"There's nothing wrong with updating a little"

Although after reviewing the assignment I have several questions that I'll need to be asking professor Jeppesen, I can at least post my initial thoughts on what I might write about in my final paper.

My planned theme is:

Reviving Greek and Roman Theater for a Modern Audience!

It will be a collection of thoughts on how to make a tasteful adaptation of an ancient play. Not an expert guide by any means, just some thoughts. These will be based on historical aspects to consider, as well as experiential issues that arose in the production of our Amphitruo. It's really interesting stuff! Maybe our papers will end up posted here. If not, I might post a short summary of mine. The performance is only two weeks away! I am both excited and nervous. I hope we can prepare well enough by then.

-R

Final Paper Outline

At the end of the semester we will have to write about how this class helped us understand ancient drama, and I will focus on the following aspects: 1. Adapting a classic, 2. What makes a comedy funny?, 3. The spirit of ancient theatre, and 4. Authenticity.  I hope to show how going through this process has helped me not only understand the mind of the ancient playwrights better, but also in a way to live what they experienced as artists and performers. There is something to be said about how some things must be experienced, not just read about.

Time Marches On

Just a quick update on our progress:

The pressures of the end of semester are building right on schedule, but luckily we've been able to find a little extra time to practice, which was desperately needed in my opinion. We seem to be on top of the blocking now, and I'm very excited about the action scenes we'll be doing, particularly those involving the audience area. I just hope we'll have enough time to practice it enough to be able to perform it like I know we all want to, but either way, it will have been a great experience. I'm so glad the class wasn't cancelled!

-R

Progress 2

I am no actor. This whole blocking thing has been frustrating. Although I comprehend that it is important, I am still so far behind with my lines. I also find myself struggling to know how to even read my lines with all of the prompts in the script added by the translator which seem to be off. I struggle to pull off lines that I feel like I would never say in any situation. Clunky translation aside, little by little I am starting to find my way and hopefully will reach the point when I will be able to do my part well. Blocking is a chore, but I realize that if we don’t know where we are going on stage, there might be unforeseen blunders. I do not want to go on stage and look foolish. Fear is a powerful motivator to trust our director and get this down.

Our Progress

                   I'm feeling very optimistic about our progress! I think we have most aspects of our play planned for (props, costumes, etc) and now we just have to focus on rehearsal and improving our chemistry as a cast. I think that we should have a goal to be off-book (memorized) by a week from this Wednesday at least so that we can focus on blocking and fine-tuning without having to be concerned about lines. Thanks to our professor's hard work, I feel confident regarding the current status of our script. I think that any polishing it may need will come naturally during the rehearsal process. But from what I've heard in class so far, I really feel like everyone's' characters are starting to take form and that everyone is bringing a lot to the table acting-wise. Good work team! Now that we have a script- let's get down to memorizing!

The Story So Far

Things are going great! (and yes, they're only getting' better!)

Granted, we are a bit behind schedule, and I have been sick out of my mind for the past week, but if it were all going off without a single hitch, I think we'd start getting nervous. But viewed with a healthy perspective, things are going quite well.

The script is coming along fine, and has some pretty hilarious moments in it, especially if we can act it out right. Professor Jeppesen has proved a capable director. The plans for props, costumes, and sound effects also seem to be moving forward nicely. The stage we'll be performing on is great! Just perfect for our purposes. And while initially I was a little trepidatious about doing Amphitruo, it's definitely grown on me.

Yep. Things are good. Let's just hope they stay that way, and nothing crazy derails our plans...

-R

Sosia in Act 1

For my portrayal of Sosia I have very little interest in reciting his very long triumph speech and since we are trying to shorten the play considerably I think it'd be in our interest as a group to cut it out for the most part.  I like the idea of Sosia (me) saying something like, "let me put it this way, the war was a doozy!" and leave it as that. It could be funny. Also I suggest shortening Sosia's other act 1 lines a lot. I think they are unnecessarily long and if I was being perfectly honest I don't want to memorize so much material, especially since I will be performing as Belpharo and Broma as well. I rewrote some of these opening lines of Sosia more to my liking but I don't think I have a knack for play writing. Usually when I write dialogue I focus on realism which wasn't really the point of a theatrical performance in ancient times. I would like to show what I got to the class at some point though. I am very open to suggestions. My main goal is just to shorten the lines.