The topic for this week is simple: សូផាត សូផាត សូផាត!!! There’s
one kinda tough part to it, and it gets much more pleasant–I think!–after that.
The tough part is that you really, really need to read both Chapters 6 and 7 for Monday. This is necessary so that we can start planning the play on Monday (that’s the pleasant part–trust me!). We’re also going to read Chapter 8 next week, but since that won’t be covered in the play, that comes later.
But don’t fret, there’s help. Here’s what I’m offering. First of all, we’re going to cover Chapter 6 in class on Monday, but just in one hour. There will also be only one hour, on Tuesday, devoted to Chapter 7. But if you would like to get together in the afternoon on Monday–for me that means after office hours end at 4, so, say, 5?–and I’ll read Chapter 7 to you out loud (and we can discuss it a little), I’m willing. I suggest doing this at the Union.
And there’s one other thing you need to do this weekend: read the pages in Chapter Seven in your textbook on traditional literature, including the three types of poetic meters we’re going to study. You’re not expected to “memorize” the meters or be able to recite in them by Monday or anything like that, but please read the descriptions of them, listen to them on your audio tracks, following along with the diagrams and the text in the textbook, at least twice for each one, so you start to get a feel for them. Don’t worry, we will be covering them in class as well…but the only way to start to “feel” them is to listen to them over and over. They’re really quite clever and beautiful if you give them a chance!
Starting on Monday, we’ll be planning the សូផាត play in class…in
fact, that will form the vast majority of what we do in class this week. I’m sure you’ll want to do some planning–and rehearsing–outside of class as well in preparation for the big performance on Friday, but we will be spending lots of time helping you on this during class hours as well.
Here’s what’s involved: on Monday, you’ll try to come up with what will be covered in each scene of the play; that is, extract from the written text those events you think are absolutely essential to telling the story in 20-25 minutes in a performance. You can also start to talk about who will play which role(s). There are no right and wrong choices for essential scenes from the novel to adapt to the stage, of course…but there are of course “better” or “worse” choices.
On Tuesday, you’ll tackle the question of how you’ll express each scene: traditional verse (you have to use some of it!), spoken dialog, song. And I strongly suggest that at that point you form “committees” or groups to divide up the work of planning the play from that point on: say, one group to compose the verses in traditional meter (and yes, we will give you lots of help on that!), one group to compose the spoken dialog and songs, and maybe one group to choreograph the action and come up with props. I also strongly suggest that you choose one member of your class to direct the play, to oversee the whole process and keep track of the “larger picture”.
Starting Tuesday afternoon/evening, outside of class, you’ll need to start composing everything that will make up the play: verse, dialog, song. You’ll continue to do this on Wednesday–including spending time on it in class–and then, start practicing! You’ll have Wednesday evening, Thursday in class, and Thursday night to do that. By the way, whether ពូរេត comes in to conduct a workshop on Wednesday or not, on
Wednesday we will go over some of the basics of movement on stage consistent with ល្ខោនបាសាក់ style (that’s
the theater style we saw an example of in class on video today). I know, I’m a poor substitute for a true Khmer theater expert, but I can give you some guidelines.
Also on Wednesday, I’m offering another សូផាត reading in the
afternoon, this one for Chapter 8. While Chapter 8 will not be included in the subject matter of your play, we need to keep up with our reading schedule, so we’ll have only chapters 9-11 left for next week. We will spend one hour in class on Thursday covering Chapter 8.
On Friday, you’ll have hour 1 to do a final, dress rehearsal in the performance space (206 Ingraham Hall, the room directly across from the SEASSI office). Then at about 9:15, your audience (the Begining class and a few esteemed guests) will file into the room, and from 9:30-10 am you’ll perform សូផាត for them.
One last note: some of you (you know who you are) are falling behind on the work schedule for your Independent Study Project which you specified in your timeline. Don’t let this get out of hand. Yes, we will give you extra time to finish up your project in Week Eight (basically, we will not have class on Monday or Tuesday, though we will on Wednesday, and your presentations will all take place on Thursday), but if you think you can throw together a presentation in two days and have it equal in depth and quality what you would have produced if you had been following your timeline all along, that’s just not gonna fly, and it will be reflected in your grade. That will be my last reminder on the subject.
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