entablado basics

1.
Contemporary Theater in Mindanao by Steven P. C. Fernandez all rights reserved, 1995 http://www.msuiit.edu.ph/ipag/dulaan/mindthea.html
Two Modes of Theater Practice
Theater-as-staged Theater-as-process Contemporary theater /indigenous form:
Activities take place in relatively larger population centers, schools, parishes, and mass-based sectors. These have their own forms, fulfill specific functions and relate specific values. In communities represent communal yearnings. Its artistic expressions fulfill a different set of functions. With a spontaneous process, it directly relates to the integrative and defensive needs of a community. 1. integrates music, dance, literary (basically oral), and visual expressions;
2. emphasizes creative process motivated by its multi-functional quality;
3. betrays no strictness of time, nor limitations of space of a structure that is improvised and spontaneously created;
4. presents a direct and personal audience-performer interaction (audience and performers meld and are oftentimes indistinguishable); and,
5. reflects values that are of a communal rather than individual nature.
Integrating these qualities into theater-as-staged produce works where:
1. artistic expressions are similarly integrated (very seldom will you see Mindanao-created plays that have dialogues only);
2. process is a communal rather than an individual activity - the vision of the play does not emanate primarily from the single playwright or director. A communal process involves a "collective" effort where the vision is shared by a "community" of artist-participants. For instance, in Western-oriented theater practice, we find one choreographer conceptualizing all dance. In contrast, Mindanao Theater has choreography which is the result of a shared effort, of artist-participants collectively taking part in the creative process to articulate the vision shared by a community, of plays that may be constantly changing to meet the demands of a milieu;
3. the "beginning-middle-end" structure, a close-ended time frame, inevitably becomes necessary considering the altered setting of a fixed and limited "stage" time. While the creative process is still an overriding concern, the end product - the "whole, completed play" - is the subsequent result. There is a transformed function - like entertainment - using techniques of sustained conflict, suspense, tension, and spectacle.
4. the direct and personal relationships of the performing process destroys the "fourth wall," approximating a communal ritual, working best in spaces without boundaries (though transplanted to limited spaces in gyms and auditoriums). Theater in the seminal sense is forum and ritual.
Contemporary Mindanao Theater asserts its communal power, a power released in the creative process. This "communal" strength (vis-a-vis the "individuality" in Western theater) is a cultural property of a society, a quality that ensures social interaction and growth.
Contemporary Mindanao Theater is also the venue for the dissemination and popularization of cultural values and symbols. It translates the indigenous into the contemporary. It adapts "entertainment" (in the present sense) to make meaning more effective to the contemporary audience.

is structured, organized in the formalistic sense, planned, and is developed through a step-by-step production process to come out with a "product." (although also organized but in the emic sense) is created within the inherent rhythms of the community: its cycles, calendrical events, planting and harvest routines. Process rather than the end product is the point of this pattern.
has performances with actors in specialized roles performing for a separate viewing audience in mind. is an "all join" activity where performers can also be the audience.

is planned for set functions as in entertainment, education, or political action is multi-functional for the various needs of the community
adapts and transforms cultural symbols to recreate form is the form itself
builds its process from a prepared planned guide (as in a script), spontaneously releases a process well imbibed by the community.
The practitioners of the first are specialists - artists who have gone through some formal training. They are separate from a "lay" relatively passive audience has folk artists who do not bar the participation of the other members of the community from taking direct and active part in the creative process, from being performers too.
more typical where formal education is accessible, Communities with a more distinctive ethnic character where lore and custom are handed down by tradition.
Pattern 1: Traditional proto-theater forms used as ritual for communal functions as worship, harvest, birth, and other way-of-life concerns inherent in the peoples' lives:

Pattern 2: Theater, built from indigenous lore and cultural elements, adapted and transformed for the stage, and performed on a regular basis by organized repertory groups. The materials and artistic elements of this pattern are developed by careful process through research, immersion, and cultural study produced through a "studied" play production process.

Pattern 3: Theater taking off directly from a specific community's or sector's immediate concerns, to ventilate problems and needs, for social action, value transformation, assertion of communal rights, and the like.

Pattern 4: Theater produced from already-available scripts written and/or published mostly in Manila, translated and/or adapted in the dialect and performed by Mindanao-based groups

Pattern 5: Similar to Pattern 4 except that the materials used are original, that is, one developed by a resident playwright or a collective.

2.
Performers Principal Means of Expression
Body Flexible/disciplined/expressive To express wide range of attitudes, actions and reactions
Voice Vocal projection Express external emotions which are felt internally
Various vocal projections

3.
Approaches
Observation and imagination Habit of observing/ remembering/close observance
Concentration Immerse self in play
Creative illusion of the first time
Technique Develop own mechanics
Full-front Actor facing directly audience
One-quarter 45 degrees away from audience
profile 90 degrees
Three - quarter 135 degrees
Full-back Completely turned away from audience

4,
Terminologies
Open-up Slightly moved toward the audience
Turn-in Turn toward the center of the stage
Turn-out Turn toward the side of the stage


5.
Splits
Intellectual split Expressed emotion seem to be pre-occupied or mentally locate elsewhere
Physical Split Body has no relationship to the quality of the emotions being expressed
Vocal split Verbal expressions that has nothing to do with what he/she feels
Emotional split Expresses another emotional life instead of the character required

6.
8 Basic Acting Efforts
Direction Speed Weight
Straight Curved Fast Slow Heavy Light
Press Diin/duot k k K
Punch Suntok/sumbag K K k
Flick Pilantik K K K
Float Lutang/lutaw k K K
Glide Indayog K K K
Wring Pilipit K k K
Dab Tapik K K K
Slash Taga/tigbas k k K