It's all business

Every play has a process of creation. In my opinion, I didn't contribute much in this process. We arranched several meetings to write the play, but I was not fully concentrated. As we had little time to work on this, we decided to do what we are good at: comedy. We had to focus in the type of audience we were going to have: students of our age and parents (which most of them do not speak English), therefore the play had to be very visual and the story easy to understand.

What I believe that worked in this play was that all the characters had contrasting personalities: the little tomboy girl, the hippie, the bipolar flower-seller, the pervy japanese, the videogame addict, the pervyvideo addict, and the british shoe-seller lady. This contrasts keep the audience entertained and makes them have a good time watching a play that does not try to deliver a complicated message. The play was not telling a story, it was just a set un fun situations in 4 scenes.

Another thing that worked was the structure of the play. While one scene was being acted, the other 2 were done in mime. Only in the last scene the characters used all the space in the stage. I don't think that any other school used this technique before because the whole audience was impressed by the way we managed to coordinate the 3 scenes. (Of course, there were lots of mistakes done like, people doing their scenes faster in mime and very slow while we talking, but the audience did not noticed. Only us, the actors, Roberto and Melissa).

While discussing about our performance in class, we were remembered by Roberto that this was the first time we ever had a dressed rehearsal without anyone watching. This affected significantly our performance on Thursday because we were never given advice or comments from espectators. The day of the final performance was the first time we faced an audience with our play. The adrenaline and the nervousness, in my opinion, did not let us really feel our characters. Honestly, we performed our play better during previous rehearsals.This reminded me of the difference between presenting a play 3 nights on a row, like 'La Vida es Sueño', and only presenting it one night. When you do several presentations, you get better everynight. On the other hand, the One-Act Play Festival only gives you one chance to prove the audience your talent and habilities.

In 'It's all bussiness', we represented people who form part of our world and our society. We represented ourselfs by showing others, because they form part of our culture. We were not trying to change the world, we were just showing our point of view. Some theatre traditions, on the other hand, have the purpose of changing our way of thinking and living (our culture). Last Tuesday in class we got the conclusion that, if threatre in Lima had that purpose, nothing would change because people in Lima are not used to go to theatre. In this case we would have to use mass media methods like T.V., cinema, etc. The role of theatre (role of representing ourselfs) is an import role in society beacause in theatre is where you see yourself. The play belongs to the audience. Theatre is an immediate art, that is why we focus on getting to the people.

Does every play have the same process of creation? Do we really need a process to write a play? Or can it come our of nowhere? Is the process the same for comedy and dramatic plays?