Solo Theatre

Solo Theatre Personal code: fht755 Subject: Theatre arts Session: May 2017 Word count: 2,896 Theatre in context: The theorist, the theory and the context Robert J. Wilson was born on October 4, 1941, in Waco, Texas. He is an American experimental Playwright and Theatre director who is also the world’s foremost avant-garde theatre artist. Avantgarde1 (Also known as experimental theatre) is a form of theatre which involves a great deal of creativity and innovation. Robert Wilson is known to be a significant visionary artist of the 20th century. His works have influenced the look of theatre and opera. He is known to taken roles of being a performer, choreographer, sculptor, video artist along with designing sound and light for productions. Wilson Established his own experimental performance company in 1968 named “Byrd Hoffman school of Byrd's”2, with whom he created his first of the many major works such as 'The life and times of Sigmund Freud’ in (1969). He later began to work on Opera and in the early 1970’s, he was coming with productions such as “Einstein on the Beach” along with composer Phillip Glass3. As an Experimental theatre director, Roberts work involves various elements of set designing, lighting, costume, and dance. His method to convey ideas and thoughts to the audience is mostly based on the visual aspects of the play rather than the linguistic part. In Addition, he uses certain props to amplify his visual communications. He does this by using creating sculptures, furniture designs, drawings along with the makeup applied on the artist. This allows him to give more importance to the visual aspect in order to transfer his thoughts and opinions to the audience and in the process he does so by using less text in his play. In the 1960s and 1970s, Wilson had rejected the revolt towards the traditional theatre and combined the approaches used by groups in New York such as the ‘Living Theatre’ and ‘Open Theatre’. Wilson supports a more elaborated and almost baroque4 type theatre in which he has a lot of control. Wilson’s work are aimed more towards being distant, formal cold as well as excluding much of human interaction and or dramatic content. As stated earlier, Wilson prioritises his use of visual aspects to convey his opinions to the audience rather than using language. This choice is seen in some of its work. This includes his version of Hamlet (1993) in which he had removed Shakespeare's text in order to create a hour-long drama. This is also seen in his previous plays 1 “Those artists, writers, musicians, etc, whose techniques and ideas are markedly experimental or in advance of those generally accepted” http://www.dictionary.com/browse/avant-garde 2 http://www.bruceduffie.com/wilson.html 3 Most influential music makers of late 20th century. http://philipglass.com/biography/ 4 Baroque theatre - “Baroque architecture and art is an elaborate style of architecture and art that was popular in Europe in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.” http:// dictionary.reverso.net/english-cobuild/Baroque%20Theatre such as “The Life and times of Josef Stalin” (1973), which was a 12-hour silent opera which was executed without a script. Since postmodernism theatre emerged as a reaction against modern theatre, it involves dissolving the existing ways of perceiving the world and one-self. Robert Wilson has been working very closely with postmodernism theory. Postmodernism Theory has enabled Wilson to allow the audience to have their own individual interpretations from the visual aspects that he presents. To achieve this, Wilson orchestrates strategies such as including a nonlinguistic montage, which displaces any direct meaning of the play in order to create a boundless play of language that is in a deconstructive method. He is also seen to challenge the idea that stage was considered to be a closed space. The theatrical tools he incorporates in his plays are non-linear drama5, music, sound, scenic display along with dance and silence that results in not letting the audience have any type of interpretation. He also makes use of the body to deliver his opinions through actions. He does this by encouraging his performers to do their actions at a slower pace. Wilson believes that similar control is required for his performers to deliver their dialogs, hence he trains them to speak such that their controlled intonations are nor robotic, nor dynamic. A prominent example for this can be his production A letter for Queen Victoria (1974) where the visual aspect was the initial focus. Postmodernism theory6 is about breaking the conventional form of theatre, arts, music and etc. That is, breaking the linear structure that exists in these arts and theatre. Hence Wilson’s use of postmodernism theory is very prominent in his plays as he uses it to convey his unconventional ideas. Similarly, he directs the stage towards the presentation of images, avoiding the norm of having a plot in his plays. Wilson believes that a theatre that is emotionally, visually and structurally organised gives room for the real truth (not represented truth) to exist in order to form a larger space for the honesty to persist.7 5 Non linear drama - i.e it lacks a linear plot. 6 “Postmodern theory is a broad and somewhat ambiguous belief system tied to the philosophical and cultural reaction to the convictions of Modernism (sometimes equated with Humanism). Postmodernism is the philosophical proposal that reality is ultimately inaccessible by human investigation, that knowledge is a social construction, that truth-claims are political power plays, and that the meaning of words is to be determined by readers not authors. In brief, Postmodern theory sees reality as what individuals or social groups make it to be.” http:// www.allaboutworldview.org/postmodern-theory.htm 7 “Often I feel that what I’m seeing onstage is based on a lie,” he says about traditionally acted theater. “You know, an actor thinks he’s being natural but he’s not, he’s acting natural and that is something that is artificial. By being artificial, I think you can…know more about yourself, be closer to…a truth.” https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/wilson/ Wilson has an interest in having the formal view on the theatrical aspects that goes together and out spreads to designs that are created by him. This includes having spare set pieces, notably the chairs that are suited to the mood or the characters of the play. Moreover, his intention to leave the audience amazed has made him focus on one of his most memorable and indescribable part of his pieces, which is the lighting. As stated earlier, Wilson was trained to be a lighting specialist along with an expert in set construction, choreography, directing and even dramaturgy. Theatre processes I chose to explore a character of a paranoid, sexually assaulted person for my solo piece. This topic engrossed me due to recent headlines in the news about “Bangalore mass molestation” that happened on 2017 New Year's Eve. I wanted to delve into the character and wanted to explore in a different aspect. Like, how would that person who went through mass molestation would be going through, how would she be feeling, and etc. For this act, I wanted to look into psychological affects through different aspects and hence I decided to do my solo piece with less verbal process and more of visual measures as it suited the best while exploring the character. Personally, for me, I wanted to explore visual theatre more than verbal theatre. Through this act, I wanted my audience to feel emotional, shocked, petrified and a little confused through my expressions and acting as I was playing a role of a paranoid, sexually assaulted person suffering from PTSD8. To portray the ‑ experience of the character, I used my ideas and creativity and as I was working through the style of Robert Wilson it was quite a challenging and a tough task. Thus, I started working on the ideas and the script of my performance while implementing Robert Wilson’s theories and conventions. I decided to have two different scenes based on the character. At first, it starts with a scene, when the character is in a normal state, she’s living her life very happily and she continues to do so. Later, in the next scene, she is shown in rehabs center, trying to heal, trying to get back to her normal life. All these scenes were presented through the use of gestures, movements, expressions and mainly visual setting. In the last scene I have involved few lines of text which portray thoughts and feelings of character and in other scene, I have portrayed thoughts and feelings through actions. Through this approach, the piece was less verbal and more visual, where it also fulfilled one of the techniques used by Robert Wilson. Moreover, to make the audience understand what the actor is trying to convey, I incorporated slow movement techniques, bodily movements, and gestures. Since I had freedom upon the text. I choose to select a short diary entry written by a sexually assaulted woman. She expresses how she feels and thinks. The criteria’s on choice of selecting such text was, 1. It should be including personal feeling, personal details and experiences. 2. As I chose to play a role on paranoid sexually assaulted women, for my it was very important to have a look at various diary entries that showed me different experiences and different stories of different people with the same issue, being sexually assaulted. 8 PTSD - Post Traumatic stress disorder. https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/basics/ what-is-ptsd.asp By selecting short diary entry and by following these criteria for the diary entry, it gave me a lot of opportunities to work closely with the feelings of the writer of the diary entry and it also gave me an opportunity to closely work with the aspects that Robert Wilson includes in his plays such as, Using specific lights and space according to the set design and props, having very detailed set design and very specific props, using paint as makeup, moreover, integrating more visual imagery and gestures by having very less text and more bodily movements through more of facial expressions and movements. Robert Wilson asserts “I prefer formalism in presenting a work because it creates more distance, more mental space,”9 He has always believed that creating distance from reality by being artificial will convey the reality and the storyline better since the audience will get closer to the truth and will understand the importance of it better. He used that technique by being more structurally, procedurally, emotionally, and visually controlled a theatrical situation. As he creates distance for more mental space, he does that with the help of use of makeup, set designing, prop designing, mainly light designing and by not following the linear of the storyline. Hence, For my solo performance, I decided to mainly work on the non linearity of the scenes, set designing and lights designing that Robert Wilson uses for his theatre performances in order to show the reality of the story and light because that adds better effect on conveying the story and emotions/feelings to the audience. For the set designing and prop designing, in the first scene of my performance I decided to have a very detailed set with some sound which depicts the routine of the person, like, string milk in the mug, the sound of putting sugar inside the mug and etc. Detailed setting and sound effects were intentionally done by me because as my first scene didn’t have any text I had to showcase it visually. I wanted to show how the actor, was following her daily morning routine with her coffee, everything was fine, she recovered from her past incident. And so, for my first scene I chose to have a very detailed set setting as in the starting of the scene one I wanted to showcase as if the actor was happy and nothing every happened to her as I wanted to show the audience how each and every individual ‘shows’ how happy they are but inside their heart/mind a lot of problems are rushing and what kind of incidents they have been through and to showcase that I started the first scene with showing daily morning routine and ended my first scene with a loud and scary screams. However, in my second scene, the stage designing and prop designing was very minimal. I tried to show a rehab center, I only used a table, very simple bed, and a chart paper that was stuck on the wall on which the actor could draw out her feeling and what is going on in her mind. Along with the choice of my set and props, it very well complimented with my costume since I chose to wear a 9 https://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/wilson/ black top, with a very dark green shorts. This choice was made because I wanted to keep the costume simple but in relation to my character. Since black is a strong colour to portray darkness very powerfully; this costume choice suited the best. As I’ve used by working on the techniques of Robert Wilson is the set design. As mentioned, one of the main aspects in Wilson’s theatre is set design that it generally includes elements such as furniture that makes it visually unrealistic and also creates the ‘distance’, and props. Hence for my piece, I made use of many props such as tables, chairs, dish, spoons, coffee mug, chart paper, black paint, bed, blanket, pillows and newspaper. All these props were in relation to my scenes and also fulfilled the criteria of working on the methods and conventions of Robert Wilson. Additionally, the usage of chart paper, black paint and table contributed a lot in portraying the set to be visually unrealistic as well as helped me a lot while performing since the black paint, chart paper and empty table showcased a change and different world from my character’s perspective and gave it an opportunity to personify them to showcase the experience and feeling of the paranoid sexually assaulted women. In addition the For the lights it helped a lot in supporting both the above choices. For the lights, I used 5 different lights, 2 yellow spot light, one white spot light and 2 yellow flood lights. They were different in respect to their colour, intensity, and the area they focused on stage. My decision of using these light were because, on the stage the three different places showed the variation between the change of the thoughts, feelings and experiences which through the three sport lights I used made it easier and clear for the audience to understand the storyline and the piece. Similarly, I used flood lights in the beginning of the first scene to show that the play is continuing an ongoing story of the character itself. Another instance of using the flood lights was in the beginning of the 2nd scene, which portrayed a transition as well as the change in location on the stage. This change in lights from the end of the previous scene enabled the audience to focus on the characters emotions as well as set the appropriate mood for the scene.These choices were very beneficial to my performance since it amplified my costume, props and the set, through which it was easier for me to show the way the character was feeling and what she has experience. To conclude, I chose to work on particularly on the non verbal aspect which complimented a whole set of visual component such as the set design, props design, costume and lights, in relation to the postmodernism theory and how Robert Wilson incorporates it in his style. Evaluation of the presentation As my act was on paranoid, sexually assaulted person suffering from PTDS. I wanted my audience to feel emotional, shocked, petrified and a little confused through my expressions and acting as I mentioned before. I feel I was successful in doing that as I had an interactive session in which audience would comment on my performance or ask me questions related to the performance. While having an interactive session, audience gave me feedbacks, asked me questions and told me about what they thought about the performance.The reaction to the performance by the audience were mostly focused on “Having goose bumps” which tells me that audience strongly felt the emotions which I wanted them to feel. Before the final I play, in the feedback session I was advised to also incorporate with face painting since Robert Wilson strongly incorporated face painting as a method to create ‘distance’, however, I feel that using that technique wouldn’t be a good idea for my performance as I think without face painting technique I could better express the emotion and experience/feelings of the paranoid sexually assaulted women’s expressions and gestures, and hence, maybe the transfer of emotion and my intention was very strong through this style of acting, which represented the character and its disorder. Additionally, the comments that I received from the audience involved on how the audience had to keep a track on what was going on the play to get closure of what was happening, what was the story about and how the story was building on with little hints. By the end of the play they also mentioned about what they thought the play was about. It also involved on taking a risk with the style of the theorist and the type of character chosen, but the piece turned out to be very well executed. Adding on, the raw emotions were portrayed powerfully and hence it felt as a natural mode of enactment of the piece. Moreover, the use of props on set was done very well and the choice of having detailed light design amplified the expressions through which the audience was able to see my gesture and emotions through lights properly. In conclusion, my aim was to explore the mediums of theatre more than entertainment, I wanted to leave a social message and make audience to think about it. So, after receiving all the comments, questions and thoughts by the audience, it can be said that the intentions I was trying to fulfil were successfully satisfied. Moving on, this solo project has immensely helped and outgrown me. I was really content and satisfied with this project, and I feel I was able to explore my character very well. But one of the limitation was that I should have prepared the plan for light design prior so that I could have been able to use variety of lights to portray better effects of lights through Robert Wilson’s theory. Moreover, in my opinion, achieving the success to play this character so well by using a different style was a challenging task and hence achieving that successfully had deepened my interest in theatre. This has definitely set a gauge for myself to experiment with more diverse roles and keep improving in my work for upcoming projects like these. Performance day