PYGMALION: A ROMANCE IN FIVE ACTS

Pygmalion is one of the plays that I am supposed to study for this semester. Pygmalion, which is written by Bernard Shaw is a comedy about a phonetics expert who, as a kind of social experiment, attempts to make a lady out of an uneducated flower girl. Pygmalion probes important questions about social class and mobility, education, human behavior, and relations between the sexes.

I am interested in the theme of social class and education, being illustrated by the playwright in Pygmalion. Previously, I thought that social class also resembles our own education. The higher our level of education is, the higher our social class would be. Moreover, supposedly, the more knowledgeable we are, the better our ethics will be. But, this does not entirely rhyme with what have been portrayed in Pygmalion. In my opinion, what Shaw is trying to depict is that, one with knowledge and a good social status in his life may not have the ethics and morals being demanded out of them. For example, though Mr. Higgins is an educated and professional phonetic expert, he has no desired ethics, required from people of upper class and good educational background. He treats other people, either low class or upper class with the same, rude manner that does not at all suit his position.
Besides that, Eliza who is initially an uneducated woman has been portrayed to have better manner than Mr. Higgins. The knowledge and education that she gains obviously makes her a better person. She has accumulated ethics and knows how to interact intelligently with people of upper class. But, in the story, though Eliza has changed in her appearance and has accumulated ethics, suits a lady, she somehow has not really changed in her inner self. She stills a flower girl who always makes an irritating sounds when she is angry. Hmm...an old habit is really hard to leave.

Macbeth

Last week, all of us have watched a movie, "Macbeth" which was written by none other than its famous author, William Shakespeare. The movie uses the original script by Macbeth and it starts with the scene where three witches, burying a hand on the seaside. Later, the audience are introduced with the main actor itself, Macbeth, a brave warrior who has just won a battle over the country's enemy.

Overall, I can say that this movie is a gory tragedy as there are lots of bloody scenes being portrayed. Macbeth, after being told by the three witches that he is going to be Thane of Cordor and the King of Scotland, murders his own King Duncan and conspires against his own friends to become the ultimate and powerful King of Scotland. For Macbeth and his wife, they think that they will get anything they ever desire if Macbeth become a King. Unfortunately, it is not long for Macbeth and Lady Macbeth to come to realize that they have got the otherwise. They are very unhappy as their pass sins haunt them down.
The guilty conscience has made Macbeth a person deprived of sleep, meanwhile Lady Macbeth accumulates a habit of washing her hands! She always has hallucination of seeing her hands covered with Duncan's blood and that has depressed and built tension inside her. Here, the inner conflict inflict upon themselves as they are haunted by their pass sins. The guilty conscience also leads Lady Macbeth to her own death. In the movie, she is portrayed to have killed herself, after been mentally ill for a while. Lady Macbeth's death is followed by Macbeth's famous lament and soliloquy, a poem entitled "Life's Brief Candle".
In conclusion, Macbeth is a tragic figure as what he wants to be~ a King of Scotland lands him into a state which makes him an unhappy and disasterous monster!. In his way to become the ultimate king, he has murdered lots of innocent victims and he has created a lot of enemies. In the end, Macbeth is killed by Macduff, the one who was not born from a woman.

Simulated Teaching


I would say that I did miserably horrible for my simulated teaching. I did not have the fluent language that a teacher should possess and nervous was another reason which made it even worst! Instead of encouraging the students to talk, it seemed that I "had encouraged" myself to talk and respond more in the class!
But, this experiences made me realise that as a teacher-to-be, I need to sharpen my language skills, especially in communicating with students. Language is the important asset that I should sharpen as in the real situation in the class, teacher plays a big role of setting example to the students and what's more is that I do not want to embarrass myself in front of my future students for not being able to speak good English.
Besides accumulating good language skill, I think that as a teacher, it is very crucial for me to make myself a person with composure. Teacher should avoid showing that we are nervous as this is a dangerous virus, attacking our own confidence. A teacher also must provide good activities for the students, activities that will make them enjoy learning and studying.
I will try my best for the next simulated teaching and I fervently hope that I will improve in it. Who says teaching is easy? Determination, committment and happiness are some of the ingredient for us to be good teachers. And i think that happy to be a teacher is important criteria as only with that, will the teacher makes the students happy to learn and study!

King Lear's Natural and Unnatural

I am very interested in the theme and element of natural and unnatural in the play, King Lear which is written by the famous and brilliant writer, poet and playwright, William Shakespeare. The element of natural and unnatural have been brilliantly depicted in both, main and sub plot of the play. In the main plot, the King, Lear has three daughters of whom he loves and this is natural.
But, what makes it unnatural is that Lear's two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan act as if they are not his natural and legitimate daughters. When Lear asks his daughters to profess their love to him, Goneril and Regan have professed their exaggerated, false love to him and in return, Lear has given them his kingdom. Only later, does Lear realises that they are liars, but it is futile. They never want their old, foolish father besides them. Only Cordelia, his last daughter proves to be loyal and love him in the true sense of love. Lear regrets that he has disowned Cordelia in the first place.
Meanwhile, in the sub plot of the story, the element of natural and unnatural have also been portrayed. These two conficting elements are depicted by Gloucester's sons, Edgar and Edmund who represent the opposing qualities, legitimacy and illegitimacy. Edgar represents legitimacy as he is the successor and the rightful heir to his father's possessions. Meanwhile, Edmund represents illegitimacy as he is the bastard son of Gloucester. Edgar is very kind and loyal to his father, but Edmund's lie has made him the betrayer in the eyes of Gloucester. In contrast, Edmund is an ambitious and evil son of Gloucester, betrayed his brother Edgar to fulfil his ambition.

Shakespeare Wallah, a movie set in India about a struggling group of English theatre actors, traveling and staging their performances all over India. These Shakespearean actors make for themselves a theatre company, called Shakespeariana and it basically consists of a family, the main actor who is also the father, Mr. Buckingham and 2 main actresses, who are the

mother, and their only daughter, Lizzie and the other sub actors. Tony, Carla and Lizzie Buckingham are all determined in staging the Shakespearean plays as they have devoted their entire life doing exactly what they want. During their tour, they meet a guy named Sanju, acted by Rishi Kapoor. Occasionally, Sanju and Lizzie get together and at this point, Lizzie has fallen in love with Sanju, without knowing that Sanju has got an affair with the famous Indian actress, Manjulah.

Here, the conflict starts as the story portrays not only the conflict between Lizzie and Manjulah, but also in the bigger picture, between theatre and cinema world. During that time, cinema world has been accepted by Indian people and audience are more attracted to go for movies in cinema. Less people are going for the theatre. There is even a scene whereby, Manjulah's appearance in theatre staged by Lizzie and the company has disturbed the flow of audience's attention. Instead of watching the theatre, audience are more interested in taking Manjulah's signatures and photographs.Here, the story conveys to us how people and circumstance always changing.Their life of theatrical world has somehow been threathen especially when the world of cinema become famous.

The Reduced Shakespeare is a very refreshing and entertaining play and from my observation, a farce is more to it. Only presented by three talented and brilliant actors, the play had introduced me into another genre of play which is farce and comedy. I believe all of us, the so-called “audience” as we were watching a performance, staged without the element of aliveness and immediacy, really enjoyed and entertained by the performance. I, for instance, croaked because of so many laughs after watching it for two- sweet -hours.

I admit that at first, I could not make out some of the messages, conveyed by the actors, but later, I felt I understood better. The setting and props used were very simple and not very impressive, but i think the limitation of props that had made the farce funnier! It is rather extraordinary how they acted the reduced Shakespeare’s plays, according to their own interpretation.

I like it very much when they put on various kinds of performance, such as narration of Othello with some sort of rap style, a combination of some Shakespeare’s plays and also Hamlet. They also portrayed how important an actor acting out his character during the performance. At one time, the actors involved the audience down stage to act out one scene of screaming on the stage. In order to build up the emotions and feelings of the character, the whole audience was asked to illustrate the commotion inside the character’s being. It was very fun and refreshing as audience also gets to involve in the success of the play!

The farce was rather unusual performance. There was a time when the actors argued among themselves about their interpretation of one of the Shakespeare’s plays. What I got from it was that how interpretation nowadays is different with that of Shakespeare’s time. When I reflect the scenario, yes, I also sometimes get confused of words and interpreted literary works, produced by much earlier writers differently from the readers of their time. I admire how these actors had successfully and brilliantly made the reduced Shakespeare’s plays a fun and fascinating play to watch. The Reduced Shakespeare, that was exactly what they were doing! Out of 5, I will give them 6 and a half for their awesome creativity and extra sense of humor!