Anna in the tropics[audience edition]

The moment I walked in there were people sitting in all three sections. I could hear people casually talking about their expectations of the play and how excited they were to watch their fellow peer perform. It was pretty quiet; no one was talking extremely loud or being obnoxious. Even though the show didnt start everyone was talking in low voices. I began to notice that when the show was suppose 2 start which was at 7:30 people began to stop their conversations and if not they would get even quieter. The show started around 7:36 by the way.
When the show started no one was talking everyone was paying really close attention to what was going on. The phones that people had out were put away and sileneced to show full respect to the actors. They laughed pretty loud at funny parts and stayed quiet for the others. The crowd seemed to be really into it and really follow the story. At the funny parts I couldn't help but laugh aloud with my fellow viewers. In a weird way I tried to match the tone or loudness of everyone else so that when I laughed I wasn't being to rowdy. I think in a sense everyone did that.Everyone seemed to have been laughing a pretty descent volume. I think laughing to loud would distract the performer and in some occasions may be seen as rude[but hey thats just me]. I was sitting in the front row on the right set of risers, so that would be stage left for the actor.  The majority of the audience were either sitting in the middle or the ones to the far left, which is stage right for the actor. Being in the seat I was in I couldn't really get a feel of how the audience felt about the performance. I really like the fact that I noticed the audience focusing on what the director wanted us to be looking at for the time being. For example in the beginning of the play There was a scene with two men betting on a rooster that I guess would win a fight. Then another set of actors came in and the previous ones were frozen and the lights didnt shine on them. To me, It was pretty cool to see how different techniques could get an audience to focus on something else; even though I'm sure there may have been a couple of people that may have been interested in the frozen male actors.  Another part that really spoke wonders on what type of audience we had that night was when they began to do intimate scenes and or talk about sex. There were some children in the audience so the people that looked under sixteen looked very uncomfortable. I completely understand why they acted that way. I dont think Anna in the Tropics was written for an underaged group so the reactions I saw from them were understandable. The elder people on the other hand, people over the age of 18, also responded in weird ways. There were people that really got excited/amused when these scenes happened, those who seemed disgusted or annoyed, and those who just like the younger kids seemed to be uncomfortable. I'm part of the group of people that were excited when these scenes happened. I was amused because I did not see those type of things happening in this play. I expected it to be clean and sweet wholesome love. To my suprise there were affairs and a lot of lust going on, so it was nice to see this type of thing going on. There was only one point where I felt uncomfortable with a paticular intimate scene was when the eldest daughter started to kiss her husband. I felt awkward along with some other people watching this paticular scene because they were kissing with no emotion and at that moment I felt like they broke character because the kisses looked really fake. If they were executed a little better the uncomfortable feeling that some of the audience members got probally wouldn't have happened. As soon as we saw the look of a "staged" kiss and not a really passionate one it just looked like two people kissing that didnt really like each other.
Last but not least on my way home I could not stop talking about the lector because he was so handsome and Corinna because she was amazing and I had no idea she was such a wonderful actress.

MiMe

When you think of a mime you usually think of the person in the box with black and white makeup [Kind of like this picture]. A great example of a mime would have to be Marcel Marceau. He does everything a mime is supposed to do. He acts out the entire scene with no dialogue and with his movement gives you an idea of what is going on.  This type of art is close to dance but is not at all the same. Dancers dance with sound of the music, rythm, and the way they move whereas mimes are more focused on telling a story and setting a scene with their body language.

History

The Mime is said to be one of the oldest forms of expressing yourself.  During the time where there was no set language or when they were getting a language together they used the term mime to show what they needed or wanted at the time. So in the beginning it wasn't even started as a form of entertainment or theater it was just a way they communicated. After a while it then started to be seen as theatrical and really started in ancient greece. Their performances were similar to the ones we have now with mimes. They acted out scenes with really exaggerated movements and no dialouge. It all began in the theatre call Dionysus. The actors that performed in these shows would wear white masks and would perform for a crowd of 10,000 during the day. At times they would perform in honor of their god Dionysus who is also known as the god of theatre. The most intricate form of mime is called hypothesis. Hypothesis focuses more on showing the audience who that character is rather than spending a lot of time on developing a plot. The christian church did not like the mime's performances, but as time went on the church began to relax and in a way accepted these acts.

This is a picture of Etienne Decroux.  Unlike Marcel Marceau who did illusionary mime he did statuary mime. He was called the father of mime in france.  1928 is when he started to really get into mime .

This is a piece by a mime called MiMo chipsa. He seems to be doing a traditonal mime routine. He really sets the scene and after a while of watching you really understand and see the whole picture.

Work cited

Anderson, By Jack. "Etienne Decroux Is Dead at 92 - Master of Modern French Mime - Obituary - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 21 Mar. 1991. Web. 12 Oct. 2010.

Felner, Mira, and Claudia Orenstein. The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon, 2006. Print

"The History of Mime." Tripod - Succeed Online - Excellent Web Hosting, Domains, E-mail and an Easy Website Builder Tool. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.