Unit 4: Blogologues - Reflection & Evaluation of Run Throughs (Self and Peers)

I think my individual performance was okay. I don’t think my performance met perfection in terms of general flow and I don’t think it necessarily effectively communicated the message to the audience. The point of the piece was to convey to the audience the busy life of mothers in a marriage, and how marriage has a negative impact on the lives of women, as men are lazy in raising children. I think mainly my message wasn’t so effectively conveyed because of the audience perhaps, as it was a younger group of teenagers. But I do think some of the people in the audience were able to relate from the complaints of their own mothers. I think I could have slightly expanded the scene by adding my own dialogues of something more Bengali, so that the scene would have more humor.

I could have bettered my personal performance by adding extra dialogues to match the culture a little bit. The initial plan was to introduce the two characters in my scene (myself and Mushanna) as two married ladies for two different parts of the world. However, the closest blog I could find was the one we performed. As we couldn’t find a quick way to change our costumes, which was initially the way, we were planning on portraying the different cultures. Also, I think that I could have used more props to make the scene seem more real, and really assist the audience to be a part of the scene.

My contributions to the entire performance were partially the opening scene, the closing scene and my scene itself. The closing scene was a cleverly thought by me. I thought as a lot of the scenes were showing the negatives of marriage. I aimed to construct the last scene as the positive outcome of love & marriage; family. Although I don’t think the closing scene was as crisp as it could have been, I do think that with more practice it would have made the perfect closing scene and it would have left the audience I nice scene to smile at. Some of the effects of the last scene were not properly done. For example, armin was meant to be the photographer taking the family portraits, and the pictures were meant to be instantly projected. It however did not work out as planned. It was meant to be more of a tableau style ending.

I think we all worked really well in our group, we attempted to help one another for the most part. Mushanna’s scene was short, but it was down to the point which was good- it didn’t allow the audience to loose their attention span at any point, or get bored. Ulughbeck’s scene was a little lengthy but it had a few funny scenes, and the mere fact that people laughed at the parts was proof that the audience was tuned into the scene although it was long. Shubham’s scene had a couple of funny parts, the most memorable being “onegina”, which as expected teenagers found funny because it was a dirty joke. At this point I realized, we could have added a bit more of that for humor- however that doesn’t fall under any artistic approach. Armin’s scene which I partook in, was completely improvised, I didn’t have prior knowledge about it, I was just told about the subject of the scene and we practiced it 10 minutes before the actual performance, thus I don’t think the scene was as developed as it could have been in terms of props, or other detail.

Armin- Scene decided last minute- performed without any practice, due to her absence and not so high commitment level during her presence. Curiosity about what's going on was satisfactory. Mushanna- actively committed. Fulfilled the job of an assistant director. Helped solve problems along the way- and contributed great ideas. She had self-motivation and initiative. Got the tasks done that I assigned her with. Shubham- Got his work done on time. Contributed ideas during our performances. Encouraged the rest of us in a positive way, when we encouraged him to. Got the tasks I assigned him with done for class. Ulughbeck- Moderately committed. Finished his work, but didn't contribute many ideas to the group. Worked with us in a positive way, with encouragement. 

Group Peer Critique

“Annoying parents” (Mifrah’s group)-

Saniya’s first one was long and effective and she made a good use of people to match their actions to her speech. Although, she did speak too fast which didn't let the audience soak in the previous "rules".

The Chinese accent one was funny, however if the accent was carried on from both of the parents, then it would have been funnier- also the remarks could be slightly exaggerated. 

I feel that the entire group needs to work on voice projection, Hamza and Vanessa did well with this however the other members need to be louder. 

I think all of their pieces used nice staging, they had the speaker placed in an appropriate spot with the actors in the background, without being completely neglected. 

Transitions? There weren't any clear ones. 

The opening and closing was not so clear, was there an opening scene? 

During vanessa’s part, why is Hamza standing in the back? Has no effect, he probably doesn't need to be there, or if he is then perhaps some action would justify his presence. 

“Awkward moments’ (Ayat’s group)-

This group had a clear opening scene with Mezba entering, and introducing it comically, although I think he could be a little more casual rather than the formal opening because then it doesn't look as cool. 

The first scene (not quite sure who's) was rather too short. I didn't quite understand the reason or story behind the piece. 

Everyone in the group needs to work on voice projection- only Ayat seemed to be moderately loud, everyone else I could barely hear. 

Most of their voices were quite monotoned and flat- add some excitement, or awkwardness, or something to spice it up and make it look less dead. 

Scripts in hand…

Ayat has good expressions and voice projections- her exaggeration makes it funny

Transitions?

Clear ending?

Googledoc link

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0Bwkqkxi3AUeRbXFLQ3BpaFBLS28/edit

Unit 4: Blogologues - Task 6 - Production Roles

Part 1: Research your production role in the theatrical community. What kinds of real life jobs relate to your production role? Why are they important to theatrical companies, individual productions, and the world of theatre?

Part 2: I think that the role of the director is an important one. The director is really in charge of enforcing the theme throughout the production, and making sure that the other members are using their imaginations and abilities to their full capabilities. The director more or less is in charge to guide the other members in ensuring that the costume, staging, technical details, script, etc. is all perfectly appropriate for the production.

Part 3: I think that I am well-equipped and skilled to fulfill this role. That is because I think I hold enough responsibility skills to get the work done on time, and of good quality. Although I do think that I will be able to fulfill this real, some things I have to work on is getting myself organized. I think often when I lead things and have responsibility, I forget to do my own work on time like, the tasks for example. Although I tend to be naturally bossy, I need to work on sticking to my word to make sure when group members are assigned to do something, they get it done. I realized in one day that if someone doesn't do the work; the entire group has to suffer and waste time. So, its important for everyone to fulfill their responsibility. So I need to work on, keeping everyone on track.  

Part 4: Some things that are on my priority list as a director is to:
>Guide the other people with different production roles to get their work done- or guide them simply on what to do.
>I also need to push and make sure they get their separate segments done
>To find blogposts for their separate segments & plan it out, assist so that they at least have some sort of base to go off of. 

Unit 4: Blogologues - Directors Only Task

The concept of my production is to interpret the different views of love and marriage. Whether its pessimistic or optimistic views on love & pessimistic or optimistic views on marriage, I want to show it through my production. I want to convey the concept of love and marriage from the perspective of different people, and cultures. 

I want to communicate that there are both positives and negatives to the concept of love and marriage, and it varies from person to person or culture to culture. For example in the american culture, love is a very common thing and most marriages are a result of the discovery of love or genuine feelings for each other. Many in the american culture (from the stereotypical view I have) would think its rather unusual to be get married in an arrange manner. Most would consider it old-fashioned and not realistic. However, in many parts of the world like, Bangladesh for example, although love is becoming a more normal concept in the bangladeshi society, arranged marriages are usually the way to go when it comes to getting married. These are two contradicting perspectives on love and marriage, and they are interpretations of the different cultures that are practiced within the countries. This contradiction of perspective is what I want to communicate with my piece. 

My overall artistic approach will be to make sure that there are segments that relate or intertwine specific cultures. So for example, the bangladeshi view on love/ marriage vs. the american view on love/ marriage. I want to convey these views in a funny way but at the same time making sure its not exactly insulting. 

Some decisions that I have made are that 

• The transitions will be quotes of love/ marriage, either from song lyrics, books or quote websites, perhaps even blogs. (Idea from Ms. Kimmy) 
• Characters are going to be assigned depending on the interests of the group members. After our initial discussion, I will assign character roles depending on their major interest. 
• Although I plan on assigning characters after the initial group meeting, Shubham should definitely play a father role at one point of the piece. 

Unit 4: Blogologues - Task 3 - Find Your Own Material

Blogs that would be a good source of material for myself: 

Blog 1:http://brandingbrands.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/50-reasons-not-to-marry-a-bengali-girl/

This blog is about bengali girl problems. It basically talks about why not to marry bengali girls, and the blog consists of many issues that we are intertwined with on a regular basis. They are problems that we see regularly in several instances and since I am so familiar with the content of the blog it would be a good source of material for myself to perform. This blog incorporates a list of problems, which each could either be a source to act out the problem, or the problem could be a performance itself. 

Blog 2: http://superwhitegirlproblems.tumblr.com/

This blog is about white girl problems. Similar to bengali girl problems- it would be interesting to compare the differences and similarities and identify how many connections the stereotypical white girl and the stereotypical bengali girl have. This would be a good source of material because again, white girl problems are something that I've seen made fun of, and its something people joke about on a regular basis. It's something that would be straightforward to act out. 

Blog 3: http://revivenations.org/blog/2013/05/18/arranged-marriage-or-love-marriage/

This blog is about arranged marriage vs. love marriage. This would be an interesting source for a performance because it has different segments, with different questions and parts about marriage. The one part that seemed most interesting to me is "What happens in an arranged marriage?". This question is answered in a general form with the most stereotypical overview of arranged marriage, and it would be very good to make a performance out of. It's also interesting because arranged marriage has a similar stereotypical overview in our society, and the familiarity with the problem would make a good performance piece. 

The blog that I chose to create a plan for: is blog 1 & 2. 

The performance would consist of two groups of people. One staging white girls problems and the other would be bengali girl problems. The groups could be as little as 2 people and as big as 10 people because both blogs have enough material for such large groups to perform them. The concept for the piece is to show a comparison of white girls and "brown" girls (as bengali girls are often referred to as). The point of the comparison would be for the audience to identify the differences (hopefully similarities) between the stereotypical problems of the different cultured females. I think both would be funny to see. I'm trying to communicate that although the stereotypical identity is from two completely different cultures, they still have commonalities. 

As far as staging elements go I think that for costumes it can either be kept simple or totally unusual. The different groups of different cultures "white" and "brown" could either be wearing opposite cultured clothing, so white girls wearing brown girl conservative clothes or vice versa. OR a safe way to play it would be if white girls wore white girls clothes and brown girls either wore kameezes or more conservative clothes, which could be western. No major props should be needed, other than perhaps simple girl tools like; makeup for example. For staging, the two groups would be facing opposing each other and it would be a somewhat showdown scenario. Where one person- or the performers for a particular problem step forward to perform it. 

These individual problems should be performed one by one to each group, and the performers should have their own take on each problem to make the entire performance a form of comedy which is the ultimate goal; to make the audience laugh. The content itself is funny, so there isn't much needed to get people to laugh.