realisation

Anyone who is curious what I think about the shows I have seen must have been very disappointed about my lack of posts on the topic. The problem is that I realised that the theatre world is too small in Ireland to be honest about ones opinions. In a country where almost every show gets a standing ovation at some point and where no-one (except maybe your best friends, and even those only with proper training and encouragement) will tell you to your face if they didn’t like your show (though they will tell others what they really thought, if they believe it won’t be carried to your ears), you can’t be honest. Because of this habit nobody would know how to react to a negative response. The few times I have been honest people took it pretty personally, which it wasn’t of course, but there you go. When you are unable to receive criticism, when you take it personally, you are very likely to fall out with the person who was honest. And, in a theatre world as small as Dublin, nobody can afford to fall out with others, because chances are you will work with that person at some point, or you would like to in any case. Especially as a young practitioner, recently out of college, beginning to build up a network of connections you don’t want to alienate potential future work-partners. So, for now, i hold my tongue and think my opinions. If you do ask me what they are I will tell you honestly, but I won’t put it into writing. Maybe one day I will.

A while ago we were asked to create miniature people for our models. At the very beginning of this academic year we already had to do that. We made them out of milliput or modelling clay, but I must say that I struggled with the material. My heads were too big and the legs too short. Not very well proportioned model people, in short. And they were at a scale of 1:25 as well.

The people we were now asked to make were at a scale of 1:50 and 1:100. How was that supposed to be done? Playing around with different materials, I first made them out of card, but Monica Frawley thought that they were too 2-dimensional. So, I had the idea to try to make some out of hot glue. I poured some onto tracing paper in the shape and height of a human to the required scale. When it had cooled I traced the same shape on the other side to the tracing paper. After this side too was cool, I cut them out and gave them little glue feet.

Admittedly, they were only vaguely human shaped, but they certainly served the purpose. After having done the smaller scale ones I decided to make them to the scale of 1:25 as well. The principle was the same, only this time I drew their shapes onto the paper first. I was also able to vary the heights a little so that I would end up with figures that vary in height between 1.6m and 1.8m and I decided to signify their gender with clothes and body shapes.

While I painted my smaller figures so they would stand out against the set I was at the time working on, I did not paint my larger ones, and so all of my sets since then have been populated by ghost people. It is oddly fitting for some of the plays.