.:Moliere:. TPPP

From the beginning of my time in HL theatre arts, I have learnt a great deal of information in which I am pleased to say has made a great contribution to the development of my work in theatre throughout my course during this first semester of schooling.

(Image one) I was excited at the prospect of learning about Moliere and his contribution to the vast world of theatre, and this enthusiasm led me to research a great deal about Moliere and his theatrical conventions and dramatic elements used in his writing of plays. Moliere was known as the ‘king of farce’, as his plays were full of satire of the human abilities and knowledge and truly depict the exact people of the French Neoclassical era. Therefore when my theatre class was given the opportunity to reenact a play of his, I was keen and enthusiastic to try and apply my knowledge learnt about Moliere’s characters to our creation of Tartuffe. In order to begin our preparation of our performance of Tartuffe, there was still a great deal of research to be done in order to fully appreciate how Moliere had created his characters, as we had decided we wanted to depict what 17^th century French Neoclassical theatre characters created by Moliere were truly like. As a student studying the three aspects of theatre, theatre in the world, theatre in the making and theatre in performance, I felt a need to take into account all the research I had learnt and experiment with it to create the desired effect.

We began with the basic steps towards the construction of the play. Firstly by reading the original script of Tartuffe written by Moliere himself. To truly understand the French language (as this version of Tartuffe had been translated into English), we called upon a French teacher to help us pronounce the names of the characters in this play. We experimented with the pronunciations of the names as none of the people attending my class speak French. Not only was this beneficial in understanding the play, it gave a sense of culture as we would have to work the style of this play in a completely different context and culture if we wanted to implicate its origins. I had also gathered from my research that one of Moliere’s dramatic elements was the use of timing in his plays. When performing a play from this era in theatre you must be fast yet articulate with the words you pronounce in order to add to the technique of creating a farce.

Whilst reading the play, I formed opinions about the characters personalities and then later thought about how Moliere had used these to show certain themes in his play or to help show certain personal traits of the character he had created, which were based on people from the French Neoclassic era.

During the assembly of our performance of Tartuffe, we use construction techniques in order to develop an understanding of what was needed to create our rendition of Tartuffe. This included workshopping, scripting, editing and rehearsing.

Also, we decided that we needed to source some sort of costume and props for our performance in the early stages of preparation, as we did not know what was available to us to create a successful performance. This led us to our “theatre cupboard”. In one word, a description of our theatre cupboard is ‘chaotic’. There were costumes and props everywhere, nothing was sorted and things were not easy to find. As a theatre class, we decided that in preparation for our performance, we needed to purge and organize items that were in the performance. I really understood the aspects of organization needed in order to create an effective working environment for a performance of any kind. Without organization and knowing the availability of sources you have at hand, you cannot begin to plan what you want in your play, whether you be makeup, set design or costume director. This was really a significant task that I learnt a great amount from and will apply to any aspect of performance I am involved in.

(Image two) In order to understand the full aspect of creating our performance, we needed to partake in a workshop involving stage makeup. During this workshop, we focused mainly on French Neoclassical stage makeup which involved something completely new and quite confounding to what we had imagined stage makeup may have been presented. We sourced information from a sketch book of an artist who created the ideal pictures we needed to use in order to replicate the makeup used during the 17^th century era for Commedia style makeup. From this workshop, I applied my newly learnt skills into becoming director of makeup for our production, therefore this workshop was beneficial to my final creation of the masks I was to create on the performers faces for our production.

(Image three) We also thought it beneficial to attend production of Tartuffe, however this production was an adaptation created my Louise Fox. The ideals were the same in that the characters shared the same traits in their personalities as those of the original written by Moliere, however, as this was an adaptation, it had been adapted to suit a modern audience as it was set in a modern-day world in the suburbs of Melbourne, instead of the rich, upper-class homestead of France in the 17^th century. Writing a critique of this production helped me grasp the concepts of using the correct terminology when classing aspects of a play. This further helped me in the construction of our production, as I now knew how to validate the techniques I wanted to use in a theatre literate sense.

I also gained other knowledge from watching Louise Fox’s adaptation of Tartuffe regarding stage elements, makeup, dramatic elements, expressive skills, stimulus sources used throughout the performance to create certain effects. I noticed the set design was simplistic yet effective, and looked as though it was created from a low budget, this was beneficial to realise as I learnt that in order to create a successful performance, you do not need an elaborate set design, just an effective one. Other stage craft elements I noticed were costume and lighting. The lighting was used to create a certain tone and this truly effected the mood of the audience. If the lighting was dull and dark, it represented that something of a serious nature was occurring or about to occur. I took this observation on board and will apply it when creating my next performances. There was not a use of elaborate costumes, they were simplistic, yet effective. The costumes were mainly white, symbolizing purity yet conformity. I truly realized how simplistic symbolic elements such as these can completely change what is being perceived and interpreted by an audience member.

I also took note of the dramatic elements used by the actors during this play. They still held the conventions that Moliere’s characters had, suh as the timing, the build up of tension, the space they used and how they created and stirred the mood of the audience and tone of the atmosphere throughout the play. And of course, not forgetting the non-naturalistic theatre elements they used such as use of music, rhyming verse and song and dance. I had realised that all of these theatrical elements were so necessary in creating an effective performance in which the expressive skills and portrayal of characters combined with the theatrical conventions and dramatic elements of theatre were the basis of creating any performance.

However the most beneficial element that I gained from watching this performance was the use of expressive skills. The level of energy the actors had when portraying any and all of their characters was phenonimal. I had never experienced anything quite like it and was therefore inspired to try and create the same level of energy to try and convey the same effect it had on me, on my audience, when performing my production of Tartuffe.

(Image four) We began rehearsing for our production of Tartuffe, editing the script to suit us. We had chosen to do a scene from Act 2 of Tartuffe, as we did not have much time for preparation and only had a limited number of people to transform into characters.

My peers had taken control of set design and costume for the production, however, I still had to learn how to set up a stage for future reference. We sourced a stage guide to help us convert what we saw onto paper. We drew our set design to scale, this required a group effort, however, it was also of assistance to me as I will be in charge of set design for a play in the non-to distant future for theatre arts. Ashleigh, who was director of set design, helped me understand how important researching the style and era of the play was. She had researched what the ‘fashionable’ items that could be found in a bourgeoisie house of the French 17^th century period. I will apply what I have learnt from her preparation to the construction of my future performances. I had also gained much knowledge about the application of makeup for this particular play, and as director of makeup, took steps in the preparation for the actual application of makeup on the characters in this performance.

Ronelle, who was in charge of costume for our performance was in complete control of the situation and I learnt a great deal from her about how to research and apply that research to create a successful and diverse range of costumes which suited the era necessary for the characters in this play. As I will also have to be in charge of costume design for a production, I took note of how she progressed through different stages of her costume design, beginning with sketched and using the resources she had at hand to create effective props. From gaining all this knowledge from my peers, I now know that I can reference them when I need help in the future and apply what I have learnt from them to create a scene in non-naturalistic theatre.

After contemplating what was needed for costumes, set design and makeup for our performance, we decided to put some of our ideas into practice. We painted the backdrop for our stage white. This opened up the area we had to perform in and gave the set design a nice clean background to work with. Ronelle obtained final measurements for our costumes and I took photos of our casts faces in order to determine what needed to be done in creating the mask of their character. All information gathered needed to be compiled into a small research investigation as to how we went about constructing the different aspects of this performance, I learnt that I need to be prepared and take proper actions so that I can easily record the information needed so that I can use what I have learnt in future productions that we will perform in.

My next step in the procedure for preparing the performance was the rehearsal of our performance. Our director, my teacher, the fabulous Mrs. Anketelle, influenced us greatly on how we presented our characters. Ashleigh was to play Mariane, a daughter who was young, affluent and has found her true love, Valere. In order to portray her character, she added Commedia style expressive skills in her movement and gesture to the audience such as sobbing. Dorine was played by Ronelle, a young, outgoing and highly opinionated maid who always had something to say. Her character truly used basic dramatic elements to help emphasise certain jokes or add emphasise to what she was lecturing her master about. Finally, I played Orgon. An old codger who was oppressive and opinionated and also swayed easily by the main character, Tartuffe. In order to portray this character’s personality, I had to transform myself from being a simple girl to a loud and arrogant male from France in the 17^th century. This truly did teach me many skills for portraying my characters in the future, especially if they are male. I had to completely change my expressive skills such as movement and gestures, also my voice had to become deeper and more authoritarian.

It was encouraging to watch our improvement throughout each rehearsal. We began with using scripts, being quiet and reclusive to transforming into our characters. I believe we began as ourselves, portraying our own nervous personalities then finally changing into our characters when performing in front of our audience. From thinking back to how I tried to manipulate myself into becoming my character, I realized it had become easier as I had learnt my lines. Once I knew my lines, it was all about adding the dramatic elements to help captivate and portray what I wanted to the audience. Also, I had realized that as I was wearing my costume, especially my shoes, I felt more in character and therefore was able to apply the technique and stylized performance to suit my character. Being dressed as a male helped me actually portray myself as a male. I now had the confidence to strut like an upper-class French Orgon and speak like him as well. From this I have learnt that the sooner you are in basic costume, and the sooner you learn the lines, the more effective the portrayal of your character will be as you will be able to work on the portrayal of your character with assistance from your director.

(Image five) The night of our performance was the biggest learning curb for me. I realised that so much needed to be done in so little time, and therefore absolute preparation prior to the performance was necessary to create an easy working environment for my peers and I. We began by running through our lines, a necessary step in the preparation, so that we could make any quick changes. Also, as set design and costumes were already set up, the only thing left to do on the night of the performance was to do the hair and makeup. I did feel stressed as I had been working towards this for a quite a while, but I learnt that I could use the stress I was feeling to put a lot of effort into how the makeup and hairstyles were done. As professional hair and makeup directors have, I had assistants which helped me do the basic things I needed to do. I think this is necessary in any performance as makeup and hairstyles and the only aspect you cannot do until hours before you have to perform. I set about doing hair and makeup for the next 2 hours, and only finished with very little time to grasp what I had to do next. From this, I have truly learnt that time is of the essence when organizing yourself for the performance of a play.

The preparation of our performance and study of Moliere truly gave me an idea of what I needed to accomplish throughout my HL theatre arts course. I can now apply my knowledge gained from the performance of Tartuffe in future performances. However I do not only want to apply my newly found knowledge, I want to enhance, adapt and further my knowledge in order to create a successful and exciting play which captivates an audience.

Thank you for listening.