Perhaps the
most interesting part of all of Gala is the slideshow of photos that is shown
at the beginning. The photos are all of theaters, but it happens for long
enough to do two things. The first is that the audience settles down into a
mood where they are less likely to have their previous mood affect their
perception of the play. The second is that it gets them thinking about theater.
It gets them thinking about what is theater. It makes them mentally involved
with the art and perhaps even sparks some epiphany related to it. This is
directly related to the main purpose of this play: to gather the community
around the idea of theater, thus making theater a more significant part of
their lives, both of the performers and of the audience.
The
performance serves as an opportunity to have many amateur and not-so-amateur
performers be on a grand stage where they can show themselves to many people.
It may be that many of them had already performed before, but at least the
youngest little boy was in one of his first performances, and participating in
such a performance will cause theater to be a much more important part of his
life. The experience allows the performers to better their knowledge of the art
and to get to know the community that is involved in it within their country.
Not only that, but the experience itself is an experience that is sure to be
different from anything else, considering that they only have one week of
rehearsals and that they have to exchange clothes with people they’ve barely
met. This bond that is formed between these people is an essential part of
theater that they are getting to experience and that will allow their future
experiences in the art to be guided with stronger motivation. This was
especially apparent in the bond that existed among the performers during the
panel discussion.
The fact
that the performance is fully physical is a very big part of its effect in
reaching out to the greater community. Maxim mentioned during the panel
discussion that there was actually an attempt to include poetry in the
performance, but it had to be a poem that everybody knew, and since they could
not find one they did not do one. This makes sense, since the performance has
to transcend any cultural barriers that exist between the ethnic groups of the
given city where Gala is being performed. This allows the entire audience to
become involved in the performance without much thought. It is a visceral
experience that anybody can enjoy, regardless of how experienced and educated
the audience is in “theatrical etiquette.” Eventually this allows the audience
to come together under the Dionysian influence of dance and music, cheering and
clapping for a common cause. While in that performance it is easy to lose
oneself within the audience. One stops their critical mind and just loses
themselves among the clapping and the laughing.
I like how you placed yourself in the actors’ viewpoint rather than remaining to be the objective spectator. I understood how you interpreted the whole production process of the GALA as a time to acquire knowledge about the diversity in Singapore, furthermore, society in general. But what do you think the diversity taught them about? Is it about how society constructs particular stereotypes of certain people with certain characteristics? Or how they have a common ground despite people’s mental and physical capabilities based on age, gender, or heredity? Or something else? I am curious about what they may have learned after having a bonding experience with the other team members who have vastly different appearances.
ReplyDeleteDear Carlos,
ReplyDeleteI would characterize this as an essay about "the consequences" of the show. But it is important to distinguish speculation from what actually occurred on stage, for that is all the evidence you are presented with and on which an analysis is based. With any certainty, you don't know what others in the audience are thinking, so unless you do an audience survey, you cannot write from the groups perspective. You can write from your own - what happened to you in the theater, and you must of course write what you observed. What an analysis does is identify and describe an phenomenon -- like the use of a little boy on stage -- and then think about what that choice signifies on stage and how it affects the other elements. Other plays and ballets have children onstage too -- but often they play characters, conforming to a predetermined script. What the addition of the little boy to Gala did was transfer some of the agency of creation to him -- he did what the adults did too, there was no difference. What can you "theorize" from a phenomenon like this? That Gala is interested in breaking down the way in which certain bodies are given the opportunity to create and showing that the normally excluded can make something as thrilling and interesting (or not) as others that are adult or highly trained. I am modeling the kind of analysis you can do with what you see -- you have to pull an example, describe the salient details that support the analysis you write, and then write that analytical observation. Don't speculate on what it might do all throughout the piece - that kind of speculation can be offered in the conclusion and noted that it is speculation only -- you have no idea whether any of that will come to pass. But if you hope it does, you can say that too.
Carlos,
ReplyDeleteI can see how you empathized with the actors as a reflection of your many epiphanies and how being on a stage at an early age, performing either Shakespeare or a Disney adaptation, actually changed your life.
We can only actually see things through our own pair of glasses. In that way, we are always biased. That, or learning to find that point that is not us, the being-out-there that allows you to perceive the many layers you are expected to see.