DEVISED THEATRE
I embarked on my devised theater journey at the beginning of my freshman year, and from then on I devised one piece with three to four classmates every year. It was not easy at the beginning, as we started ‘scriptless’ with a piece of stimulus, a photo, a piece of music, and an extract from a play.
The huge uncertainty appears to be scary, but I soon found it as a chance to craft stories!
What does this photo say to me? How did Henrik Ibsen’s living context influence his storytelling of Nora Helmer?
And, when we further researched themes inferred from a stimulus and discussed in groups, we shared our personal stories based on the themes we took in from those stimuli. How do we find contemporary dilemmas and social issues relatable to the ones told by stimuli?
The process of devising is evolving and is a process of raising questions. Stories can be the solutions to these questions, and from listening to stories, I found what I want to tell.
So, to quickly get an idea about what I’ve heard and how I’ve been telling, I would like to show you my latest devised piece.
or
Bakery Assessment Test
HOW IT'S MADE
Choreography
Three Tables
Design philosophy:
The triangle shaped created by the tables resemble the class pyramid below. This indicates a rigid social structure in which the upper class always secure the peak of the resource pyramid. Performers move around the three tables with carry out identical mechanical movements of practicing baking hamburger buns. The identical choreography symbolizes the standardized test. However, no matter how similar students’ movements are, they are always circling around an unequal yet fixed social structure.
The Yellow Ball
Design Philosophy:
The bright yellow ball in the center contrasts with the dullness of the black tables. Its perfect round shape showcases the unrealistically perfect state of a hamburger bun, while also serving as the sign of socially recognized success. Performers take every chance they can to play with the ball at the beginning of the show. The ball is designed to indicate that the equal chance of accessing success, and is served as a reminder to the audience that all three performers are working towards the same goal.
Rhythm
Design philosophy:
The four parts of movements correspond to the four steps of baking hamburger buns. To ensure the mechanical rhythm is consistent in performance, the performers hit the metallic mixing bowls together for rhythm while circling around the three table clockwise.
“ One. Pour the flour 750.98 grams.
Two. Add milk 123.67 milliliters ... ”
Movement Breakdown
1) Reach out the right hand towards the LEGO blocks
2) Raise LEGO block up and throw it into the mixing bowl
3) Resume to standing in upright position
Design Philosophy
The movements are exaggerated so to bring performers’ physical tensile strength to their extreme. The choreography is to show how students’ mentality is stretched by the rigidity and intensiveness of the exam preparation.
“Three. One egg weighed 50 grams”
Movement breakdown
1) Heavily put the mixing bowl on the table
2) Pick up an egg form the table and raise it overhead while standing tiptoes
3) Hold at the overhead position to crack open the egg
4) Resume to standing in upright position
Design philosophy
Raising the egg overhead, we decided to stand on tiptoe at the same time. At this point the three characters will pay
different amount of effort to stand on their tiptoe and raise their eggs to different heights. The difference among the three
students’ postures indicate their attitudes towards social climbing. While student 1 seems at ease, student 2 is shivering due to anxiety urges to reach as high as
possible. Student 3 tries to reach the goal with determination and seriousness, refusing to be distracted by emotion.
“Four. Mix and stir the mixture, 10 times per second”
Movement Breakdown
1) Actors lower their heads and stare at the metallic bowl while stirring the LEGO blocks
Design Philosophy
The lowered head, the right angle formed between the actors’ hand and their forearms , and the stirring motion collectively parallel the mechanical motion of an automatic whisk. As actors will stir the LEGO four times, after each time, there will be a sharp, short pause. The pauses break the previously sense of ceaselessness, replacing it with a sense of fatigue and brokenness, which can be interpreted as the feelings brought by the intensive, rigid, and endless practice.
This can be extended to the harm brought by the endless practice of standardized test.
PROPS
LEGO
Actors will collect LEGO blocks from the metallic silver pot on the three tables during the movement sequences and will use them to build the hamburger bun.
The rectangular shape of individual LEGO blocks and their plastic texture to make the final product, the hamburger bun built by them are angular, unnatural, and have a sense of falsity. This falsity implies the falsity in the belief that making a perfect hamburger bun and following the instructions of standardized tests can lead to ultimate success.
Standard box of family support
Every family that supports fixing the hamburgers is put in the boxes of the same size.
This rule hides the changes that come from fixing and makes the idea of allowing family support seem fair.
Fixing
All props used for fixing are chosen to be as realistic as possible, implying that the fixing part comes from family, the cultural capital, is what really differentiates students and their final results.
In this challenge, the seemingly equal education system points out that inequality and the fixings are hidden in between the buns.
Hamburger + white board + BAT
We stuck black cardboard letters spelling BAT on a whiteboard and use a light stick to assemble a hamburger shape on the whiteboard. The fixing of the hamburger is the BAT sign made of black cardboard.
We intend to use this unusual fixing to arouse the audience’s confusion, eliminate the propensity of taking things for granted, to achieve the Brechtian “alienation.” The confusion might lead the audience to pay more attention to the fixing part and ponder its significance. Therefore, they can discover the hidden inequality in the education system.
Take My Set Design A Step Further
Moodboard
Completing my devised piece and watching my recordings, I began to wonder whether I can further develop our set if I can have more resources and space. So here I go, exploring more space and possibilities through my doodles.
Symmetric Layout
I chose to place the display shelves with bread, baking oven, and the tables of students in a symmetrical pattern on the stage.
At first glance, this can create a sense of balance and harmony. However, combining with the floor covered by orderly arrayed grey tiles that divide the stage space into multiple, equal big rectangular, a bizarre regularity and even rigidity can be sensed.
The perfect regularity is a hyperbole of the standardized test system that attempts to be seemingly fair, and tries to be a rational way of judging a student’s capability. Meanwhile, I attempt to use the strangeness of the rigidity of the set to make the audience question whether such artificial balance creates real harmony and equality.
A School OR A Bakery ？
I also intend to make the whole set a combination of the school and bakery setting to build up the connection between the real life educations system and this Bakery Assessment Test, BAT.
Therefore, I chose to change the small white board that we set in the upstage center to three large pieces of white board that enclose the whole stage. The “BAT” logo will be written on the middle piece with black ink on the whiteboard, and there will also be erasers and colorful magnets. The smooth and shiny surface of the white board on three sides of the stage can be overwhelming and infatuating, paralleling the feeling of students under the exam-cramming system.
Further, it will contrast with the greyish, metallic professional bakery machineries, creating a sense of dissonance. This dissonance might trigger the audience’s uncertainty if this is a school or bakery? Or is there any difference at all between this Bakery system and the education system?