Transcript Creative Collaborations Between Directors and Designers

CREATIVE COLLABORATIONS
BETWEEN DIRECTORS AND
DESIGNERS
Ruth Pe Palileo, PhD. Current Theatrics
The Philippine Educational Theatre
Association
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The Philippine Educational Theatre Association
(PETA) developed and propagated a distinctive
theatrical style in the 1970s and 1980s which they
characterised within what they termed “the
aesthetics of poverty”—aesthetics that are
Philippine-centred and rooted in the Third World
economic perspective.
The Aesthetics of Poverty
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All you own is: Who you are, what you say, what you can carry.
“How can an artist claim to be socially responsible when he mounts
high-cost productions during times of deprivation?” (Fajardo, p. 4)
“To produce on as low a budget as possible, using the least
expensive and readily available materials….The endless
possibilities of working with commonly-used and inexpensive
materials were explored, producing works that have been both
economical and aesthetic" (Fajardo, p. 3-4).
Inexpensive materials or found objects were turned sets, props and
costumes so that images projected essence rather than sheen.
“Limitations provided a venue for the imagination to soar.”
Message/Objects/Forms Lead your
Design
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INTERVIEW YOUR PLAY (What is the ‘message in the bottle’ this play
is speaking at this place, at this time?’ A production’s message will
change where it is performed and when it is performed.
DO FIELD WORK: Use indigenous of common materials and forms to
revitalize your production and evoke a collective unconscious.
PUT NOTHING ONSTAGE THAT DOES NOT SPEAK: Every object—
costume, actor, prop—used onstage is used in "developing an issue
or theme" (Cloma, p. 162).
USE IMAGINATIVELY ALL THAT YOU PUT ONSTAGE: "Several forms
are combined, not only to enhance the play with ornaments, but to
be a medium in itself, to bring their message to the fore" (Cloma, p.
162).
But which props? Which forms?
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“Take the cue from life itself”.
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Once you choose the play, head out into the community and
do the “interview.”
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[Exercise – interview each other about the play. One word to
one sentence answer! What does your gut say the message of
the scene is? It is always an urgent and important message
because theatre is urgent and important!]
Take photos, sketch, or in some cases pick up and bring with
you, the props/objects from life itself.
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[Exercise – go take some pictures in the next 15 minutes of
ordinary objects and forms that make you think of the scene
we’ve chosen]
Some Plays Spell Out Your Critical
Object/Form
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Othello, Shakespeare – Desdemona’s handkerchief
The Chairs, Ionesco – chairs, lots of them
Rag and Bone, Haidle - hearts
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is hard to get past the ruthless simplicity of his
metaphors. Here the human heart is a stand-in for, well,
the human heart.” (NY Times Review 2007)
 Aesthetics of Poverty response: By placing the hearts
onstage, we imbue them with additional significance;
each choice we make for a heart adds another layer of
significance. Message of the play: our hearts matter.
Augusto Boal, add layers by
transforming your object
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“Never should an object be used on stage, whatever it may be, in exactly the way it is found
within the home or in the shop window.
“All images must be aestheticised, modified, transformed, in such a way that they will contain
the opinion of the group about the object, be it a table, a chair, a hat, a tie, a door, an
earring, a cow, a horse, a goat, a feather-duster, anything whatsoever that is seen: image.
“If we need a telephone, the only thing we must not put on stage is a real telephone. If we do
use one, we must change its colour, its size, or cut it up leaving the wires showing, or place ten
phones on top of each other, sprayed yellow or violet—these are just ideas off the top of my
head.
“The point is that the telephone cannot come straight out of the shop and on to the stage,
because it will come invested with the ideology of the shop. If we aestheticise the phone, it will
translate our opinion, unless we do that, it will speak the opinion of its manufacturer.
Every object should always be the carrier of an opinion, of a value, a significance, an
ideology” (Aesthetics of the Oppressed. Boal, 2006, p 123, emphasis mine)
Magno Rubio, Victory Gardens,
Chicago - Chairs
Romance of Magno Rubio, layering by
unexpected use
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(Victory Gardens production 2003)
Magno Rubio features one chair onstage which, by its placement,
serves the usual functions of chairs for one of the five players.
In addition, there are two chairs, hanging on the backstage wall like
empty picture frames or decorations. The 'typical' use of the first
chairs highlights the 'atypical' use of the other two.
Two chairs are “missing”because not used as a chair.
In one scene, a Player pulls down an chair to drum upon it.
In another scene, Magno picks the fourth chair up tenderly and
dances with it. The chair is the woman he wants to marry, also
missing.
Message: There will never be enough chairs, emphasising material
poverty
Skull in Connemara - graves
Skull in Connemara – layer by picking
the form/object up in your design
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Evanston, IL 2000?
Every surface became a grave onstage
The set featured tables that included gravestones,
and a grave in the centre of the floor under the
carpet
Costumes of gravestone hue
Dramaturge’s display in the lobby was all pictures
of graves she had visited
Passion the Pale, Last Supper
Passion in the Pale, condemnation
Passion in the Pale, Veronica, Peter
Passion in the Pale, crucifixion
Passion in the Pale – layer by multiple
appearances of the same form/object
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My 2009 production in Dublin, Ireland
Costumes – contrast between white cloth and everyone’s
street clothing in the audience
Veronica’s cloth – green colour symbolising Ireland
Mary with blue cloth
Red soldiers
Purple regal – also cloth is richer, detailed
Paul –fishing wool, Irish sailors
Emphasise the cross in the Last Supper
Blood of Christ was a red cloth pulled out from behind
Jesus
[Exercise] Finding our critical object
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Look at the pictures we’ve taken
Interview the objects and forms in them. What are
they saying? Is it the same message the play is
speaking?
Choose some critical objects and forms
Identify some key moments in the scene
How could we use our critical object/form at these
key moments to heighten the scene?
Exercise – Build a Show in 20 minutes
Let us make a play using a bunch of newspapers
Step 1. Interview – what is the message this play is speaking?
Step 2. Critical Objects and Forms – the newspaper
Step 3. Identify Key Moments that could be heightened using
the critical object
Step 4. Transform the Key Object into:
Set, Costume, Props
Step 5. Review the Play
Always ask, are the ways I use actor/dialogue/objects
speaking the essential message?
Psychological Reasons why the
Aesthetics of Poverty Cohere Onstage
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Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow
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“What you see is all there is”
Humans instinctively work to make a cohesive narrative with just the
elements you put in front of them
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The human brain also tosses out anything that doesn’t add to that
narrative
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The audience’s brains work with you to fill in any blanks that strengthen your
story
The audience’s brains also work to ignore all the frills onstage that don’t add
to the story
This works in your favour, as a director and designer
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As Stew said, the audience wants you to succeed
SO, each time you reinforce your essential message onstage, it’s like a secret
message to your audience, one that only they know because they showed up
in this time, in this place.
These Objects Keep Speaking
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A prop takes on a life of its own when it refuses to act
proppily (Andrew Sofer)
"If we put a table and two chairs on stage, the chairs and
the table will be speaking all the time and saying, non-stop,
things that chairs and tables say. If, in two plays following
on from each other—with different characters, stories and
subject matters—the same chairs and the same table stay
on stage, during the second piece they will continue saying,
monotonously, the same things they were saying in the first,
even though that piece was about other subjects and with
other characters" (Boal, 2006: p. 122).
These Objects Can Also Be Used to
Resist A Time and Place
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Critical forms/objects placed onstage can be used
to resist the objects that are being glorified in
“reality”
PETA resisted a dictatorship with numerous shows
developed and designed using this process
Please use the objects you put onstage to speak of
love, kindness, humanity and, when necessary,
resistance
Thank you!
Read more
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Aesthetics of Poverty (monograph by Brenda Fajardo)
The Stage Life of Props, Andrew Sofer
Performing Objects and Theatrical Things, ed Marlis Schweitzer and
Joanne Zerdy
Shakespeare Performance and the Archive, Barbara Hodgdon
2016.
50 years at the National Theatre archive
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https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/about-the-national-theatre/archive
Visit Our own Smithsonian, other museums. See how the objects are
speaking to you about their times. Do your “field work there
Thinking Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman 2013.