2010. 04. 21.
April 1
At the second meeting for "This is Hungary. That's why!" we devided the participants into four groups. For the first round each of these groups were asked to improvise on a theme, such as- Working together in multicultured groups
- Going shopping and not getting what you want
- Learning a foreign language
- Helping a foreigner, as if she/he was mentally disabled
After this first round, we asked the groups to find an improvisation theme themselves and to perform it. Scenes that came out were
- exciting studentlife and how to get pregnant from your philosophieteacher
- making a complaint in an office, without even getting a form filled, because you don't remember your mother's maiden name and her birthday
- a couple sightseeing on a tramway without a ticket, and starting off a fight, on who should have bought the ticket.
-Mixed parents seeing the teacher of their daughter in an English-language school, and starting to fight, wether the girl should be a ballettdancer or a professional boxer.
The scenes the groups came up with in both rounds were witty and well concepted, with a good feeling for the audience aswell. We thank all participants for the inspiring work!
For the next round, we ask all volunteers, to bring a short "Monologue", a text they'd like to try on stage. Everyone is free to chose anything, from a self-written-text, a poem up to Hamlet - if you like. Language is also choseable, we only ask you to bring an English or Hungarian translation in order to help us understanding you!
Alice Müller
Next Interkult ArtCourt with stand up comedy show and Hunglish casting: 3rd May 2010
2010. április 12.
Hunglish Play
Budapest Interkult launched a project to show expats’ life on stage. On the first occasion, March 1, all volunteers – Hungarians and Foreigners – were asked to show themselves on stage and tell the audience something about their own experiences related to being foreign or seeing foreigners.
Here are some quotations:
„A word that is still weird to me: Puszi.”
„I had to go to hospital, and Attila was saying, ’we are going to sajnos Árpádkorház’. I did not understand, why he said sajnos, until we got there and I saw the hospital.”
„I met an Italian in a disco. He asked me ’Do you speak Italian?’ I said : ’Si’. He said: ’So lets speak English!’”
„Why is everybody saying ’Hello’, even when they are leaving?”
And one even came up with what we decided to be the working title of the play: This is Hungary. That’s why!
Alice Müller
(Some photos about the next Interkult evening on Facebook)
2010. április 6., kedd
5. week, The Once and The Future King - The Sword in the Stone
This week started with improvising the scene when they turn into fish. So far it has probably been the most difficult and challenging part for the actors and the most amusing for me. It was fascinating to see how they adapted to different situations and experienced the animal’s world from their point of view. First Matt and Mike tried to improvise by themselves how to act as a fish, then the choreographer – Krisztián Gergye – came up with some ideas about fish-like-behavior.
Then some other thoughts occurred such as using Debussy’s Sea; blowing bubbles or holding a stick with a carton paper with bubbles and waves have drawn on it…
Then we started to discuss the customs and the stage decoration related to the whole play. The main idea is that all the elements of the stage decoration are suspended from the ceiling; then at certain moments they go down to the stage. There was an idea that we may not hide the technical solution behind the stage. It means that two people are standing back on the stage make the decoration move when necessary. This way the audience become the part of the trick.
Since the actors have to change characters and consequently their costumes within seconds, those should be simple but unambiguous. For this reason the best solution would be to use just caps or any hadcovers instead of a whole costume. When one actor plays two different characters at a time, we could use two-side-hadcovers. This way while turning into a different character they only have to turn from one side to another.
At last we got the Theater for rehearsing instead of the small rehearsal room we got used to… So making use of the lot of space the actors improvised the whole play with the help of the plot list. It took about 40 minutes to complete. By this they became more or less aware with the plot of the whole story so now – I guess – there will be much easier to go deeper into the details of the certain parts.
Annamaria Kaptay
2010. 03. 29.
3. week, The Once and The Future King - The Sword in the Stone
3. week. The guys started the improvisations of the first scene. The point was to create a conversation only by attiring certain key words of the scene. Of course, they had to be aware what the sentences should be, but only some main words had to be said loudly. The actors imagined the settings but the conversation did not have to be direct. It was coming from nowhere, they got lost, they got less and less concentrated, more and more drunk and sometimes even fell asleep during talking… It is all set in the 6th century but they use modern references which makes the whole scene more comic. I would say the central topic of the scene is life from the two drunk middle-aged men’s point of view.
15. 03. 2010.
The Once and The Future King - The Sword in the Stone
The second rehearsal week has gone. To get more involved into the atmosphere of the Arthurian legends, we watched the Disney cartoon called The Sword in the Stone and the well-known Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
The aim is nor to create the stage version of the cartoon, neither the next Monty Python adaptation. Instead, in the process of the rehearsals, the fusion of the improvisation and the script will hopefully produce the final version of the play.The base plot is given: the story about an eleven-year-old bastard who has finally become the king. Anyway, what we have to do at the moment is to concentrate on the beginning: the work with the first chapter is starting on Thursday...Annamaria Kaptay
