Monday, May 17, 2010

Working on HE SAID, SHE SAID The Drama

I'm working the music for my drama class. That's not as simple as I thought before. Indeed I have created some musics. But many things I have to consider on making music for drama. The drama we're working titled HE SAID SHE SAID, a comedy written by Alice Gerstenberg. First time I read the drama, I shouted to my self, "What the hell is this?!"

(Click this if you want to know the scenario)

You know, well all of my self-making-musics are for the situations below:
  • Romantic
  • Sad
  • Happy
None of my musics are suitable for this comedy. I thought I don't need to make the new one, because I've made many musics (in Final Fantasy and Korean-Pop style.) However, this drama script made me totally blank. I even couldn't imagine the mood on it. For me it's so flat. There's no romantic scene, no tears, and no tragic scene. How blank @_@

HE SAID SHE SAID, basically told about a story of gossip. There were a working man named Felix and his wife worked as nurse, Enid. They wanted to held a small cocktail party with their friends, Mrs. Packard and Diana Chesbrough. Unfortunately Mrs. Packard is a gossip woman . With her rotten tongue, she tried to break the friendship between Felix-Enid and Diana by saying to Enid that actually Diana love Felix and Felix love Diana too (what a mad woman!). The naive Enid almost believed in Packard. However finally Diana could overcome the problem by deceiving Packard. 

That's it. No romantic scene and tears. I can't use my self-making-music. I have to make another. And the bad news is the set was in America 1920's. The popular music at that time was blues. And I have no idea about blues. I have only idea about trousers. But once again, not blues. The hell...
But I won't give up that easily!


3 comments:

Robin said...

Hi, Very belatedly a response to some of your points. I am part of a drama group working on this piece currently.

Alice Gerstenberg dramatised relationships. It's not set in the 1920s (just written then) but in the middle of the war. Late 1917 after America entered WW1 in April. We have moved it to 1915 in London (as we are English) when London society was undergoing very similar traumas as a result of the war, as was America in 1917.

Our Mrs Packard actress has interpreted this part by focussing on Mrs P's loneliness and desire for close friendship - thus a motive for her attempting to break the close relationship between the other characters.

We haven't found much comedy in it. Perhaps the embarrassment factor of dealing with such personal issues may have caused laughter in the 1920s?

Please do let me know if you have any insights you can share on this?

Lady Murasame said...

Hi Robin, too bad, I've just checked my blog so your drama stage must have been done, right? Ahaha XD

Well...I think it's good for your team to move the setting in London, thus it will be more clicked for your audiences. Also, I like how your actress interpret the humanity side of Mrs Packard coz what we were doing was making her a totally bad-assess wicked witch! XD

And yeah it's situation-comedy. More like satire, critics to our society who tends to eat gossips rather than seek for the truth. Well the dialogue itself is full comedy, you can see from the fast line of the dialogues between them, beat around the bush over the same themes over and over (whether Felix loves Diane or not). Also the surprising ending is a comedy too. Shows the cleverness of Diane to finish the problem caused by Mrs Packard and even use it for her own benefit. To imply her love for her crush, Aubrey Laurence.

But because this drama is long and full of dialogues (no heart-beating scenes or actions whatsoever) which might could be really tiring for the audiences, we need more than the dialogue to color the funny moments, right? This is your group director and actress job to interpret the script and bring it life.

I could say that our actress who had the role as Mrs. Packard was a really funny girl in her real life, so that was not too hard for her. Her gestures, her facial expressions, she made them all so hilarious that all audiences laughed out loud just after seeing her for the first time! Don't forget about the make-up. We made her wearing red afro hair. She was just like a clown! Haha. Maybe I'll post the photos later.

NOTE: The important point is Mrs Packard's expression and gesture while gossiping. If you know what I mean, and your actress could maximize the effect, your drama will be madly hilarious! XD Trust me! This is really vital.

We also insert the funny atmosphere of how panic Felix when all the women in the stage act as if he really betray Enid by falling in love to our beautiful Diane XD. At first Felix also act as if he doesn't really care of the gossip that makes Diane feels really terrible. This add the up and down of the drama flows too. As some women audiences must be feel the same to Felix's reaction.

Well that's for the character. Now for the script and technical issues


We also added some little scenes to make the comedy. We made Mrs Packard to explore the stage all they way she liked. While she started gossiping we made her touched some stage properties and deliberately BROKE IT! Like when she was gossiping while looking at the gramophone of Enid. She took the handle and then pulled it off!

Also when she listened to Enid who began to buy her gossips. Mrs Packard was looking at Enid's lamp post and suddenly the lamp was off! The lamp was on again just after Mrs Packard left its side. (Yeah, after we're almost finished the preparation of the drama, we have just realized that the main character of this drama is actually our gossip "girl" Mrs. Packard! At least in our interpretation, this drama was really Packard-centered)

And so many more. Can't mention it one by one for it had been done about 4 years ago! :D But adding small details will help you make the script sounds more fun!

Well that's it. I hope these are helpful for any students out there who are working on the same drama.

Anyway, I'm surprised to know some other drama group working on this script too! Ahaha XD

Mizuki-Arjuneko said...

Wait. Is this Robin's play?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-8S6kMch_A&ab_channel=RobinHorsley

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