POST 9: Props

  I can see various props used in the show:
   . An antique wood and cane wheelchair:

     . A Large Wooden Easel:

     . A Day of the Dead Altar on casters, in the shape of a stepped pyramid(reminiscent of the one Diego built in the courtyard at Casa Azul:

      It could be made of lightweight boxes stacked on a 3ft X 8ft  platform fitted with casters, so it can be moved within the set, and wheeled out of the way:

     . A Bed that can serve as both a Hospital bed and Frida's bed: I can make a basic bed on casters that could be used both as a plain metal hospital bed, and as Frida's own bed once fitted with a wooden canopy and headboard. I have 4 x 10" legs with heavy casters (left over from my electric bed), that can be screwed under a 30" x 66" rectangular frame made of 1" square thin wall tubing with slats to hold a small foam mattress. It can be fitted with a basic tubing headboard and footboard, and a basic pulley, cable and weight traction system for the hospital scene:

    The same basic bed frame can be fitted with four posters, a wooden headboard and footboard, a lightweight flat canopy with a mirror, and a "bed easel" contraption for the Home scenes:

       . A Wooden Leg:

        This is Frida's prosthesis:

      That is a very similar one I already have:

       . A Leather and Steel Corset:

       . Several plaster Casts:
     I particularly like this one with the bright red Hammer and Sickle and the fetus, which she wore defiantly in her wheelchair:

I would like if possible to actually make a cast on stage at some point, or at least paint one live. We can make a fairly thin and flexible cast and cut it so it can be worn as a corset.

       . Paper maché parts from an Antique Medical Model:

     The heart looks very much like the ones Frida painted in "The Two Fridas", and actually opens:

    The front of the model could be worn by Frida as an écorché body like the model in this drawing:

   And as shown in this animation, the model has all the other organs in it: lungs, uterus, etc...

  

Post 8: Frida's Diary

  This is a very interesting document, that has only been available since 1995, and give an almost voyeuristic peep into Frida's world. Much of it doesn't make a lot of sense, but it is nonetheless fascinating. It is not a chronological journal, and there are very few dates. It is more like a surrealistic collection of thoughts, sketches, automatic drawings using ink blobs, automatic writing, love notes to Diego, political statements.

   The drawings are very rough, heavily outlined in black, in contrast to the usual fine brushstrokes of her paintings. The writing is very rough too, with whole sections over written with a thick color pencil or different color ink.
   It is so different visually from her paintings and her neat made up image that I would like at some stage in the show to use it in projections overhead as the words are read aloud by "La Pelona".

Post 7: My view of Frida

     I have not fully completed my research, but my original image of Frida has already changed considerably, as I read more and more about her life, what friends have said about her, what she said about herself and her life, her psychologist evaluation, etc...
    I suppose I started like everybody with an idealized "Santa Frida de Los Dolores" image of a strong original woman way ahead of her times, that physically suffered greatly from her injuries, and mentally suffered greatly from her skewed relationship with Diego Rivera, but triumphed over adversity and exorcised her suffering through painting.
   The image that is emerging is quite different. She seems to have been very insecure since childhood, feeling ugly and dumb, and spent most of her life begging for love and attention, actually "milking" her disabilities to get compassion, care, and love.
    She was starved for love as a child: a failed "replacement child" (for her dead brother) to her cold hearted mother, and "sort of" a "favorite daughter" to a rather strange, sick, distant and recluse father. She had a mild case of polio (?) in childhood that left her with a withered and shorter leg that was a lifelong source of "shame", and made her feel inferior and physically damaged. But that taught her early that sickness was a way to get attention and love. The only unconditional love in her life was that of her younger sister Christina, except for the period of her affair with Riveira. She was Frida's "caretaker" most of her life.
   She actually wasn't extremely smart academically. She went to the Prepa , but that was in large part because she had a lesbian relationship with her gym teacher Sara Zenil at her previous school(which horrified her mother), and the Prepa was mostly a boy school. She did not work very seriously there, and admitted she never bothered to learn anything. Instead, she ran around with the "bad" boys(Los Cachucas), and went after the smartest one(Alejandro Gomez Arias), acting liberated and literally begging him for love(see her childish letters to him in Hayden Herrera's Biography). He really never took her seriously, but played along for a while(free sex in Mexico in the 20's wasn't so easy to come by I suppose)… He disappeared after the accident.
    She then went after Diego Rivera, the most famous man in her world, whom she met through her friend Tina Modotti. The reasons for her choice are not clear, and will remain one of Kahlo's enigmas. Diego never behaved as a real husband, but he did bring some financial security both to her and her family, and took care of her medical bills. She kept on begging for his love and attention though his numerous affairs.
   She was not an intellectual, and was a rather tepid communist, mostly because Diego was. She basked in his fame as much as possible, and through him, met a lot of famous people whom she impressed with her sexy exotic look. She didn't really like most of them. She didn't really consider herself a serious painter.
   Because of her insecurities, to hide her "deformities", because of Diego's taste for popular "Mexican "culture, and probably just as a way to be noticed, she started wearing the Tihuana outfits that became her "exotic" trademark, and decking herself up with jewelry and flowers. She worked very hard every morning putting on a face, braiding her hair and dressing up, even when she was confined to bed, to transform her insecure self into her flamboyant image:

     It became more or less a ritual. Significantly, she called herself "la Gran Ocultadora"(the Great Concealer).
     Like most Artists, and even more so because of her insecurities and dependency on others for her self esteem, she was subject to chronic bouts of depression through all of her adult life, some severe. There was very little in terms of medication at the time, and alcohol was the most readily available way to drown the pain, physical and psychological…
     She remained rather childish in some ways, and loved to play games. Toward the end of her life, she loved playing with dolls, playing theatre, or playing merchant, probably to escape pain and reality.
    BUT despite all these problems, she produced 143 paintings, 55 of them self portraits, many of them quite extraordinary, of great originality, and unlike anything ever painted before. She gave many of them away to friends, and money was not a motivation, so it is admirable that she had the will to keep on painting despite the sickness and the pain. Actually, she probably painted BECAUSE of the sickness and the pain, to keep the physical pain at bay, and to exorcise the mental anguish. I know for a fact from personal experience that total mental concentration(on painting, writing, whatever) is a very effective "painkiller".

Post 6: The Characters

   Mary and I were discussing who we might ask to be Frida, and came to the conclusion that may be we should actually have 3 Frida's: a young inexperienced Frida, a late 20's early 30's Frida that would be a dancer, and an older "invalid" Frida that is an Artist. No names yet, but we have people in mind.
   The second most important character is "La Pelona"(Lady Death), that lurks around Frida most of her life. That character would also be the narrator, and have the only speaking part. We have somebody in mind for that part too.
   We also need Frida's sister Christina throughout the show, from childhood to death.  
   Other characters are Tina Modotti for the Tango scene, her father for the Family Picture Scene and the Polio Scene, Chavela Vargas.
   I don't believe I want a live Diego in the show. As important as he was in Frida's life, a large puppet, real or projected, seems sufficient to me...

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?

Post 4: The Stage Set

   I plan to re use the set from "Double Take", but add on to it at the front to double the depth. The plywood set with the doors and window will move back, and I will build a slightly larger  Front Set with fabric stretched over a light weight rigid wooden armature:

   This new 10ft x 18ft set will be built like my airplane out of 1 1/4" x 5/8" white wood with re enforcing lattice work, and covered with a skin of white painted airplane fabric. It will be made of three 6ft x10ft panels, one with window, the other two with doors, exactly matching the back set in proportions so the same image will be mapped to both:

    I will build a new frame for the front area using four heavy steel bases I have fitted with 12ft columns made of 3" tubing. The four columns will be tied together with 1" x 2" rectangular steel tubing, and I may eventually add a pyramidal top to support a cable:

     The lightweight 18ft x 10ft front set will be attached to the stage frame by a system of levers and counterweights that allows raising it 8 ft. The 3K projector will be attached to it and raised at the same time, and as the interior stage space and plywood set is revealed,  it is mapped with the main projector, and the Front Set then becomes a huge screen above the stage onto which images can be projected, views from the overhead camera, the roaming camera, or whatever:

   An alternative and probably better setup would be to have 20 ft columns at the front of the set(10ft + a 10ft extension), pulleys at the top, cables and a counterweight to lift the Front Set up 10ft:

   The setup could possibly be motorized with remote control.

   The problem with both ideas is that the raised set would be about 20 ft tall, and that's probably too much for a free standing outside setup in case of wind.