Sunday, June 22, 2014

Post 5: Interesting Scenes of Frida's life

   I don't want to tell the complete story of Frida's life, and I certainly do not want to do it linearly. I see the show more like a series of vignettes, starting after Frida's death with a Day of the Dead celebration at the Casa Azul.
   So I just started listed episodes that could make good "scenes", in the order we might consider, starting with:
        . Day of the Dead at Casa Azul: From a fixed image acting as a curtain, go into a very slow zoom out from Frida's "sparrow" eyebrows (from the Portrait as Tihuana,very much a Santa Frida), to a full view of the Day of the Dead Altar in the courtyard of Casa Azul:







    For demonstration purposes, I am using a Daylight image, but I might actually prefer to build a night time image with a lot of candles, complemented with real candles and real flowers carried by the audience. We would have to build an altar and photograph it for projection, unless we actually start the show with a real altar (on wheels)…When the altar is wheeled away sideways, Frida appears behind her portrait in the window of the front set.
   We would then break into:

          . The Tango Scene:   A live Frida replaces replaces the portrait in the window, and Tina Modotti appears ouside in a sexy 30's dress. After some interaction though the window, the front set is raised out of the way. The room behind appears with mapped projection on the three walls, and a few people drinking. An old phonograph is on a stand, somebody winds it up, puts a record on:

   Frida drinks a big chug of aguardiente, everybody claps, she starts the phonograph, grabs Tina, and the Tango starts. The overhead camera view is projected on the raised front set above the stage, possibly in a Black and White "vintage look. Obviously, the dancers play the camera:

   . Child Frida with leg brace and Father:  Frida wearing a leg brace is playing(riding old bicycle, or ruling a hoop?) in front of Casa Azul, and gets mocked by the other kids(off stage sound effects).


 She collapses to the ground crying. Her father comes out of the house into the courtyard, peeps out the window into the street, shakes his head sadly:

then comes out the door into the street to hug and cajole Frida, and takes her back into the house.

   . Family picture scene with Frida dressed as a Man:  
   The scene takes place in the courtyard at Casa Azul, with the whole family posed waiting for Frida, with an actual old view camera set up on a tripod:
 and the roaming live cam showing a black and white view of the upside down image on the camera ground glass, projected on the raised front set:


  Frida shows up late dressed in a snappy man suit with a red rose on the lapel. 
  Use an old fashion flash bulb.

   . Young Frida and Alex making out in closet at Casa Azul:  After they are seen coming into Casa Azul from the street, running through the courtyard, and sneaking into the bedroom, the whole scene takes place out of view, with only an overhead camera peeping down, and it's live image projected in black and white on the front set:

   Possibly use a handheld roaming camera in extreme feverish shaky close up of faces, hands, and body parts(?).

   . Wake with Frida on Deathbed:  Here again, there would be a lot of candles, both real and projected on the set by the 5K projector(mapping the back wall and the side walls of the bedroom), the front set being raised up, with a magnified overhead camera view projected on it with the attached 3K short throw projector. There would be a real canopy bed with a real person in it and a real skeleton on top. The audiences would be allowed onto the set to pay their respects bringing flowers and candles.







        . Frida's 1953 Show at the Galeria de Arte Contemporaneo:  The scene would begin with Frida sick in bed at the Casa Azul deciding to attend the opening despite doctor's orders. She puts make up on, flowers in hair, dresses up in her Tihuana outfit.
The bed is whisked out to the courtyard, then to the street onto a "virtual projected truck":

It is then virtually transported to the gallery and unloaded in front of it, and wheeled in the gallery where the opening has started. The gallery walls covered with Frida's paintings are projected on the interior set. There are actual people picked from the audience(we could encourage period dressing) wandering around with wine glasses in hand looking at the paintings. They gather around the bed as Frida makes her entrance:



          . Frida's Painting in her Bed:  The bed is first seen through the bedroom door onto the courtyard, before the front set rises and shows the bedroom and Frida in bed painting a self portrait using the mirror in the canopy.







   At some point, she paints her cast with the sickle and hammer, and her sister and friends help(even La Pelona paints a skull):

          . Accident Scene:   A view of the Zocalo in Mexico City is projected on the front set, and the tram is seen hitting the bus in slow motion with a big crashing noise as "La Pelona" watches from the corner of the stage. 
 Another option is to use paintings:



Everything goes black for about 5 seconds, and when the lights come back, Frida is laying down in the middle of the stage naked and covered in blood and gold powder:

           . Hospital Scene:   Frida is laying in a hospital bed in a body cast, leg up, head stretched, with La Pelona looming over. Three doctors in white coats come, take her out of bed, hang her from the chin, and make a plaster cast over her body.



    The doctors could also do a live X-Ray(radioscopy), with the X-RAY projected on the front set after it comes down:



            . Leather Corset Fitting Scene:

             . Hair Chopping Scene:



          . Amputation Scene?


             . Funeral Scene?



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