"spring" semester
My Classes (potentially boring for non-theater students): This is the first semester I've taken all theater classes. I'm taking Playwriting, World Drama II, Topics in Dramaturgy:Modern European Drama, and Performance Perspectives. Basically all I do is read and write plays, and research theater artists and movements. All the classes really inform each other. World Drama follows drama around the world from 19th century melodrama and neoclassical forward. Right now we're learning the truth about Stanislavsky-- none of his original works exist in print, and all the translations have been carried out by a woman named Elizabeth Hapgood who speaks Russian badly and has her own interpretation of Stanislavsky's work! So, we're up to Ibsen and Chekov. Meanwhile, in Modern Drama we're studying the well-made play, and I'm about to do a big presentation on August Strindberg's play, the Father. And in Performance, our class is going to see a one woman avant garde experimental theater piece called Restraints. There are 3 props: a rope-like cloth, a broom, and a straight jacket. We're studying the alternative, non-realistic performance tradition in this class, and Sarah Hickler, the professor is amazing. We're reading plays and articles in all these classes, and the playwriting class is getting off to a good start. Andrew Clarke really had us jump right in. We had a plot summary due yesterday. I have some good images --floods, magnificent fish, a potter's field. We'll see how it turns out.
The Hypnotist: Last night I saw hypnosis for the first time, and it was possibly the most wildly entertaining spectacle I've ever seen. When everyone onstage was being hypnotized I felt my hands get stiff and heavy in my lap and it was like I was wearing lead boots. That passed as the show got going, but it was like coming into contact with a mysterious force. Ben Sloane is an acting student a year below me, and I never thought much about him before, but he was HYNOTIZED. He has no inhibitions and he answered the hypnotist in the loose, yet slightly mechanical manner of children in preschool. At one point the hypnotist had everyone believe that they had an adorable stuffed animal in their laps and Ben was just stroking and stroking this invisible animal. The hypnotist asked him what it was, and Ben said it was an elephant. "What's it's name?" Ben didn't miss a beat. "Jesus." Later he had Ben feel compelled to dance when he heard the songs, You're the One that I Want from Grease and Shania Twain's I Feel Like A Woman. And he DANCED. He had dance Skills. It practically looked choreographed. He was working the CROWD! And he remembered none of it when he woke up. I could hardly believe it was real. Afterwards I had so much energy. I just wanted to leap around!
It is so cold here at night. It's deadly.
The Hypnotist: Last night I saw hypnosis for the first time, and it was possibly the most wildly entertaining spectacle I've ever seen. When everyone onstage was being hypnotized I felt my hands get stiff and heavy in my lap and it was like I was wearing lead boots. That passed as the show got going, but it was like coming into contact with a mysterious force. Ben Sloane is an acting student a year below me, and I never thought much about him before, but he was HYNOTIZED. He has no inhibitions and he answered the hypnotist in the loose, yet slightly mechanical manner of children in preschool. At one point the hypnotist had everyone believe that they had an adorable stuffed animal in their laps and Ben was just stroking and stroking this invisible animal. The hypnotist asked him what it was, and Ben said it was an elephant. "What's it's name?" Ben didn't miss a beat. "Jesus." Later he had Ben feel compelled to dance when he heard the songs, You're the One that I Want from Grease and Shania Twain's I Feel Like A Woman. And he DANCED. He had dance Skills. It practically looked choreographed. He was working the CROWD! And he remembered none of it when he woke up. I could hardly believe it was real. Afterwards I had so much energy. I just wanted to leap around!
It is so cold here at night. It's deadly.