Going to the chapel and we're gonna get ma a a rried

ah, reviewing crappy plays is always fun and oh so very entertaining. Anywhooo

a couple of weeks ago we went to act in the one act play festival in san silvestre, what we also got to do (quite a landmark of my life, might i say.) is watch the plays of the other schools. three of them. in the same day.

the first one, well, i arrived 5 mins late to the festival so i didn't get to see the beggining; was about an orphanage kind of thing with a bunch of school girls who are pregnant and get by by singing the songs from the girl groups they love. I gotta give it to them, it sure sounds like an interesting premise (on paper).
my first impression was that it was well staged, ok, not so well staged but what i meant is that it had the basics, just what they needed, no gimmicks. Mainly because all the actios were either in an office area for the unpregnant woman in charge of the preggie ones (this was only iluminated when in use, a technique that i found very useful, especially with a restricted amount of space.) and a room area with a bunch of beds where the girls would sit sleep talk chew some gum and play with their super hot sansil hair. so as far as scenery i thought they were ok, i say ok and not great because it was too obvious, too real almost, they didn't have a design concept. so, is a design concept needed? could a play just be presented the way in which life really is? and if so, wouldn't the acting have to be as real as possible? (therefore not for theatre because in theatre, you need to act for the audience, always keeping them in mind, otherwise, your play has no purpose and if it does you might as well write it in your diary because no one will understand it.)

so, heh, the acting. it wasn't very good, it seemed as if they didn't rehearse enough or just didn't care at all. they all looked like sansilvestre girls who had to pretend to be pregnant sansilvestre girls. you know what i mean? like totally. and if they were just not able to pull a character off, then try harder to be a sansilvestre girl, because, these girls in the institution were girls from highschool, so it could've worked, if more work had been put into it. which makes me think, did the director assume that it was ok for them to act as sansilvestre girls because they were playing girls somewhat their age? and if so, is it good enough if the director just says "ok, do what you do because that is what your character asks of you"? why? which makes me them wonder why have archetypes? and actors playing the same kind of role over again (in spanish golden age) ? which makes me them realize that it's because they did a damn good job at it, they rehearsed their booties of, they put an effort which is what these girls lacked. It was so obvious,like, so...obvious (little jabs at the sansil gals, sorry can't help myself.) because when they had to say their lines they thought about them, and the audience could tell, then they waited but not listened to what the other character (notice how i do not say actress since when performing, it is the character speaking, keeping this in mind makes it more belieavable.) was saying and reacting to it by saying their lines. this forshadowed the singing. THE SINGING, was fantastic






not really

they also thought about and painfully waited as if on deathrow, to sing. the whole point of the play are the songs, the music, the energy and life these girls had even though they were stuck in this hole waiting to give their unborn children up. They were like girls who are forced to sing in front of the class, they even stopped, looked at each other (like "oh my god, we have to sing, we HAVE to.") paused and the sang (in a terrible pitch, this aspect i enjoyed because, it made it more believable and fun, I do feel it wasn't intentional, and so a dilemma. it has to be believable but it has to be a play, recognizeable (the effort, i mean.) so it's tricky because you have to find that balance between a realness that makes the audience engage with the performance and a technical skill that prooves (this is a random example) that they are acting, very good, as if they're nervous rather than being actually nervous.
so, how do we find that balance? which one is more important? does it depend on the overall message of the performance? on the interests of the director? and how does a director recognize and makes a priority out of the two? which makes me reflect on our own one act play, we didn't have characterization but we made the best of that, we acted. and that is why our play worked with the audience, because we acted, because we wanted to act. even though we didn't have a character, we delivered the lines, maybe me as me and pineda as pineda, but it wasn't me, and it wasn't pineda it was me playing me. it's different, and that's why it works.

the costumes, again, lacked a design concept. they were predictable and boring. the costumes, and overall look of a play can make it better, can elevate it exponentially because if a play is an absolute piece of cow dung, at least it looks amazing and an effort is noticeable. and in this case, both were just...meh. bland. dull. this led me to wonder of the theatre education they get, i'm not trying to be bitchy and i am truly not speaking from my "liver", but seriously, little kids use it, they say "oh i like blue, lets make this blue because so and so and so", maybe they did have a concept and it was playing dress up, like, little girls in their mother's clothes, which, come to think of it is very interesting and relates to the overall theme of the play in a pretty good way. but then i remember, they didn't, there was no concept.

another thing was the overall vomiting of the script, there were so many moments they could have savoured, saying something slowly can be much more powerful than farting the words out of our mouths. so, how much script analysis is needed? is it enough with reading it once and memorizing the lines? isn't painfully reading and annotating the script so much better than just doing it once or twice? so that we are able, as actors, to act the part as best as we can? or even just memorizing the lines and going with the gut, or the heart, making ourselves feel the emotions through the words? but, again, this requires commitment and rehearsal, and good direction because if a director doesn't push his/her actors, who will?

i really enjoyed this play, i mean, as a play not the performance. it's a pitty they didn't squeeze all the juice out of it.
and as i say this, i can't help but wonder, can a play depend on itslef? just rely on the script and situation? keeping the audience awake because it's interesting? and just giving up on the actual performance? which leads me to wonder, what is a good play? because a script can be really bad but the actual performance of it can be fantastic, does that make it a good play? or can a good play stand on its own?