Category: Valley of Astonishment (Page 1 of 2)

Costume

• Mundane colors: black, white, khaki, gray
• Sammy Costcas: full black attire in contrast to her colorful mind
  • Deliberate attempt to highlight her colorful thoughts (synesthesia)
• From civilian clothing to professional attire (lab coat)
• Overall, costumes aren’t elaborate; colors are kept simple as to not overshadow the words and actions that are central to the storyline

When the three main leads first stepped out onto the stage, I was a little bewildered by how simple their attire was. Afterwards, I realized that the simplicity of the street clothes and the colors is a deliberate attempt to highlight the complexity of Sammy and the other synesthetes’ minds. The director intentionally kept their costumes simple, so that the colorful flow of words is the main focus of the play. It is a clever decision on the director’s part, and personally, I feel that this is the best approach because had their costumes been elaborate and colorful, the depth of the characters’ speech would be lost.

Elijah Blumov

The Valley of Astonishment

Elements of Theatre: Music
Music plays an integral and involved role in this piece, so much so that the play itself could arguably be called musical performance art; of the five performers, two of them are primarily musical accompaniment, one a pianist/accordionist and the other playing a chordophone and various idiophones. In the show, music serves four distinct purposes: firstly, as an ambient soundtrack to suggest mood and add emphasis to various scenes and monologues (of note: The Oriental passage played during the Phoenix monologue). Secondly, as an indicator of the passage of time, performed as interludes between scenes, or within a scene to condense the narrative, counterpuntal to some sort of pantomime (as when Sammy recites dozens of words). Thirdly, music is utilized as a window into the thoughts of the synesthete characters, giving the audience a glimpse into their melodic minds and the thought patterns and emotions they exhibit as told through their musical inner consciousness (such as in the monologue about the beloved bassist, or when Sammy becomes frustrated/overwhelmed and the music reacts accordingly). Lastly, music is used physically within the confines of the narrative (such as when one character listens to the radio, or when another plays piano for the doctors).

There’s chairs and a table in the center .

Coat rack in the left-hand corner.

Piano and odd looking drum set in the right-hand.

Pants and a jacket on a chair.

Second chair in the back with a dustpan and broom.

Lamps with long exposed bulbs on either side of stage center.

The staging plays an important role in establishing the feeling in of the play. The lead is often isolated on the stage and the doctors are placed in a threatening position.  The placement of the musicians is also interesting  because they are present but not recognized by the players. Their music seems to be penetrating the scene more than if they had been placed in a bit or farther removed from the action.

• Not a high budget production
• 3 wooden chairs set up around a table
• Doctors coats and the information that look to be brain wave patterns
• Very simple stage with few instruments and props
• The use of different color lighting to emphasize the emotion felt during that time
• Also the use of only 3 actors makes very good use of limited spacing
• Over all the use of the stage and the props is effective in conveying the message of the author
• Most of the scenery you had to imagine for example when the character was describing how she stored all the information “ on a street, the street I grew up on” and describing the house as being the starting point and putting everything she remembers on to those streets until she fill up the entire city. Although this is not shown on the stage the description is so accurate it is almost like you are actually there.
• Also the music used worked as scenery showing what was happening more clearly than any prop. For example as the character was describing how she remembered things the music got more and more intense as she was describing how the room in her mind was filling up. This didn’t need to be shown just hearing the music you could see streets of a city filled with objects of the characters memory

Valley of Astonishment

Directions

• Very elaborate stage directions
• Since there are no scenes or props, the audience has to imagine what is actually there, and stage directions play a big role in that
• When the doctors were putting the wires on Sammy’s head, they used hand movements to show what they were doing
• Very creative to walk through theatre during the scene when Sammy’s agent was showing her the stage
• Including the audience in the performance was a great stage direction
• It was very interesting when one of the doctor’s clients was showing how he painted while listening to music, and when he wanted to show that he turned the music up, he turned the knob as if a radio were there, and the musicians started playing louder
• In the beginning, they all came in at once. It was very powerful
• Most of the performance was done in the middle of the stage, towards the front. Not much occurred in the back, just entrances and exits

Luis Carrasco                                                                                                10/1/14

Professor Natov

The Valley of Astonishment.

Costumes:

The play explores the human mind and how we look at things. Words are seen as pictures for some people (Ms. Costas) and others see color or hear music when they look at things or hear things.

When the actors started to talk about the Phoenix, they immediately caught my attention because I used to like mythical creatures a lot. I wanted to know how that was related to the Phoenix. “He knew the exact time of his death and would gather leaves to build a pyre and burnt himself up…But every time he burnt himself up he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again.”

Then learning about Ms. Costa’s amazing memory and seeing her re-discover how her own mind worked was neat.

In the beginning they had this floor that was about the size of a small bedroom and a moving table. They had a coat hanger with doctor jackets and other types of jackets too. These I felt were the most important costumes. If we looked at the characters individually, they all had similar regular clothing of jeans, sneakers and a dark color shirt. One of the exceptions was the businessman who was the boss of the company who Ms. Costas originally worked for; he had brown shoes rather than sneakers. I noticed that it was the jacket that turned them into the character that they had to be seen as. Who they were was reflected into that singular piece of fabric and their voice, dialect and tone created the persona they wanted to be. With Ms. Costas, when she was just an employee, she had on all black clothing and once she entered the showroom, where she was a performer, her jacket had a strip of silver plated sparkles around the border of her blazer; she was no longer a laborer and now a performer. We can see that off stage she didn’t have her jacket and when she was with the doctors she didn’t have it as well. I thought it was a way of showing she is still human and that she has flaws just like all of us, because she couldn’t forget and she was going crazy. The boss at first was funny and intimidating and had a casual look to him, and then as a doctor’s assistant, with the lab coat, he was always asking questions and trying to observe every detail about Ms. Costas. Then the actual doctor had a lab coat too, but in the transition where he was a magician, he was wearing a blazer with a hat, and he performed tricks with his sleight of hand and the cards. When he was being an ordinary man who had trouble walking, he did not have his jacket on, he had a grey collar shirt. Then the man who could see painting and each color made him hear a sound was dressed in an ordinary fashion as well, because he was an “ordinary” person with a single role. The character of John Kelly, also had a jacket that made him seem like a performer, and when he was performing he took it off and wore a vest underneath it. The other man, he could see color once he heard sounds. That man had a leather jacket, which was making him look cool and he was locked away, but inside he was one of the people who had a special way of seeing and hearing in their mind. He had not told anyone about how he sees colors when he hears words because someone told him he was weird.

The play was very well done even with the limited costumes and it left me with a puzzling feeling of what is what in my brain and how is it that I forget? Overall it was interesting and made me wonder about the limits of our own language.

The Choreography of The Valley of Astonishment was quite interesting. After the actor was done playing a role for that scene, they went to the stage right near the back to change into their doctor gowns or they went back stage. Most of the movement during the play was the furniture (the table and chairs).

A very different choreography came up during the painting scene. One of the actors was on the floor sweeping around with his hands. He also got up, walked toward the back of the stage and pretended that there was a huge white canvas. There, he threw imaginary paint on to it, making a lot more movement that any other scene. He did pretty well in depicting a character that sees color whenever he hears sounds, dictating what his brain is.

Another dramatic scene was when a woman who was nervous because she was running out of memory wrote all the numbers in her brain onto paper to burn them. She asked Jared to burn them for her. In this scene, Jared took out a lighter and pretended to burn papers. He started from the floor of the stage, moving his lighter slowly around the center of the stage. He slowly moved the lighter up, showing the audience that the fire is burning up.

Overall, this play was very different from other plays and Broadway shows that I’ve encountered. I have seen a show with two actors taking control of the entire stage but I was able to tell what character they were playing. However, in this play, the change in scenes and characters were very abrupt and the ending seemed to be very out of blue. However, I did enjoy their acting and the story line.

One observation I made was that each actor had multiple character roles and that each character has his or her own “style” of walking and moving around the stage; for example the man who was hospitalized with his body paralyzed. The way he moved around the stage was much different compared to the doctor’s walking movements played by the same actor. The difference in the style of movements helps the audience differentiate between the characters and helps the audience visualize each separate character and his personalities. I also noticed that when the actors need to leave the scene or when they are not in the scene, they sit in the chair facing the back of the stage. It was very interesting how even though the actor is present on the stage, because he or she is not facing the audience, their presence is not noticed. This shows how important eye contact is when grabbing someone’s attention.

During the scene when Sammy left the editor’s office for the doctor’s, she circled the stage. When she completes the circle the audience could sense that she was not at the editor’s office anymore but arrived at a new location. I find it really interesting how the actors can imply the start of different scenes by the subtle but significant gestures or movements that they do. During the “painting scene”, the actor’s choreography as he “paints” on the floor really describes the movement of his thoughts as he paints and the shapes and colors that went through his mind. Even though actual paint was not used, the audience could visualize the intricate painting when he finished.

The staging in Valley of Astonishment was very simple, which leaves much to the imagination and viewers’ perception. It featured 3 wooden chairs, a movable wooden table, and 1 coat hanger (all uncolored). The actors/actress used chairs as their props; for example, rocking the chair like a cradle. The staging sets the scene for many settings: a home, cognitive neuroscience office, theatre, and  Sammy’s mind (with the imaginary blackboard), and John Kelly’s office. In John Kelly’s office, Kelly places his feet on the table to indicate informality and characterize him. In the Office of Cognitive Neuroscience, Sammy describes the pictures of brains and doctors’ nameplates, even though they are not all there. But since she is so descriptive, there is no need for fancy props or staging. The Dr.’s assistant knocked on the wooden table to signify knocking on a door. I loved the part where the table was the medical equipment, the brain scanner and how it produced the images of brain activity on paper. It was very clever. Synonymous with all the imaginary props, the brain scan helmet was imaginary. Exaggerated movements helped depict it. in the painting scene, the man used under the chairs as the paint dishes, and the broom stick as a different brush, and splattered fake paint into the air which was supposedly a large canvas. Sometimes the chairs are unimportant, and seem to “disappear” from our view because they are not being used, like during the John Kelly magic show. When John Kelly was moving through the stage (in the back near the audience), he hit his foot on a metal bar which was clever and humorous. During the magic show, the table had a black cloth. In the Finale, a single chair with the musician playing the Chinese flute really puts the emphasis on him and his simple but touching music.

Majority of the time, the lighting is focused onto the center stage when the actors and actress are interacting with each other. It draws the audience’s attention to the center of the stage. The main light source comes from three different sides: the front, right, and left. There are also five poles with light bulbs on top of them at the back of the stage and they light up when the center lighting diminishes or when the actors and actress move to the back. An example of this is in one of the scenes, the pianist that associates music notes with colors plays the piano and the center light diminishes and the two light poles behind him lights up and cast a shadow over him adding to the solemn atmosphere. During the scene when another “patient” starts painting on the floor, the center lighting darkens and the different color lights are concentrated onto the “paper” he is painting on. The color is first blue, then green (the color gets brighter and brighter), orange, dark red, red, and finally yellow. The colors draw out the vivid transition from one thought to another inside the human brain. The backdrop also changes colors to match the colors on the floor. The four light poles at the back also light up. In another scene when another “patient” with a paralyzed body gives a monologue about walking around the garden, the floor becomes green to give an image of a garden filled with greenery. When Sammy’s nightclub boss burns the paper that contains the numbers she wrote down, the backdrop becomes a vivid red. This lighting gives an effect of her internal conflict with the memories bombarding her. The backdrop is also a vivid and intense red when Sammy performs her act. The backdrop lights up with purple when the magician performs his act. This gives a sense of mystery and anticipation. During the scene when the actor is giving a speech, the center light is focused only on him. His surrounding areas are all tinted in green light. It makes the audience only focus on him because of the contrast in lighting.