A midsummer nights dream With Ninjas. Part II

A midsummer nights dream With Ninjas. Part II
By Jason Shirtz

Completed my initial design for Jiraya. (sadly due to time constraints and other projects, i can't make it as pretty as i'd like. Can always do that later.) 

Not winning any art contests with this one. *ahem*.

I'm basing my design for this Jiraya, off of the legendary Japanese actor, Matsunosuke Onoe. Onoe, was a famous silent era movie actor, who is credited with 1000 (more or less) films to his score. That being said most of them, were short films, rather than feature length. Onoe actually did play as Jiraya in some of his films, most notably (as this one survived to this day) Gôketsu Jiraiya . I watched it. It's a fairly light hearted action romp, where he beats up his rival Orochimaru, with the help of his GF Tsunade. Oh, and he beats up some mooks on the way, action hero style. Including vanishing into thin air, being attacked one at a time, or in easily managed small groups, and transforming into a toad to leap on (or devour) his hapless enemies.

All that being said, he is pretty much the GUY when it comes to the ninja action genre, as he was in so many films in that genre, that kids would copy his moves when playing. He was also a kabuki actor, and known for his very, very large eyes, so for my design, i chose to put him in kabuki makeup that focused his eyes, with a few accessories to "ninja" him.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0648803/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488015/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_211

Visual references

 https://www.kansaiscene.com/wp-content/themes/newsroll/js/timthumb.php?src=https://www.kansaiscene.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/asd.jpg&w=660&h=300

http://vintageninja.net/?p=157

In terms of extra "oomph" to his character, i'm saying that his katana used in this production, was made by masamune, the legendary japanese swordsmith. Savvy audience members will get the "Chrono Trigger" reference, where the character of "frog" wields a sword by the same name (albiet different origin.)

For those keeping score at home, this is an Akira Toryiama design (of Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and Dragon Quest fame). Toriyama, has long been the character artist for the Dragon Quest series, which was published by the Japanese game maker, Enix. 

When Square and Enix did a small joint venture (called Chrono Trigger) for the Super Nintendo, he did the character designs for the game including this one.

 In the game, Frog wields the legendary sword masamune, which needs to be reforged before it can be used. He also smashes a mountain open afterwards, to show how awesome and magic it is. 

He also has an attack that allows him to drop an giant frog, on his uncool enemies. Handy!! 

Eventually, Square and Enix, were to merge into the evil megacorp known as Square enix, but a story for another time...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Toriyama

http://chrono.wikia.com/wiki/Frog

To further confuse things, myth wise, i'll have Jiraya mention, that in the lands where he is called oberon, his sword is called Gram. 

As in Gram, Sigurd's re-forged blade, that cut through an anvil and then killed the dragon Fafnir in the Völsunga saga. 

In the Nibelungenlied saga, it is said that Sigurd had Oberon (or  Alberich or  Auberon depending on spelling) guard his treasure after killing Fafnir. I don't really have the time to actually read said saga, to see if Gram was among the treasures left by Sigurd with Oberon.... But Dammit. Ninja. If a Ninja wants your sword, a ninja now OWNS YOUR SWORD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lsunga_saga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibelungenlied

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gram_(mythology)

A midsummer's night dream. With Ninjas. Starring John Goodman

A midsummer's night dream. With Ninjas. 

Starring John Goodman
By Jason Shirtz

Assignment concept: "as a costume designer, you are required to create a design for "a midsummer's night dream", focusing on the mystical, light, elf-like properties of Oberon, Titania, and Puck. At the last moment your producer informs you that John Goodman, has been cast as Oberon. Deal."

my response to this, was "wow if we could get John Goodman on a rope, even he at 6'2'' in height, would look pretty elf and magical. How to do that...."

My response, was well to go to something i already knew a lot about. Wire-fu and other martial arts in media.

With that general aim in mind, I did some preliminary research on Midsummer. here's what I found.

*Chivalric myth cites Oberon as a dwarf, and an enchanter. 

*The transformation of Nick Bottom's head into that of an Donkey, is clearly an act of animal based magic.

*The use of drugs/poisons (in the form of a love potion) applied in secret while characters are sleeping is a core part of the play.

*The title of the play "A midsummer's night dream" invokes an air of illusion, myth and disbelief on the play.

*The play takes place in Greece. The Greeks would be familiar with the idea that gods and other mythic figures have different names in different cultures, due to their interactions with the Romans, and their shared myths.

*According to Shakespeare, the faeries had come from India.

How I used these bits to add "with ninja's" to the play.

*Japanese myth,  tells of Jiraya, an sorceror/ninja who can transform into and summon toads, his love Tsunade who has magic over slugs, and Jiraya's one time pupil, later rival with power over snakes Orochimaru 

*As prior mentioned, transformation into animals, was a power shared by Jiraya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru , that works well with the transformation of a head into a donkey's thematically.

*Ninjas, do in fact use poisons, drugs, and stealth to achieve their ends, not dissimilar to the action in the original play by the 3 faeries. 

*Ninja's working in the night, and being master's of illusion, works well with the overall themes of the play, and it's title.

*An extra scene could be added as a prologue. The goal, would be to start the play with a "ninja fight" that would explain the 3 ninja's magical transformation powers, that they passed through India on the way to Greece, but were from Japan, and that for whatever reason, the people in this country called them "Oberon, Titania, and Puck" rather  than their given names "Jiraya, Titania, and Orochimaru" 

Scenic/Scaling elements:

To highlight the fact that Oberon, is supposed to be a "dwarf" despite the fact that John Goodman is 6'2'' the following scenic technique will be used.

A Bonsai tree, 1' tall, will be on the set to represent the "human scale" for all of the action that takes place with the Greek nobility.

Whenever the three faeries, are talking only between themselves, they will be standing in ninja costume, near a 6' tall replica of the same Bonsai tree.

Whenever the three fairies need to "Transform" into their animal forms (Toad, slug, and snake) to directly interact with the rest of the cast, a double will play their roles, in themed animal costumes. 

These doubles will be doing all of the "ninja fighting" involved with the production. (namely whenever puck has to get passed the guards to douse someone with love potion, and any other excuses that I can contrive for extra violence.)

There will likely need to be some scenic painting to both scales to help create this illusion for the audience.

Bonus Points:

The three ninja's of the aforementioned Japanese myth, are often used as pop culture references in Japan. Most notably, is their usage in Masashi Kishimoto's famous Manga"Naruto" which has them playing key roles as the mentor's to the heroes. This highly popular Manga was adapted into an very, very popular anime, and both were localized for western release in the United States.

Despite the fact that Masashi Kishimoto directly lifted these three characters from a public domain mythology, they are largely unknown to western audiences in any other form whatsoever.

This means that this production, would have a natural target audience in the many, many Naruto fans, on this side of the Pacific. It would also present an marketing opportunity, within the play, to make savvy allusions to the Naruto world, that fans will get, but will not in any way infringe on Masashi Kishimoto's intellectual property.

For example, the character of Jiraya, in Naruto has a very similar facial structure to John Goodman, by sheer happenstance.

Next, fans of the Naruto Anime/manga will be quick to point out that Jiraya is a huge pervert, who in addition to being a ninja, and being able to summon and transform into toads, writes a popular series of light porn novels.

I would make an allusion to that, in the "added" scene at the beginning of the play,  by having my "Oberon/Jiraya" quip that William Shakespeare, did in fact not write "A Midsummer's night dream" and that it, in fact was authored by none other than him. 

Since the base play starts with the kind of lurid elements one would expect from Kishimoto's Jiraya, and speculation of Shakespeare's plays being written by other authors is a time honored tradition, this jest would do double duty for the more genre-savvy audience members in attendance. 

Finally, and most importantly, this placing of "ninja's" does no real harm to the Shakespeare narrative. It does precious little to change the dramatic action of the story. It does nothing to change the stakes other than adding some much needed "ninja fights" to help engage younger audiences.

 It also adds some new sources of humor into the mix, that happens to be entirely compatible with midsummer's farcical nature. It also brings knowledge of legendary Japanese cultural figures to the west, and presents them in a way that encourages a greater understanding of the underlying similarities between all human cultures. 

While there may be some concern of legal action against the production, by Kishimoto or his publishing company, or their license holders, the fact of the matter is, that Kishimoto neither invented ninjas, or the specific ninja's referenced in this adaptation. 

As long as care is taken, to research costume designs form original historical sources that do not directly copy those of Kishimoto, even if there are some superficial similarities, it will be defensible from a legal standpoint, especially considering the "right to parody" clause built into US copyright protection laws. 

As one might infer, using ninja's with this play, may sound like a cheap, dumb gimmick at first, but very much in line with the themes of Naruto, heroism, truth, and the art of ninjutsu  can not only be found in the most unlikely of places, but in the most unlikely of people. 

Scene study and realism: Miss Julie assignment

Scene study and realism: Miss Julie assignment

Got my assignment for my second scene. This one is from the Niel Labute adaptation of "miss julie" i'm "john #3" which is  from pages 36-44. This scene is more or less the establishment of john's character as a "social climber" it's also his "seduction scene, where he and miss julie work to seduce each other/alternately play hard to get make a show of trying to be "good". 

it includes a stage kiss, with julie, which should be a challenge. luckily, I trust kim as a professor to work it out maturely, and my partner for this scene Mimi, worked with me in the prior scene. If we have any issues with that aspect of the scene, i'm also sure Kim will be willing to have one of us trade scenes with a classmate.

Welp. Time to do the acting for reals....

Hip-Hop dance: Midterm

Hip-Hop dance: Midterm

My midterm.... Was eventful. did have the choreo down for our three dances, "sticking out tongue", "dessert" and "poison". The problem, however was I mastered the choreo sans music, so when it came time to do the dance solo in front of the whole class, aside from performance anxiety, I had to work with the music, solo. I usually follow the visual cue's of my fellow dancers for my pacing/timing, so without someone else around to watch, i missed my start cues, and could not keep proper pacing.

after several false starts in this manner (super embarrassing, btw) I asked my professor to do it without the music, explaing I had practiced the moves without it. I managed to get through it that way, although, i did make a few slight errors here and there, and did have one classmate gesture on what move to do on one spot where i stumbled, but overall I did well, and am pleased with both my efforts, and the fact that I did dust myself off after landing on my ass, hard got up, and did the job.

Acting Journal: Reflection on "top secret"

Acting Journal: Reflection on "top secret"

This was a very emotional scene for me to go through. First of all, I had a "medical discharge" as a missionary in 2002. A mormon missionary service is about military tier discipline, more or less, (with free time, and getting drunk/laid on the weekends against the rules)  I had some handy references to Roy, particularly as the ensuing PTSD/reliance on meds have had a severe effect on my relations with family in the ensuing years.

Also, my one of my younger brothers served as a reservist in the national guard, and was pulled into service in Iraq. While he did not see active combat, he was in some combat areas, as best as I can tell, which gave me additional personal context to work with. 

A further source of personal connection to roy, was the fact that if he wasn't able to find a place to stay during treatments, he was going to be homeless. I have had the displeasure of being in that exact situation on three separate occasions in my life. One of them I spent sleepless, malnourished and bleeding in an abandoned warehouse in Venezuela. Considering the physical consequences of Roy being homeless was anything but a theoretical consideration for me.

I felt that my Roy, was an physically and emotionally desperate person, desperately trying to keep his calm, despite being justly scared of the massive amount of physical danger that he had both left, and was currently in. Before he entered the door, I spent some time "locking in" the emotional states I had felt during a number of similar confrontations I have had since my mission. Arguments, conflicts, struggles, that had stakes of life, death, medication, emotional and physical safety. After that, I took the tone for my depiction of Roy on a moment-to-moment basis, particularly focusing on playing off of Mimi, who was playing Fay. Particularly memorable moments were the slamming down the letter in when angry at Fay for being "holier than thou" (my character was both angry, and scared of dying by the inaction of a sibling who he was all to prepared to assume was uncaring), and when Fay said "how can you joke about that" after he told her he had cancer, his sense of guard lowered as he realized that Fay was both willing, and wanting to help him sincerely. 

Overall, it was very cathartic to play as Roy, and it was also helpful in helping me to identify my own emotions, as well as feel more comfortable in trusting that they were valid.