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By Jessica Cheung
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Oct. 23, 2009 |
Some say inspiration springs from unexpected places but the school’s
drama classes were wowed by a theatre performance, giving them insight
into professional theatre as an art.
Every student currently taking a drama class watched Brief Encounter, a
performance at the American Conservatory Theatre on Oct. 1. The play
centers on a forbidden love between a British suburban housewife and a
doctor in the 1940s. “The purpose of the ACT field trip was for theatre
students to perceive professional theatre,” Visual and Performing Arts
department head Teresa Bookwalter said. “The production inspired the
students to achieve a high level of performance in their own classwork.”
Chaperoned by Bookwalter, former theatre teacher Thomas Drain and teacher’s assistant Sarah Kingson, students arrived at ACT to check in at noon. A total of 120 drama students, including students from Aptos Middle School and Sequoia Middle School, viewed the performance. According to junior Yves Mandereau, an hour-long question and answer discussion about professional acting followed the performance, allowing students to catch a glimpse of life of professional drama beyond the classroom. “I thought it was fundamental to see professional acting,” junior Vianna Newman said. “It definitely set the standards and it’s great to witness what goes on in the real world of acting.”
Along with learning about how the actors interact behind-the-scenes, students also perceived drama differently in this multimedia production. “I learned that theatre is not a rigid structure,” senior Richard Lau said. “You can perform in various ways.”
The audience was compelled by the play’s usage of clips from the original film of Brief Encounters. “It was so different from the film,” Bookwalter explained. “They maintained the feeling and added so much comedy, all the whole keeping the sadness.”
The performers also integrated segments of the movie. “There would be a clip of a train in the background, then one of the actors would walk toward it, and the next second they were in the film on stage,” junior Adar Schneider explained. “They also used film to exhibit the main character’s memories, which the characters of different worlds collide on one stage. They definitely pushed the limits on stage.”
Students participated in a post-performance class discussion and a class write-up about motifs and themes in retrospect of the play. According to Bookwalter, the class response will be sent to the actors as appreciation. “For the write-up, we have to choose a character, follow them and write about their objective,” Mandereau said. “Do they overcome the obstacles or do the obstacles overcome them? Then we write about something else that we really enjoyed, like the tech or the lights or the cues.”
The play’s innovations captivated the audience. “The execution of the production was drastically different from what I expected,” Lau said. “I enjoyed their unique combination of both theatre and film in the same production. I felt the director did a good job in allowing for my own character analysis — for my own geeking out.”
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