Uncommon Clay
Uncommon Clay was devised and directed by Jeanine Thompson. I saw the 8:00 PM at the Thuber Theatre. This play purpose was to relate to others the hardships and ordeals that Camille Claudel had dealt with from her child hood all the way up to her containment in a psychiatric asylum. As the play opens, an old woman who is Camille in her old age, which is referred to as the Current Camille, greets us. She begins to tell a story beginning when she was at the age of 17 and moving right up to where she is admitted into an insane asylum. Along the way Camille reveals to the audience; the happiness, hardships, betrayal, and emptiness that she goes through during her life. In this play, there are many artistic influences presented. Three that stood out were from Antonin Artaud, The Bread and Puppet Theatre, and Bertolt Brecht. Artuad's purpose was to create a theatre that shared and involved the audience's reactions and emotions. This is shown during Camille's struggle with her love affair with Rodin and how it transforms into a bitter illusion of betrayal and insanity. Artaud wanted to connect mind, body, and spirit. Jeanine Thompson is doing just that with Camille's sculptors. Her mind creates these sculptors, which evoke
Theme sent the message of self-destructions to the audience by interweaving with character. The acting magnified and caused the audience to get involved with Camille's feelings. The set helped us view Camille's emotions such as the window and Sculptor Camille. In reaction to this she destroys her self, the scene of when the statues consume her shows this. Later toward the end of her secret relationship with Rodin, we see her character make a sudden shift in emotions and she becomes the Crone Camille; that insane women who loss focus of her main reason of sculpting and was so crushed by Rodin's rejection that she became insane, delusional, and loses trust with even her own family. The acting is a big part of connecting theme and character together, thus making this a very essential theatrical convention. In the previous scene, she is destroying her works; thus destroying her self. There are actually six Camille's that symbolized her change emotions. The background had a large window on the left which change it's lighting to compliment Camille's emotions and the Sculptor Camille up on a scaffold, which was also a symbol of Camille's inside feelings. She wanted to show the tension in the girl, while Rodin wanted the model to be a display of only beauty. This was important since we could not see into the mind of Camille. Camille's character is given way through a story within as story as told by the Current Camille who opens the play telling of her childhood and ends the play with her own self destruction in the insane asylum. On the sides, there were stone-like structures and to the far right there is a small rectangular wooden platform with a door behind it and a rocking chair where the Current or Old Age Camille sat and told her story. This play is a slice-of-life that wants to put the audience into Camille Claudel's shoes.
Common topics in this essay:
Sculptor Camille,
Camille Claudel's,
Current Camille,
Rough Theatre,
Crone Camille,
Puppet Theatre,
Camille Claudel,
Brecht Artuad's,
Rodin Camille,
Matron Camille,
sculptor camille,
puppet theatre,
bread puppet theatre,
camille's emotions,
bread puppet,
camille claudel,
character audience,
theme self-destruction,
character theme,
jeanine thompson,
relate hardships,
camille character audience,
character theme acting,
love affair rodin,
theme acting set,
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Acceptance Essays
