street play primer- deconstructing a street play

a street play is not so much about getting into the character as it is about getting the collective behind the message. So the first and the MOST IMPORTANT THING- everyone in the team should relate with the message.

having said that its not that easy, people laying the play need to understand the political stance of the play and why is the group taking that stance, politics is central to the narrative and hence its understanding.. once that is built and the motivations of each character is understood lets get down to the other part.

next step is to do a play reading few times and get comfortable with the script. then start deconstructing it. a street play proceeds formation by formation, the way a play has scenes a street play has formations, but there is more to formation than this. formations are symbolic, and this idea can be used much more beautifully. since characters are not frozen (except maybe generally the narrator/sutradhar)Start working on formations first, work on walk, on building the attract street grabbing personalities that you have to become.....to build that refer to multiple acting session tips before and after this post.dressing up as a group in one getup suited to a streetplay genre will do good.

next layer is sound, sound from the movement, sound from body (yell, thump, clap) it should synchronously move fluidly with physical movements as if choreographed., take the ambiant sound into account, a passing train, traffic signal, vehicles honking....integrate that into narrative... make that a part of telling the story....next is the added sound ( a dufli, bucket, metal, guitar-though its uncommon, banging plates etc)... treat all these carefully and think before adding/ subtracting them

last layer is the spoken work- the tehen
street play scripts clearly can be divided into three segments -
rhythmic- singing,
internal narrative- dialogues/ character statement/introduction
interactive narrative- interacting with audience and talking to them(beyond the sutradhar's wordings)

approach and build it layer by layer and showcase when ready....here is one excercise video from suzuki's methods that might be helpful. Also adding to the list of videos is some live performences of street plays.

getting into act -1 the actor's wall/ layers in actor

always ask for an actor's brief from the director.

age, height, stature, habits, geographical belongings form the first layer
family background, marital /relational status and situation forms the other
the overall problematic, motivation for the character to be in the story and do the things he/ she does form the third layer
the story forms the fifth layer
scene forms the sixth( look for the act and break it down into small sets, find reasoning to move from one act to another) look for stance and mood of the scene.
composition of the action - are all guys high pitched, is the overall scene balanced, is it giving you the reaction it is supposed to give.
Movements form the seventh layer, the movement of muscles required to execute the scene , emotions behind these movements....overall body movement in stage from one location to another.
Voice projection forms the eight layer...tone, pitch, accent and clarity
Dialogues form the ninth and the last layer.

create a wall with all these details( use post its) observe actual people, take snaps/ recordings, live with them if possible to empathize  with them and understand the characters in detail. dont give in to generalization and study surrounding/ supporting situations and environments. have videos if any....and then build up the act. make this wall visual and easy to refer. can also have a playlist of the songs for the character to help you get into one.

rhythm with breath- movement

as a group start inhaling and exhaling together while sitting . work on the beats variate it 1 bps, 2 bps (1/2), 4  bps(1/4), 8 bps (1/8), 16 bps (1/16) and 32 bps(1/32). you can also use a percussion instrument such as some kind of drum to time the movements together. once this is mastered, plan rhythm patterns  and physical formations. execute formations with breathing rhythm as the background music.

bring complexities with rhythm patterns on one layer and formations on another. try playing with assymetry in formation. create firm memory of moves and movements.

muscle tension and relaxation

Either wrap a wet fabric around or use a sandbed. lie down on the ground with your back facing the surface and your belly up. look at the impression you have made on the ground . the areas not touching the ground have tensed muscle(also account for body's curvilinear surface, some parts will never touch the ground). keep working on relaxing the tense muscles so that they can refresh you faster and get you ready for the act soon.

repeat with belly facing the ground.

lie down again with back facing the ground. start concentrating on your tows and chanalize body energy there. can u feel muscles warming up, can you contract and expand them using tension and relaxation....keep moving up and getting sensitive about your entire body muscle group, in the process learn to isolate them and flex only a fixed set of muscle groups for one movement.

external/internal mobility

ask the actors to sit still and start finding their calmness centres. ask them to ponder over the idea of internal/ external mobility. shifting their attention between the chaos going inside of them reflecting about what they are feeling inside and then shifting that attention to outside listening and seeing whet is happening there.

walking- space awareness

this exercise will help the actor tune his muscle memory, marrying it to the mental/ physical space that he is in right now.its a group exercise and ideally done in numbers upwards of 8.
decide if you want actors to imagine the space/mental space.

for a mental space , you ask them to start walking, ask them to walk faster breaking any mental patterns they are making during the activity, ask them to cris-cross. ask them to imagine a crouded space yet a private one (railway station, airport/ football stadium, any public space),
change that to a public yet community space such as college campus where people will identify and greet each other.keep changing the space from most intimate to public, from authoritative to relaxing, from sanitized to chaotic and ask people to get sensitive about how the space is dictating their behavior.

you can repeat this exercise in groups of two where one person is blindfolded while the other person guides him. its interesting to see how the small group dynamics work out within the constrains of space when the faith and responsibility become the obvious roles in a given situation

for the physican space excercise its good to get blindfolded and feel the space in terms of textures, sounds , people. and then start claiming your own by motion, jumping, dancing, being fearless.

change motion with claps you can bring pauses such as sit, stand jump which sync up with clap frequency ( one/ two/ three).

taking feedback from actors as the session ends

finding your centre- body balance(warm up)

Exercise1
stand with your feet apart at shoulder length, mentally divide your body into two.
top half and bottom half.picture your waist to be the central axis.
mentally shift all your body weight to the bottom half. feel the stability at bottom and your top half resting over it, almost as if its floating . then in one go, let your top body fall.

Exercise2
stand with your feet apart at shoulder length, mentally divide your body into two. left and right.
arch up your hands in a peak type formation. picture as if a thread is passing through the joinary of your palms through your navel down to the ground. mentally shift your weight from one half to another as you oscillate from one side to other. find your balance.

training excercises for actors-Introduction

acting in a play is a systematic process. knowledge and awareness of self, of the character, the scene and getting into the character is a deliberated sequence. a lot of work has already gone behind this and i would just want to compile and keep it here in form of exercises to go through for the production.

the necessary ones can be utilized to prepare for the act.
they are drawn from Constantin Stanislavski's method acting, popular suzuki methods used in japanese theatre and other sources. videos and images are included as reference where ever required.

bhagode 2nd draft

Bhagode 2nd Draft

bhagode 1st draft

Bhagode-By Anand Jha

bhagode final draft.....done

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57026075

how would a writer work around his block

its tough to have a day job you cant' give up
it pays your bills and you love it.

its hitting me tough dividing my love between work and other engagements i take up
be it bhagode  or urban hyperbole....two projects that i am working on right now...and its getting a tough task just to be with these projects.

i loose connection with my characters, they stop talking to me and then they fade out into places you cant get in.
another thing i hate about theatre is that you cant' pick up from where you left. lots of people do it part time to cope up with their loneliness, failed marriages, kids grown spouse busy, attention seeking stuff... may be its giving them a social circle but beyond that its not taking them anywhere.theatre is a bloody fulltime work. you can do cinema part time ..but theatre...nah....

what do you do to cope with this. i know i am slipping away if i do not do this everyday.....and i do not have answers as yet

another character

yet another character i stumbled upon at partho ghosh's kalbela. a woman who falls in love with a naxal and produces a child out of wedlock as the man wants to bring another possibility of change in the world.man drifts away towards his core ideologues and persuit of what he things as bigger goals of life while she is left to her fate in urban slum. man  is released 15 years later from the jail where he comes out paralyzed after police atrocities and revisits the woman. ...some changes ...woman is a poet and she doesnt come out and move to slum in the hands of fate but joins this previous character in constructing this space that houses runaways, they are in a relationship, and in a sense this man's persistent silence completes the woman's anguish....what does this women bring, i would want to say a left of left approach, a fresh perspective on romantics, that had a different outlook to world and another to their interpersonal relations, she brings a question that i felt ghosh missed in the film, a possibility of fighting daily battles of staying true to the core.....what would i call her.....i do not know...

from the last post

this one is going on a different route. in ways it'll complete the circle i started at antaraal. i had characters and i grew a story out of them . here, in this one i have a story and i'm going to grow characters. i have my first one...shariq...old man ...runs a commune; an asylum if you may, of artists. a poet , a painter....at peace with himself or too mellowed to fight battles that just take his quiet away. he makes love to men and women but its not a celebration, its an encounter or that is what he says, a chance to know someone, when they want to be known, when they are comfortable with you.....he is ok at being misunderstood...he has all his life dealt with it...running away from understandings too small to understand him...or from misunderstandings which are strong, heartful and often violent towards him and his work.....and he often breaks down in his own space. what keeps him going...his work...the fact that he is made everyday of what he does. work is his nature , his aggregate. and yet there is a detachment. from himself...from work and from people.his defence mechanism against hurt...against what prevents him from being....his mind is free...pure and silent . it functions like a watch...slowly silently and consistently. he is the base flavour of the story. he is mild and lingering....he will let you add more flavours...sharp, tangy....i dont know....let us see who all come up now.

rethinking bhagode

we rarely know what we havn't seen or felt. And comfort of what we have seen pushes us to negate this unseen , unfelt thing.
what most of us see or feel is manufactured and controlled and constructed to aggregate and manupulate a business, an ideology, an institution.
what does that result in...a constant marginalization of  the unseen and then unfelt (for the majority of course)

simply put, this is the essense of Bhagode. These three pointers.

my accident has put the production on the shelve giving me enough time to rethink and rewrite the play(or will it be a play?)bhagode shall keep evolving and in the meantime i'll see what is blooming in the fields i've never visited.

we are one messy species:)

rethinking bhagode

So space
And then
You are done with all that did not happen
And after all
How long will you fool around
With the fact.
That there is no world beyond what you see.
To be
Is to be me....

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