Theatre Lesson : (Oct'15) Realism - Character Costume Check

Arthur is a Pro-Chinese person, not to the extreme end of it, but I think he would always try to uphold Chinese traditional culture, norms and values at all cost, at least until the end of the play. 

And thus, I designed this costume for Arthur and I will wear something similar for the scene. 

I choose the shirt with different presentations of Dragon on the shirt. This is not a typical Chinese Traditional Samfu for Chinese Male though, as I don't think Arthur would wear such a troublesome costume during his "vacation" to Singapore. Under normal circumstances, Chinese Samfus are only worn during special occasion such as Chinese New Year or the Wedding. Arthur will only wear a shirt with Chinese characters or figures on it during his trip home. he didn't plan to stay for long in Singapore as he still has his business and projects in Shen Zhen, waiting for him to tend to. He would wear a presentable attire at all times, In this play, Arthur will wear the t-shirt with dragon pattern with a black slack pants. He's will make sure he's always on the go, so a nice shirt and a slack pants will make sense I think. 

The front view of the t-shirt I designed.

The back view of the t-shirt

The sides of the t-shirt.

And this is the shirt I got for Arthur 

Arthur in the shirt. 

Theatre Lesson : (Oct'15) Realism - Character Analysis (Arthur)

Realism: Meeting a Character (Stanislavski Style)

Homesick Character analysis: Arthur Koh

What the author says about ME?

Middle son	Property developer
Based in China	The One out of the five children that frequently returns to Singapore

What I say about ME?

A discerning character : - He remember the father’s birthday. He is very caring at heart. [It is his 70th birthday tomorrow, am I correct?]	Close to the father: He’s very respectful to the father. He knows the father’s secret.
Blunt : - Not good with his choice of words. Not sensitive towards taboos. [I have come to pay respect to our dear father.]	Educated : He knows his stuff. He can discuss and  chat with Manoj about economics and business, global issues, etc.
Business-minded : - Business is his everything. [D: Don’t you carry a phone? A: Yes. For business. D: And I don’t suppose you have another phone? A: For what? ] [Quarantine? For how long? I have an important project in Shen Zhen.]	Conservative/ have strong beliefs in tradition : - He’s very particular in the way one address one other. Salutation is important for him.  [Terms of address matter…. I hope everyone can call me by the name Pa gave me. Weiyang. I’s a real name.]
Empathy : - He’s able to understand Cindy’s and the Father’s situation.

How others see Me?

Herbert: Oh shit! Why is he back in Singapore too? He knows my secret and my weakness. I must make sure he doesn’t go around telling everybody. I’m the big brother now and he mustn’t order me or threaten me.	Marianne: Stop smothering me with Chinese traditions and naming and I will be fine with him. Cindy: Oh, he’s good and he helps me a lot.
Manoj: Just like his siblings, he is in denial of their identity. Most probably, he couldn’t even differentiate between a true china citizen and Singapore0born Chinese.	Daphne: Can’t he get himself a phone? It’s not for his own convenience but others’. He’s Arthur and I’m gonna call him Arthur, not Gor or Gor-gor.
Patricia: He’s very tolerant of the brother. Even though Herbert is very possessive, narcissistic at times to the extent of annoying, Arthur doesn’t throw tantrum when Herbert gets more than him. He’s a good son.	Patrick: -            Why is everybody treating me like a kid? Oh, he’s Weiyang!

How I see others?

Herbert: A snobbish Anglo-Saxon who denies he’s own identity and the existence of his own inheritance, family, and nationality. He’s being untruthful towards himself. I know his weakness and his secret. Hehe-he!! He loves to show that he’s the eldest son.	Cindy: No matter how she disrupt the harmony of one family, one hand doesn’t make a clap. She’s not innocent, but she’s not one sole contributor to the marriage failure. She’s shouldn’t take all the blame. WE should help her.
Manoj: He has a clear vision of what’s happening in the family as he’s from a different family. Not ton say he’s an outsider, but he belongs to not just one family. Thus, he can detach himself and be an audience that sees clearly.	Daphne: A world citizen. Hard to contain. Always travel around the globe. I’m proud of her, if she’s not too busybody.
Patricia: She’s my mother and I love her and respect her decisions. Marianne: Oh, she’s my big sis!	Patrick: Such an ignorant brat.

In my opinion, the super goal/ultimate goal of the character Arthur is Arthur wants the family to be together. No matter how far they were apart, he would always cherish the moments they are together. He’s one the few in the family that would uphold the traditions and see unity as an important element of the formation and destruction of a home. Arthur is not glib nor flippant. He doesn’t really know how to deliver his care and love through words. Most of the time, he’s blunt. He is the typical Chinese/ Eastern male breadwinner figure in literary works and in real life. Most of the father in the world, more so in the eastern societies, tend to talk less, interact less with the family, and focus more on the businesses. They aren’t good in speech, so they show their love with actions. Albeit such an action mostly leads to misunderstandings, and they seemingly looks uncaring, business-crazed, stoic, and etc., their love for the family is indubitably authentic and genuine.

I (Arthur) know secrets, but do I care about them?
I think I don't really care about them. I know I remember them but I don't really put them in my mind all the time. Everyone has their own secrets and I acknowledge the fact that everyone wants their privacy. Even though Herbert and others might thought they should stay away from me in a bid to protect their secrets from being revealed, but no,  I will never use the secrets as a weapon to threaten them. 

Arthur is a socially-awkward freak. He's blunt and he's very controlled (he remembers details-  the birthdays, etc.), but he's not stupid. He's very considerate at heart and very smart.

Sense and Perception: Constantly Challenging as a Collegian; Thriving Thrillingly as a Taylorian; Entertaining Enthusiastically as a IBDP étudient!

Obviously, senses can be misleading and a deceitful sense may result in wrong perception. Of course, even when the sensory organs give us the exact stimulation, our perception still may not reflect upon the truth. The Three theories of Truth : Correspondence, Coherence and Pragmatism, are closely related to our sense and perception. Even when sense and perception are indeed true, interpretation varies form one individual to another. Suffice to say, no two humans will have the exactly same life experience, no two individual will have the absolutely identical ways of living and seeing life as what it is. So stop saying to everyone in the world, that: "I know exactly how you feel... I know exactly what you experienced?" ? 

Apparently, what the majority ones vote for could be incorrect for an arbitrary chosen individual too. 

Many said to me, that <The Attack on Titans @ 进击的巨人> is one the the best anime in the world. For me, it's nor precisely my cup of tea. Although the story line being so atypical, the emotion build-up and the pace of the story was way too draggy and lengthy. Ha-ha! I really tried not to be too picky but I have the chance to cherry-pick, and I am sure I wouldn't watch it for a second time. I don't even know why I spent my busy IBDP days watching such an useless film and even write a post about it. Ha-ha! It wasn't a totally bad experience but I have better ones. (The first opening song was good though.)

However interestingly, IB life is very busy, and the more busy I get, I tend to find myself having the time to indulge myself in different means of entertainments. Up till now, since July, I'm done watching <MAUS complete graphic novel> ,< 四月是你的谎言 > the anime, <Sherlock Holmes the BBC drama>, <The Law of Ueki @ 植木的法则> the anime, <The Martian> Movie, <进击的巨人> th anime, and I'm currently reading <The Martian> novel. Ha-ha! I love IB life! 

<Your Lie In April>, probably one of the most touching and inspiring anime I've ever watched.

Sherlock Holmes by the BBC. The best ever!!

The Law of Ueki

The Martian was good. The physics theories applied in the movie was quite interesting and, surprisingly, real. I feel that the Martian movie was a great success, mainly because the theories illustrated in the movie can be easily comprehended and accessed by the public without leaving them to much of a migraine after the movie. Apart from that, the movie definitely act as the catalyst that spark up the motivation and inspiration for young adults in the education world to venture further in the field of astrophysics (or pure physics and engineering), and the movie could also have reignite the glowing flame buried deep in the heart of every man that once dreamt of being an astronaut. 

Theatre Lesson : (Oct'15) Realism : Acting is doing action in imaginary circumstances.

We did some Stanislavski style practices in class this week. Mercury ball and ball of energy training becomes easier for the second time. We learn that visualization is important for an actor toe engage in the imaginary world. Shrinking, growing, dragging, throwing, lifting and other shadow actions comes in the form of impulse and inner feelings. Breathing does help a lot in getting into the mood. Later in the unit, we will work more on our character's super objective, scene objectives, scene action and unit actions. I shall have to know my character better. ^^

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Acting is doing actions in imaginary circumstances

Theatre Lesson : (Oct'15) Starting from Nothing : Stanislavski and Chekhov Style (Realism)

In this theatre lesson, we learn about Stan Style. Actors, in theatre generally, train like athlete because the need the stamina to perform various characters and therefore most of them are in really good form.  In class, Quin brought up her thought regarding Michael Chekhov's External Plasticity. She felt that plasticity gave her a foreboding portent that being actors, we have to flexible, physically, mentally and psychologically. Visualization exercise, concentration, coordinate and movement training is essential too. One of the base skill of an actor is 'following the impulse', which I think most of need to put in lots of effort in developing them.

There's definitely similarity between the concept of neutrality proposed by Jacques Lecoq and the idea of circle of attention mentioned by Stan. Circle of Attraction consist of 5 or more levels actually, but in class, we focused on the first 3 only. In the first circle, we deal only with ourselves, our body, mind, focus, attention, emotion and everything pertaining our cognitive, anatomical, psychological aspects. once we have an intuition of a clear intention, we are ready to proceed to enter the second circle of attention. The second circle has a radius of 1 meter around us. An object was placed in the circle and we are supposed to approach it with the intention we had in mind earlier on. We would only move towards the object, or carry out whatever responses towards the object once the impulse is set and when we feel the urge to do it. Once we are comfortable in the second circle, we step into the third circle -  the room. We are allowed to interact with others only in the third circle. In the first and second circle of attention,we are supposed to live in our own imaginary world, the reality in high fantasy without acknowledging the existence of others. We have to be in character. Visual, audio or any other forms of distractions might affect our concentration. Technically, if we are distracted, we would have to go back to the first circle and redo the whole thing from zero. 

The idea of the fourth wall in realism acting comes in in the first and second circle of attention. In theatrical context, the fourth wall refers to the imaginary wall created by the actor in detaching himself or herself from the audience to remain unsmitten by the reactions, responses and other visual or audio unintentionally caused by the audience. Even though the actor know that he or she is being observed by a large group of people, the actor still has to visualize himself as an individual or character in the character's world (the play) and do whatever the character would do in the play according to his impulse without adhering to the old theatre rule of the blocking movements. The actor will have to act naturally and live the life of the character in the theatrical reality. Basically, the actor has to create the character's world and live within it, show indifference towards the audience and develop public solitude to enhance one's concentration and at the same time, awareness.

The words "organic", "authentic", and "aesthetic" have been brought up a few times in the class, and what do they mean in the context of theatre study? In my opinion, those words reflect upon how realism is taken into account as a form of acting. In realism, an actor would have to react naturally in the character of the play. In other words, the actor would have to be mentally, psychologically and biologically prepared for the character, and the actor would have to forsake his own personality and adapt to the behaviours of his character. Suffice to say, reality in high fantasy could be a form of Realism too. 

My "story line" in the learning process of circle of attention was quite different from the others. Christ's <Blue Pencil Case>, Janet's <Silver Flour Sieve>, Quin's <Orange rubber ball>, Ginger's <Old TuTu>, and Jem's <Neutral Mask> were all stories with a proper fictional story owing to their prior knowledge of the object. My object was a silver unknown object with an irregular shape. M story turned out to be an <Exploration of Imagination : An Argentum Puppet>. Okay, I know that sounds stupid. Ha-ha! Anyway, the initial thought I had once I venture into the second realm of the circle of attention was, "Is that a spacecraft accessory? Why is it here?" After taking a closer look at the object and after touching it, I decided that it looked like a lamp frame -probably an extra, unused lamp frame of the lighting system of the theatre room. "Alright! What......" and I was confused. At one moment I didn't know what to do with it. A moment later, my character decided to turn the object into a musical instrument. I made it into a percussion and I sang the melody in my mind. I felt happy. Intuitively, the impulse in me urged me to sing into the object, and so it became a microphone, or so to say, a speaker. 

The hand gesture of holding it as a speaker reminded the me, as in the character, of a telescope- the one prevalently used by pirates and sailors in adventurous movies. "I'm a free sailor now !!" and I picked up the object and view into the hole. I see Jemmima acting in her neutral mask; I see Janet intermittently pressing on her innovative modern flour sieve; Christ turned his pencil case into a blue ribbon and was dancing or trying a gymnastic move with it; Ginger was making faces with that tutu on and it was hilarious.I nearly laugh out loud myself. Just as i was about to move out of the second circle into the third, I saw Ms Val and she stared back at me. I thought I can smile, because my impulse told me to do so. I was sent back to the first circle of attention......

The second round took me a relatively shorter time to proceed into the second and finally the third circle of attention. The taste of being a sailor stayed for some time in me and further evolved to the desire of transforming into a captain. I turned the telescope into a hand-guard and imagine myself as Captain. An impulse took me by surprise, urging me to create a hook for the silver object. I ended up with two fingers poking out of the object and I realize that it resembles a puppet. A silver alien-like puppet with two snail-like eyes. I began to interact with others, I hid behind the curtains and occasionally appear to prank on them. 

It was fun, and I laughed out of my heart, the character's heart. I can really feel that.

After the class, Ms Val says that I have the vibe of a clown. Not the type of clown as in circus jester clown, but the clown that brings smiles and laughter to people around me. I'm glad that Ms Val pointed that out to me, though initially I didn't realize that I have such an attribute. I didn't know I can really resonate such an aura on stage. I do hope I can further explore my clownish style of performing and achieve something with it. ^^

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Once again in theatre class, I've obtained a conclusion that people get to be attached to things they claim possessive of. And those personal attachment to things do help the actor to enter their character. For example, if i pick up the same silver object next time, it would be easier for me to get into the puppet master character again. Attachments are like our anchors to the other character realms. It might be an object, a hand gesture commonly and naturally used by the character, an accent, a slang, the voice range and the talking pitch of the character, the costume or just any item symbolic to the character and anything of personal meaning/ relation of the character to the actor.