Director's notebook

Description:

During this week, we began discovering and learning about one of the projects of our Drama IB course, the director's notebook. This task gives the student the ability of becoming a director, making decisions regarding the overall practical and creative interpretation of two specific moments or scenes of an established script of a play. In our case, we will do a demo version of the social realistic play "A streetcar named Desire" written by the American playwright Tennessee Williams, a play recently studied in the English IB course.

Analysis:

From the beginning of our course, the main aim we desire to accomplish by the end of the IB is to become remarkable theatre makers. We have been carrying this out by working hard in each of the three areas of Theatre: Acting, Producing and finally, Directing throughout the school play, one act play and others. In this task, we will demonstrate our talent of being competent directors by directing a published play text and recording our own artistic responses and creative ideas as if we would stage it. By having this task, we are putting in practice our abilities as potential theatre makers since we are placing our creativity as input in order to produce an outcome of our own. However, in this task we have encountered an obstacle that will challenge us particularly, the inability of making changes to the script of the published play selected. I must admit, we will have a slight disadvantage in this task since most of our plays, when we make them, are usually based on  improvisation, adaptation and own creation. Last year's ensemble project is an example reflecting this skill. In this final project, we were directors creating our own play, deciding a concept and vision of our own. In fact, we had complete control of the decision making of the play. We were able to create an own unique script and had liberty in choosing the design elements and acting style that would transmit our concept and vision to the audience, in my case "Everything happens for a reason, whether you wished for it or not". An example is that our inspiration was the butterfly effect, one small change can result large differences in the future. We illustrated this vision by having the stage divided in half; each side had the exact scenery (half of a yellow couch, a blue table and a prescribed bottle of pills to cure their daily impulsivity). One was responsible and drunk it while the other one did not, echoing the butterfly effect we originally wanted to transmit to the audience. Even though the ensemble project and directors notebook sound alike, they differ in some properties as demonstrated above. By fact, we must have recorded in our brains that this time, we are not creating the play but we are applying our concept and vision without removing essential motifs, themes or symbols reflecting the playwrights original thoughts and ideas. 

The director's notebook is taking us to a whole new level. It is true, directing is not as easy as it seems. I learned that as a director, you must acknowledge amazing research skills into the inner and outer context of the play in order to make relevant design and acting choices to echo the playwright's main ideas but adding with your own creative vision also. We were able to prove this semi- experience (we were not directors, we were producers and actors but practically we adjusted the original play) by doing this year's school play, "Retorno a Ayodhya". We had to do a further digging into the outer and inner context of the Ramayana, our inspirational play. Additionally, we had to investigate on the Kathakali dance-drama theatre tradition and its different conventions such as the mudras, exaggerated costumes, colorful makeup, moral beliefs (no showing death scenes), kalaripayattu body movements and more. Although, we made an extensive research upon the context of the play, we adapted it and did slight changes that would satisfy our concept and vision we wanted to transmit to the audience "el destino no esta escrito, cualquiera puede guiarlo". From this experience, I learned that directing is not that easy after all because you have to do a complete background research of the outer and inner context of the playtext in order to take the correct decisions regarding the design elements and acting style you wish to use to transmit your concept and vision. Nevertheless, without ignoring the ethical stance and ideas the playwright wants to transmit in his play.  

Connections:

This remembers me of the ensemble project, when we had our brainstorming journals where all our recordings of our artistic and creative ideas were written to contribute to the building-up process of our unique masterpiece. Like in this task, it is required to record every single artistic response, first impression or creative ideas regarding the play text in a brainstorming journal but then the relevant ideas will go within the official director's notebook that will eventually feel alive as our journals of our ensemble projects did. The difference was that we staged the ensemble project while the director notebook will not; however, directors must imagine in their mind as if their plays would be coming to life on stage. Since in the ensemble project we were actors, producers and directors simultaneously; it reminded me the feeling of being in control, sitting in the director’s position and seeing through his very own eyes how his creative annotations and ideas come to life on stage. 

Reflection:

Even though we have just started officially this project, I am enthusiastic about it but at the same time, it worried me a bit. It is because directors usually get excited and want to transmit their vision and concept with the different design elements and acting styles of their cast. However, what happens if their enthusiasm overthrows their reasoning?  How does the director notice if he has gone beyond his imagination and ignored the context and the important themes the playwright wants to transmit since the beginning of his play since he has been benighted by his artistic desires?