The first rehearsals of a brand new beginning

This week we began rehearsals of the school play. Tuesday, the first day of a new project,I wasn't able to go to the first rehearsal of the play due to my illness, being sick cost me the opportunity to meet all the new participants of the play, having them sit in the a circle and asking about their wonders and expectation of the play. As usual in all of our school plays, we began by playing games that help us in our theatrical performance such as balancing the space, Ha Hondom, groups and shapes and more. However, Thursday was my new beginning. Due to our last pre-production meeting, we had a complete outline of the different activities we were going to do. Olenka and I began on taking attendance of the students participating in the play while Carlos, Anita and Siu were in charge of making them play balancing the space and then, Ha Hondom, a game full of energy. Hence, in a moment, Carlos showed the form six IB years our version of the play, the structure, the different scenes that were going to be acted in our own modified version of the original play of “The Ramayana”. We decided on changing the acts into scenes since the original play was 9 hours long performing and we had to adapt it in 2 hours to show it as a school play. As a result, Carlos was showing the result of our ideas and hard work done in this week. After having all of our proposals attached in a single presentation, we considered Aileen and Gonzalo’s feedback on our proposals, added important visions for given scenes that helped us reach a concrete idea of our play. Finally, we ended with an impro-match with specific titles such as “Rallando bananas”, “El cielo se cae” and others in different acting styles like theatre for children, German expressionism, melodrama and more.

These days have been a challenging and changing experience for me. It is true that every single person has once have wished of the idea of being in charge, having control and power upon the young participants of the play. I have to admit, it is difficult to accept and confront the idea that actually we are the producers of the play, the play relies on us now and we do not have any former students we cannot look upon since the sixth IB drama course has been closed. We look upon the 6th IB grade students that volunteered to collaborate with the play although they do not take the theatre IB program as a course. However, although they are sixth form students, we are the one the school play’s success relies on since we are the producers of the play. Thinking of production, I have learned and noticed that being a producer is not just about being in charge of the design elements but it is about plannifying the play, taking direction and being the role models young play participants want to be in the future. I noticed that being a producer is a huge responsibility since we have to plan each single hour, minute and seconds of the rehearsals, take in charge if any problem occurs and affront it in the most practical way as possible. Another essential learning I achieved from these rehearsals was that without the theatre group complete, disappointment and failure will be easily achievable. This is because the actors will not have the exact support they were thinking of having before. As a result, slowing the process and reaching to misunderstandings. Theatre relies on the support of the whole team, not a partial part of it. If the team itself is not complete, success will never be achieved due to the irresponsibility and lack of consideration from the missing participants.

In my life, I have not ever felt so nervous for a regular and common rehearsal, which we have not even started working on the scenes yet. Being a producer is still a difficult position I can’t still 100% endure. Since the first weeks we have already began practicing and planning the school play, a lasting process that requires lots of effort and hard work. Another thing I have to get used to is the difficult problems that we will begin to face. The different conventions of Indian theatre are the essential ingredients of the Kathakali recipe. It is true, that without managing the acting and design conventions in an exceptional and outstanding way, we will not be able to achieve the main goals of Kathakali or Indian theatre, the heart of our play. This is because without a complete understanding of the conventions that are difficult to teach such as the diverse variations of mudras, the purulia cchau movements for different animals or the control of the eye movement the play will lose its essence completely. As a result not being considered a Kathakali success.

These theatre experiences have led to me several questions. How will we maintain the essence of the play if the conventions aren’t truly teached completely? I mean that the conventions are crucial for the play to succeed and without a proper teaching, failure will come along. In addition, including the teaching of the conventions, being in charge of the rehearsals, will we have enough time to develop our characters completely if we have to consider the fact that we have to produce the play at the same time?