannerisms unique to each character while implying more about their character than the lines could deliver. The Popeye character, for instance, was playing excessively macho in order to compensate his affections toward his male friend.
Most of the local pop culture references were over my head, but I enjoyed it no less. The first story was of Buttercup taking part in Jamie Oliver's experiment of teaching people to make spaghetti and meatballs, so as to motivate them towards healthier eating. She becomes so good at cooking over time that she opens her own restaurant, and then competes on an 'iron chef'-like program called Masterchef. She also discovered that she was pregnant at the time, by noting that she grew "bigger and bigger" until she had "to take a poo, and out came baby!" In a surreal and grotesque twist, Buttercup cooks her stillborn child as her dish in the competition,to the judges' approval and her triumph.
This first monologue bit was smoothly followed by a bit of audience interaction, in character, in which the audience was invited to ask questions about her life or for personal advice or about global matters. The first question, of course, was if Tom thought there was anything wrong with cooking infants. I don't remember the response. Another asked who would win the American election, which Tom confidently answered would be Eddie Murphy.
The second half's story followed along the first's, and was of another of Buttercup's forays into television. This time, after her restaurant burns down and she moves in with other family, she's asked to take part in a version of "The Only Way is Essex" for her own town (Lancashire), a show which I understand to be a bit like the Jersey Shore. The storyline becomes a bit more realistic, but no less funny than the first, with Buttercup falling in love with one of the other stars only to have him taken away by his jealous co-star, an overly-macho man who's secretly in love with him.
The show was an unique experience of theatre. In my experience, narrative monologues are some of the most difficult to deliver, since they don't give an immediate scenario for the actor to be in. The usual approach to telling them is to tell the story while living in it – to ignore the fact you're telling a story and act as though you're living it. The audience interaction of this show, from asking to borrow lipstick at the beginning to the bit in the middle, served to break this illusion and make it clear that when Buttercup was speaking, she was actually telling the story to us. The show was her telling this story, and
- For a review, check out Total Theatre Review.
Mother F
 |
| Image courtesy of The Royal Exchange. |
Mother F defines itself as a "raucous and touching tale about mothers, told through physical theatre, ridiculous choreography, ghostly projections and hilarious songs.." Unfortunately, about the best I can of Mother F is that it at least seemed like the performers involved were enjoying themselves. The style of humor was cheesy and weak, seeming to scream "hey, look! We're entertaining you!" with an ill-defined storyline broken up by painfully bad standup bits. The performers took the roles of two sisters rummaging through their mother's old things in the attic, and each object conjured up a memory. The use of props to create flashbacks is a solid technique that was effectively done, if a bit unclear in revealing the family's background. It was clear that the mother had at one point been a burlesque dancer, and that the older sister had left for New York after college, and that the younger sister was pregnant as a teenager, but these points were more factual than real. The scene of the sisters talking about the pregnancy and departure was touching, but otherwise I had no sympathy for the characters. The backgrounds were presented out of order, and there was no progression of experiences that could bring any kind of bond between the sisters and their mother.
I skipped the talkback session, but am told that the performers explained their style as drawing from vaudeville and cabaret, styles of disjoint and blatant humor that was certainly present in this show. Perhaps this would have done better with a different theme – not motherhood and mothers, a subject most audiences will have strong feelings about. Mothers were cheekily presented as, maybe, they may feel sometimes – machines that tidy toys and change diapers – but with no deeper sense of the profound relation between mothers and their children. In addition, the show often dismissed fathers in the hackneyed 'dopey hubby' stereotype, with no real role in their childrens' lives. "Mommy takes care of me, but Daddy is so funny!" As someone raised with two brothers by a widowed father, I took some offense to this.
Overall, if the cast had taken less time to try to make the audience laugh and more time giving them something to connect with, Mother F could have been a light-hearted take on the role mothers have in our lives. Though there were some heartfelt moments, these were swiftly drowned by shtick.
- A positive review: The Royal Exchange.
Centralia
 |
| Image courtesy of Total Theatre Review |
Unlike with Buttercup or Mother F, the three remain the same characters throughout the show while recreating different scenes of their home life and telling the story of the Centralia mine fire. They discuss their daily ritual of taking gas measurements and soil samples, and how they transport them around town by balloons and ziplines. They tell the almost-tragic story of a boy who was nearly killed by falling in a chasm, and survived because his shoes protected his feet, which prompts a quick dance number on the importance of protective footwear.
While most of the show was an ironically lighthearted comedy about a tragic story, there was a nervousness to the characters that flickered up now and then, like they were held at gunpoint and told to be happy. It seemed that the characters were a little too eager to prove how much they loved living in Centralia, despite its emptiness and dangers, because admitting a single fault would crack their illusion of how wonderful a place it is. The ending of the show did just that. When one character tells the audience that he's requesting a work permit and visa to come live in Bristol, the realness of the show breaks down. The three start moving in a slow motion struggle, with lights darkened or flashing, miming melodramatic interactions. The abstract bit builds to a peak, when a papier-mâché balloon flies across the stage on fishing line, illuminated by a single flashlight, as recordings of former Centralia residents play. The finish is beautifully dark and abstract, a final acknowledgement that the source of their comedy has been a tragedy.
As a final note: the American accents were pretty good. It took some time for me to catch that they weren't American actors, though they clearly weren't from Pennsylvania – the men sounded more midwestern, and the woman sounded Jewish New Yorker.
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