Thursday, 8 April 2010
Monday, 5 April 2010
THE FEAR FACTOR
March 13 2010.
Yet another day of rehearsals this time a new place. Only myself sangeetha and faria were here to do our bit..Myself and faria (kailashnath’s mom) had to practice we had not practiced earlier and we had to work our chemistry. I had learnt that kailashnath was a momma’s boy and and shared an undivided attention from his mom more over it was his wedding hence all the more reason for him to gain attention.
I had a quick chat with sachin this was regards to my journal i had written. I had expressed my confusion and more important i needed clarity to understand the direction in which the play was heading.
I guess everyone at some stage should have this self doubt as to if one is on right track. I always felt this was essential to stay grounded and more over this would help any person to explore oneself further. Sachin always insists on keep thinking of what more we can add towards the character and role.i now realise this importance.
Me and faria rehearsed and rehearsed over and over lot of things had to be fine tuned but at least we knew what to work on .
Soon it was noon and we went for lunch at lunch our heroine (madhumati) almost fainted cause she had not had breakfast. I realised my earlier lesson about actors being fit and it absolutely necessary. at this situation where sangeeta was fainting i saw the wit of sachin that lightened up the situation. He claimed that sangeeta was intentionally fainting just to have a glass of lassi J
Well we soon got back to serious work. And the other crew also joined in it was really getting festive. The marriage celebration had just begun J
We were back rehearsing and getting back our scenes in place. the day ended with a positive note
I started feeling positive about the whole play
The next day again we met soon at 9.30.am we were to rehearse the whole day. We first showed him our costumes and got approvals for the same including the “sehera” once the crew was in place we ran thru the whole play once and it was uninterrupted it was gud and we gained confidence later after lunch. ( pizza ) lunch we got back and did it all over again. This time it was better than the last time thats what i felt.
I realised many scenes i should take slowly and not rush into it. I felt i was rushing. I needed to fine tune a lot.
I was now looking at my performance to add the many of the little nuances that can actually make it more natural.
I know only by working on weekends and not looking at it as a process can make the role very shallow.
My weekdays are getting so hectic with work that i hardly get time to think deeply about my role. And the play as whole.
But when weekends came i was totally immersed in the rehearsals and thought deeply about the character of kailashnath madhumati and his relationship with these family members.
The bond had to get stronger and it needed to get reflected in the way we portrayed ourselves on stage.
At the end of sessions i was amazed to hear this every one shared the same bond and it felt gud cause it was essential to have this team bonding and its nice to share this feeling among your co actors. This made us feel even more positive.
Sachin’s level of perfection was really high this i realised when we had done with our rehearsals he said we were 50% done .....................i was exhausted for the day and though this felt gud it also made me feel we were only half way through.
We ended with an amazing exercise of going through the experience of the day our show was to happen.
Every ones reactions were very inspiring. i too got Goosebumps at the curtain call.
I loved it .... we were now getting ready for the final act.
Yet another day of rehearsals this time a new place. Only myself sangeetha and faria were here to do our bit..Myself and faria (kailashnath’s mom) had to practice we had not practiced earlier and we had to work our chemistry. I had learnt that kailashnath was a momma’s boy and and shared an undivided attention from his mom more over it was his wedding hence all the more reason for him to gain attention.
I had a quick chat with sachin this was regards to my journal i had written. I had expressed my confusion and more important i needed clarity to understand the direction in which the play was heading.
I guess everyone at some stage should have this self doubt as to if one is on right track. I always felt this was essential to stay grounded and more over this would help any person to explore oneself further. Sachin always insists on keep thinking of what more we can add towards the character and role.i now realise this importance.
Me and faria rehearsed and rehearsed over and over lot of things had to be fine tuned but at least we knew what to work on .
Soon it was noon and we went for lunch at lunch our heroine (madhumati) almost fainted cause she had not had breakfast. I realised my earlier lesson about actors being fit and it absolutely necessary. at this situation where sangeeta was fainting i saw the wit of sachin that lightened up the situation. He claimed that sangeeta was intentionally fainting just to have a glass of lassi J
Well we soon got back to serious work. And the other crew also joined in it was really getting festive. The marriage celebration had just begun J
We were back rehearsing and getting back our scenes in place. the day ended with a positive note
I started feeling positive about the whole play
The next day again we met soon at 9.30.am we were to rehearse the whole day. We first showed him our costumes and got approvals for the same including the “sehera” once the crew was in place we ran thru the whole play once and it was uninterrupted it was gud and we gained confidence later after lunch. ( pizza ) lunch we got back and did it all over again. This time it was better than the last time thats what i felt.
I realised many scenes i should take slowly and not rush into it. I felt i was rushing. I needed to fine tune a lot.
I was now looking at my performance to add the many of the little nuances that can actually make it more natural.
I know only by working on weekends and not looking at it as a process can make the role very shallow.
My weekdays are getting so hectic with work that i hardly get time to think deeply about my role. And the play as whole.
But when weekends came i was totally immersed in the rehearsals and thought deeply about the character of kailashnath madhumati and his relationship with these family members.
The bond had to get stronger and it needed to get reflected in the way we portrayed ourselves on stage.
At the end of sessions i was amazed to hear this every one shared the same bond and it felt gud cause it was essential to have this team bonding and its nice to share this feeling among your co actors. This made us feel even more positive.
Sachin’s level of perfection was really high this i realised when we had done with our rehearsals he said we were 50% done .....................i was exhausted for the day and though this felt gud it also made me feel we were only half way through.
We ended with an amazing exercise of going through the experience of the day our show was to happen.
Every ones reactions were very inspiring. i too got Goosebumps at the curtain call.
I loved it .... we were now getting ready for the final act.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Nearing completion !
March 06.& 07
Kailashnath gets heated up! We are nearing the deadline 27 march and we had only 3 weekends from now to rehearse and reach perfection. Kailashnath was still a mystery to me though he reminded me in many ways especially that of getting excited immediately for anything and everything. His impulsiveness was sometime like me. And so i have finally begun discovering kailashnath. Im yet to discover the innocence of his love with madhumati.
The opening scene has a song from the film awara “ek do teen aaja mausam hai rangeen...” this song is a very important song and we were jus not getting it right. There is something that we lacked. And that was chemistry. We just were not in sync. We were too caught up with the steps. I also started believing that we needed to plan some things in the song to do like plans our moves or choreograph them But our DIR sachin didn’t believe in planning it and. Its actually becoming slightly monotonous after a while. I was getting desperate that we crack this. in the noon the other group members joined in and we had our regular sessions of scene building. This time we didn’t have the character playing kailashnath’s mother hence the scenes were not really fine tuned.
I was still struggling to get into the skin of kailashnath. For a moment i thought i cant do this.
But i could also sense that the more no of times i and sangeetha practiced the better we got( though sachin felt we didn’t get it rather he told us we only got about 10% of what he was looking for. This sure left me confused as i really didn’t know what he was expecting.
Though i now started discovering kailashnath i had long way to go. Nevr felt acting was so difficult for the first time.
The next day we started a fresh again. Today too we didn’t have my mother ( character ) we were also to bring our costumes and other props for the play. We got them this actually helped us understanding the exact amount of time we will be needing on the stage. We began assembling scenes again and today we were joined by two more members of the group Karthik and Robert.they were madhumati’s brothers this was the whole team that would finally go on to make kailashnath weds madhumati on stage.
I was getting excited but at the same time was worried about our performances as i felt we weren’t doing well and was binging to feel that sachin too was feeling the same . i only had heard we need to work a lot and this was actually worrying me not the amount of work but the lack of time. We had just 3 weekends including today’s day.
We again ran over the whole scene sequence and got the feel of the stuff but again as i said before we got to know we had loads to do ahead of us. To top it all though i was feeling positive we somehow will make it i was getting worried. Of how actually this was going to happen.
I meditated but each time i felt i was getting closer the reaction of sachin was not promising for me though.
We could not again do the scenes with my mother as this was again one more cause of worry. For me.
Last two days have been hectic but i was giving my best ( except that the results were not promising ) that to the initial song sequence it was just not getting anywhere.)
We also discussed kudiattiyam and this time i realised that kudiyattiam details were indeed much more that i actually thought it would be
But honestly the play was worrying me more that anything else.
I’m just hoping we some crack this code.
Kailashnath gets heated up! We are nearing the deadline 27 march and we had only 3 weekends from now to rehearse and reach perfection. Kailashnath was still a mystery to me though he reminded me in many ways especially that of getting excited immediately for anything and everything. His impulsiveness was sometime like me. And so i have finally begun discovering kailashnath. Im yet to discover the innocence of his love with madhumati.
The opening scene has a song from the film awara “ek do teen aaja mausam hai rangeen...” this song is a very important song and we were jus not getting it right. There is something that we lacked. And that was chemistry. We just were not in sync. We were too caught up with the steps. I also started believing that we needed to plan some things in the song to do like plans our moves or choreograph them But our DIR sachin didn’t believe in planning it and. Its actually becoming slightly monotonous after a while. I was getting desperate that we crack this. in the noon the other group members joined in and we had our regular sessions of scene building. This time we didn’t have the character playing kailashnath’s mother hence the scenes were not really fine tuned.
I was still struggling to get into the skin of kailashnath. For a moment i thought i cant do this.
But i could also sense that the more no of times i and sangeetha practiced the better we got( though sachin felt we didn’t get it rather he told us we only got about 10% of what he was looking for. This sure left me confused as i really didn’t know what he was expecting.
Though i now started discovering kailashnath i had long way to go. Nevr felt acting was so difficult for the first time.
The next day we started a fresh again. Today too we didn’t have my mother ( character ) we were also to bring our costumes and other props for the play. We got them this actually helped us understanding the exact amount of time we will be needing on the stage. We began assembling scenes again and today we were joined by two more members of the group Karthik and Robert.they were madhumati’s brothers this was the whole team that would finally go on to make kailashnath weds madhumati on stage.
I was getting excited but at the same time was worried about our performances as i felt we weren’t doing well and was binging to feel that sachin too was feeling the same . i only had heard we need to work a lot and this was actually worrying me not the amount of work but the lack of time. We had just 3 weekends including today’s day.
We again ran over the whole scene sequence and got the feel of the stuff but again as i said before we got to know we had loads to do ahead of us. To top it all though i was feeling positive we somehow will make it i was getting worried. Of how actually this was going to happen.
I meditated but each time i felt i was getting closer the reaction of sachin was not promising for me though.
We could not again do the scenes with my mother as this was again one more cause of worry. For me.
Last two days have been hectic but i was giving my best ( except that the results were not promising ) that to the initial song sequence it was just not getting anywhere.)
We also discussed kudiattiyam and this time i realised that kudiyattiam details were indeed much more that i actually thought it would be
But honestly the play was worrying me more that anything else.
I’m just hoping we some crack this code.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
progress & transformation
20 feb 2010
Another new day . This day started with great confusion which went on till the next day. I have always been extremely particular with regards to time. Be it at work or at home. I value time both mine as well as others.
My session to chilsag started with this confusion ( got a mail saying that the rehearsals were on both Saturday and Sunday though the Sunday timing was not mentioned. I was getting late for the rehearsals and so hurried especially because i had to travel nearly 20 kms to get to rehearsals.
I reached the place right on the dot. Only to find there were no rehearsals happening. Some other group was practicing. I called up the director and got to know that there had been some miscommunication in the mail that was sent.
Well again i realised the importance of communication today. Moreover the importance of right communication. though this freaked me out a bit this didn’t put off my passion to do the play.
I went home and got the meetings rescheduled for Saturday evening. And wrapped up loads of work for Saturday itself.
Next day the rehearsals were at 9.30. so i got ready at around 8am and started a fresh... at around 9.15 i was just reaching the venue feeling gud to be before time as usual. I got a call saying that we meet at 10.30am.
Honestly i wanted to return back. Nevertheless i didn’t do that i didn’t want anything, any situation to rule my decision to do theatre. Not even myself. I went ahead got relaxed and eased my memory before i get back to do my rehearsals.
Gud for us sachin arrived at 10 am sharp we then rehearsed and it was no looking back.
We were given scripts , we in sense me and sangeetha strangely we were the only two of us at the rehearsals ..i didn’t get the point why others were not at the rehearsals. It actually didn’t matter because we got straight to our rehearsals and i wasn’t wasting my time.
i realised many things today during our rehearsals. I needed to get connected with the character before i got into my dialogues and acting stuff. But the character was still not making an impact on me. Now when analysed i realised that its important for me to first understand what the character is originally like in sense what type of person is he ( eg active,lazy, clean, messy,slow, fast his mannerisms, his gestures, his attitude in life in general, his perception of his would be wife ( madhumati ) etc etc..
i needed to discover kailashnath soon .
It was important for me to establish this before i got into his skin. How i do it is is another aspect. May be i need to follow my instincts for this. But i realised the importance of getting the details of this character
After lunch we got back and the others joined in there were many people many were new for me. This is the first time we were as a whole group .we did many exercises many of which i knew the purpose of the exercises.
It was more of group building, trust and improvisation skills that we were sharpening.
Sachin was actually building the skeleton of all the scenes and we just had to give in our best. We were actually now divided into groom’s family and bride’s family members. The feel of marriage and festivity just plunged into the room from nowhere the sessions got loads of energy and the music that was used was totally “ DRAMEBAAZ” in local language and i loved it especially the feel of family reunion with background song of “kyon ke saans be kabhi bahu thi” freak this was the last thing that i would have expected. But is soon realised how this music had actually brought together many families in together jus to watch this soap opera. This also reminded me of a TED TALK series which recently happened at mysore. Here Sashi Taroor speaks of india being so popular because of its pluralist secular image and here he speaks of this soap opera “ kyon ki “ being so were famous in AFGHANISTAN that people actually rescheduled wedding reception timings based on this serial timings which was translated and telecasted in their nation.
Now i know the reason behind its popularity. J
Well we ended this session positively and i needed to work harder. I also needed to get more information about "kudiyattam" it started getting more and more interesting as i had previously known very little about this art from which is part of our rich cultural heritage. I personally want to increase my knowledge by adding information about this into my memory.
I’m looking forward to finish this play with loads and loads of experience. in fact this experience of writing this journal in itself is an experience.
Another new day . This day started with great confusion which went on till the next day. I have always been extremely particular with regards to time. Be it at work or at home. I value time both mine as well as others.
My session to chilsag started with this confusion ( got a mail saying that the rehearsals were on both Saturday and Sunday though the Sunday timing was not mentioned. I was getting late for the rehearsals and so hurried especially because i had to travel nearly 20 kms to get to rehearsals.
I reached the place right on the dot. Only to find there were no rehearsals happening. Some other group was practicing. I called up the director and got to know that there had been some miscommunication in the mail that was sent.
Well again i realised the importance of communication today. Moreover the importance of right communication. though this freaked me out a bit this didn’t put off my passion to do the play.
I went home and got the meetings rescheduled for Saturday evening. And wrapped up loads of work for Saturday itself.
Next day the rehearsals were at 9.30. so i got ready at around 8am and started a fresh... at around 9.15 i was just reaching the venue feeling gud to be before time as usual. I got a call saying that we meet at 10.30am.
Honestly i wanted to return back. Nevertheless i didn’t do that i didn’t want anything, any situation to rule my decision to do theatre. Not even myself. I went ahead got relaxed and eased my memory before i get back to do my rehearsals.
Gud for us sachin arrived at 10 am sharp we then rehearsed and it was no looking back.
We were given scripts , we in sense me and sangeetha strangely we were the only two of us at the rehearsals ..i didn’t get the point why others were not at the rehearsals. It actually didn’t matter because we got straight to our rehearsals and i wasn’t wasting my time.
i realised many things today during our rehearsals. I needed to get connected with the character before i got into my dialogues and acting stuff. But the character was still not making an impact on me. Now when analysed i realised that its important for me to first understand what the character is originally like in sense what type of person is he ( eg active,lazy, clean, messy,slow, fast his mannerisms, his gestures, his attitude in life in general, his perception of his would be wife ( madhumati ) etc etc..
i needed to discover kailashnath soon .
It was important for me to establish this before i got into his skin. How i do it is is another aspect. May be i need to follow my instincts for this. But i realised the importance of getting the details of this character
After lunch we got back and the others joined in there were many people many were new for me. This is the first time we were as a whole group .we did many exercises many of which i knew the purpose of the exercises.
It was more of group building, trust and improvisation skills that we were sharpening.
Sachin was actually building the skeleton of all the scenes and we just had to give in our best. We were actually now divided into groom’s family and bride’s family members. The feel of marriage and festivity just plunged into the room from nowhere the sessions got loads of energy and the music that was used was totally “ DRAMEBAAZ” in local language and i loved it especially the feel of family reunion with background song of “kyon ke saans be kabhi bahu thi” freak this was the last thing that i would have expected. But is soon realised how this music had actually brought together many families in together jus to watch this soap opera. This also reminded me of a TED TALK series which recently happened at mysore. Here Sashi Taroor speaks of india being so popular because of its pluralist secular image and here he speaks of this soap opera “ kyon ki “ being so were famous in AFGHANISTAN that people actually rescheduled wedding reception timings based on this serial timings which was translated and telecasted in their nation.
Now i know the reason behind its popularity. J
Well we ended this session positively and i needed to work harder. I also needed to get more information about "kudiyattam" it started getting more and more interesting as i had previously known very little about this art from which is part of our rich cultural heritage. I personally want to increase my knowledge by adding information about this into my memory.
I’m looking forward to finish this play with loads and loads of experience. in fact this experience of writing this journal in itself is an experience.
Monday, 22 February 2010
this will go on till ...kailashnath weds madhumati..
Contd.... 13th feb
This sat was a fresh start...a lot more new things to learn. We all came fresh with no clue of what to expect today.
We all started with and intensive dance session on the beats of our own popular’ Bhangra’ and some folk Tamil numbers. Within no time we were exhausted and i personally had no energy...it felt like all our charges were drained
Lesson learnt was its so important for actors to be fit....really fit. So that each time i perform i can give my 100% and this is possible if and only if i am fit physically.
We soon went into dance of expressions and this too was not easy dancing with jus expressions was so very difficult.
I suddenly stated feeling that acting is not all that easy.( i knew expressions were important in acting but this exercise bluntly got me down and made me realise my weakness had to work and work hard i felt personally.
We then had a session of dance over a very old Hindi song. The idea was to jus freak out on this too and give as many expressions as possible ( the dance steps weren’t very important.) This too got me a bit disturbed as i felt i was too caught up focussing on the flow of my body to the music and not my expressions)
I wasn’t really enjoying it i guess. the process of exploring myself through dance was successful ( in sense i realised this was one of my weakness )
We had a small one to one session with sachin ( our director) He told me ,that comedy could be one of my strengths and i jus needed to introspect and look deeper for it . What i understood is to know your strengths form your instincts and to channelize it that’s was we were working at.
I also realised that yes i naturally was inclined to comedy and that i that iam known (among my close friends to be a person who entertains them with witty jokes and situations)
I felt sachin somehow read this and wanted to tap my potential to do comedy. i need to explore it more deeply and fine tune my skills. In this regard introspection helps to get connected. with oneself.
What we did after this was nice we had situations of salesman to sell a product..this is where my instincts really charge me and i quickly got in to the character of a south Indian sales man.
I loved and enjoyed what i did i jus followed my instincts and the improvisations jus kept happening. If i enjoy what i do ,i perform well this is wha ti realised and this is what i experienced in my first play also. And even when you keep doing the same scenes again and again the performance keep getting finer.
We ended our session with production methods and ways of making it reach to more people. We also were to present info about kudiyattam ( a traditional theatre art form originating from kerala)
In today’s dance explorations i liked what vasant did though many may not agree;. But i jus looked what he was exploring.
Im seriously looking forward to learn more from all my sessions and evolve as a better person and a better actor.
This sat was a fresh start...a lot more new things to learn. We all came fresh with no clue of what to expect today.
We all started with and intensive dance session on the beats of our own popular’ Bhangra’ and some folk Tamil numbers. Within no time we were exhausted and i personally had no energy...it felt like all our charges were drained
Lesson learnt was its so important for actors to be fit....really fit. So that each time i perform i can give my 100% and this is possible if and only if i am fit physically.
We soon went into dance of expressions and this too was not easy dancing with jus expressions was so very difficult.
I suddenly stated feeling that acting is not all that easy.( i knew expressions were important in acting but this exercise bluntly got me down and made me realise my weakness had to work and work hard i felt personally.
We then had a session of dance over a very old Hindi song. The idea was to jus freak out on this too and give as many expressions as possible ( the dance steps weren’t very important.) This too got me a bit disturbed as i felt i was too caught up focussing on the flow of my body to the music and not my expressions)
I wasn’t really enjoying it i guess. the process of exploring myself through dance was successful ( in sense i realised this was one of my weakness )
We had a small one to one session with sachin ( our director) He told me ,that comedy could be one of my strengths and i jus needed to introspect and look deeper for it . What i understood is to know your strengths form your instincts and to channelize it that’s was we were working at.
I also realised that yes i naturally was inclined to comedy and that i that iam known (among my close friends to be a person who entertains them with witty jokes and situations)
I felt sachin somehow read this and wanted to tap my potential to do comedy. i need to explore it more deeply and fine tune my skills. In this regard introspection helps to get connected. with oneself.
What we did after this was nice we had situations of salesman to sell a product..this is where my instincts really charge me and i quickly got in to the character of a south Indian sales man.
I loved and enjoyed what i did i jus followed my instincts and the improvisations jus kept happening. If i enjoy what i do ,i perform well this is wha ti realised and this is what i experienced in my first play also. And even when you keep doing the same scenes again and again the performance keep getting finer.
We ended our session with production methods and ways of making it reach to more people. We also were to present info about kudiyattam ( a traditional theatre art form originating from kerala)
In today’s dance explorations i liked what vasant did though many may not agree;. But i jus looked what he was exploring.
Im seriously looking forward to learn more from all my sessions and evolve as a better person and a better actor.
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