Staging a play..

The things that I will consider if I am going to perform my short performance are:

-language used
-the audiences
-The players/actors
-stage direction
-intonations, stressing and pauses
-the costumes

Language used is the first thing I should consider because good language for good feedback from the audience. If we use harsh words in our performance, the audiences will feel uneasy and will not pay attention to our performance.

The second thing is audiences. Without audiences, how can we perform? We are not talking to the wall, isn’t it? So, we must attract the audiences’ attention, so that they will enjoy our performance.

The actors and stage directions are two important things that we should consider. The actors should know things that they would do. They must know their turn in acting and they also must know the stage directions.

In acting, the intonations, stressing and pauses are very important to the actors. Those elements are very important for producing a real performance so that the audiences will feel and understand better.

Last but not least, the costumes also important because by wearing certain costumes, the audiences will know the roles of them. The costumes also can tell the audiences what era they perform.

To put all in a nutshell, those elements are very important in producing a good play. So, please check upon these things before you perform!

Different perceptions of life..

Life. Different people have different perception of life. Life can be viewed from many angles. Theaters or dramas also imitate life. Different writers give their own view of life in their literary works. Shakespeare has his own style in writing a play. In ‘As You Like It’, Shakespeare put the players merely, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. While in Macbeth, Shakespeare used another style. Macbeth at the outset of the play is an admirable man, a good warrior and a man of good conscience. He believes that he could be a king, and his ambitions to get the throne are encouraged by his wife. And yet, his conscience is close by. He cannot see behind the surface truth and distinguish the tricks that "fate" is playing on him. Compared to Oedipus Rex, by Sophocles, Macbeth knows he should not proceed and yet his ego drives him just as Oedipus is told by all around himself not to proceed, however he does, as well. In Oedipus, Sophocles wants to tell the reader that fate is inevitable, means fate cannot be changed. So whatever will be, will be. Different with William Butler Yeats in his poem, ‘The Four Ages of Man’, he divides his poem into four stanzas which is ironic to four stages of man’s life. He described the man’s life in different situation. Everyone has their own perception of life, and so do I. Life must go on but we never know what will happen in the future.

Types of dramas and theaters..

When it turned to our second class, we were given note in slides form. There are lots of inputs whether we already know or not. The note is about overview of the history of theater. Reading the note make me know that there are many categories for plays. Some of the theaters can be Greek Theater, Roman Theater, and Medieval Theater. Medieval Theater, may be it sounds weird, I also never know the name before I got the note. Medieval Theater is more to morally plays and most of them are Elizabethan Dramas. The dramas themselves come in many types. So that now we know literature comes in various types, not only in dramas, but also in other genre either poetry or novels form.

The first drama class..

I felt so great when it was the first time I had a drama class. It is ‘Teaching the Language of Drama’. I was so excited that day because I thought we were going to perform a drama, but it did not happen. Our lecturer, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Malachi Edwin asked us to complete a task. He gave us worksheets consist of questions on point of view. We have to answer the questions but most of us already forgot the literary terms. Then, we were given a thick set of worksheets, a collection of extracts from short stories! It consists of eleven extracts and we have to identify what type of point of view are they. We were given only less than an hour to complete the task! How panic we were. The activities are to refresh our knowledge about literary terms. It was lucky because I still remember the terms after having a wonderful semester break. However, I think those activities are very useful for us as to recall what we had learnt before.