Evaluation of Final Performance

I believe that our final performance was extremely successful and that we had increasingly developed and learnt several elements of performance through our performance which enable us to perform "The Most Horrific".

I believe I was most successful in creating a journey throughout my speeches on the block. I felt that this was important so as not to continuously shout at an audience for 30 minutes, shoving information into their heads and quintessentially making them inactive or switching off. I feel that with each sentence I was given, I aimed to create a stance; deciding level of desperation and the height of extremity whilst also keeping my energy up and ready. I did this with an analysis of my lines, and experimenting with the stresses that I put on words and the most sensational phrases that require volume, whether that be up or down. I also experimented with the use of whispering making it so that I could whisper "two fingers inside her" and make it as grotesque, hopefully juxtaposing the extreme and overdone physical scene that I had just portrayed.

Physically staying alert was quite difficult but I think remained constant throughout, trying to include the entire audience without blocking them and keeping the board was hard however I found that in the final performance I was easily able to create opportunities to escape from the popular front and engage the back of the stage, balancing the stage and keeping the audience entertained. I also immensely enjoyed our "Ugandan lesbian" scene and enjoyed the heightened tension of the ending and felt it really broke the barrier between the audience feeling incredibly uncomfortable and overstepping the line of desperation. I think that it was effective as the audience were involved in this gradual build up of physicality and voice and created a really incredible moment of gestus. 

I believe that Kims character was immensely effective as it completely contrasted everyone on the C D side of the stage, her earlier improvised moment wherein she order sushi, interrupting a speech created a moment of spass, breaking up the speech and exposing the hypocrisy and cruel nature of those who seem more excited about lunch than hearing about those suffering around the world. Also the incredibly gestic moment wherein Billy holds up a "Save Our Girls" and Romy and Kim both ignore the sign until the name "Cheryl Cole" is mentioned, both sides deliberately opposing each other as well as the connection between the almost trivial name "Cheryl Cole".   

Our interesting use of placards in our devised scene worked effectively amongst the promenade section, as the ending where Zion and I both escape through the audience diverting their attention to the next group. I feel it would've had even more clarity if they included labels of our names so that even if the audience didn't look upwards they would still understand what we were presenting, and which news story we were recreating. Also the use of song, as one of Brechts techniques, I felt gave it an extra energy and edge hopefully making the songs used stick in their heads. 

In Sarah's group I found the use of multi-rolling incredibly effective it distanced me personally from attaching a person to a particular character. I also found the use of dressing Jacob into the dress really created enjoyable spass and exercised the idea of dressing a character and developing it directly onstage rather than covering he audiences eyes, but exposing every second of it. I also found the rap written by Rory was shocking but almost shocked us into becoming active members of the audience and directly reacting to what was being said and displayed to us through different forms, breaking up and highlighting their groups development from the script and stories within them. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the split scenes of the almost Goggle box-esque audience in Wills performance and found it incredibly interesting to see what was being created by all of their separate reactions and the ensemble feeling of all of their heightened characters that worked incredibly well in unison. I also enjoyed the gestic moment between Jasmine and Ben wherein he had a gun to the head as he stage raped her, this section was incredible because you could see the enjoyment drain out of his face and the after moment wherein he adjusted her skirt after committing the act, I think this exposed the corrruption of the media and the idea of demanding horrific things to occur and feeding off of the money that they brought into the newspapers and maybe not for this story but the sensationalism that journalist must go through to create "worthy" news stories. 

I think that this term taught me a lot about the development of theatre and Brecht's work to produce thought provoking and entertaining theatre and the various techniques used to do so. I also believe that as a group we successfully incorporated many of these ideas into our final piece and felt our energy delivering the lines pulled our performance through. The only element I believe we could develop was sustaining our physicality at a "seven", I feel that sometimes we may have dipped throughout the performance, however I feel it can be easily accomplished if more intense work into physicality was rehearsed in our own time. I feel that I have learnt numerous elements of political theatre this term, and would love to continue to incorporate this into further pieces of theatre. 

"No.. But" & Mother Courage And Her Children

 

The "not....but" moment that we explored in the play helps to highlight the ideas of gestus and contradiction within Brecht's characters, ultimately making a greater comment on society.

 

Exploring a "not...but" moment in The Caucasian Chalk Circle as the scene wherein the Governors wife receives a message telling her that her palace has been overthrown and revolutionaries are on their way. In the play she flees, leaving her son Michael. Lots of other possibilities may include  take Michael, accept her fate, suicide, negotiate, stay and fight.  These "No...But" moments allow the audience to see the exact same scene with other possibilities changing the outcome. It allows the audience to see the character as a multi dimensional person and so allowing them to look critically at the characters without taking them for granted.

We found that staging the scene announcing the location and time period by the daughter (Katrin) that later became the dead person allowed the scene to become less about the audience caring personally for the daughter but rather allowed them to engage critically. The use of multi-rolling also allowed the audience to become less attached and more distance. Through use of song at the end allowed us to enter in more of Brecht's techniques, and added more spass to the performance. We also had many gestic moments within the scene displaying a sense  of status and characters dimension so that the mother could show a "No...but" moment through a short gestic moment, showing her underlying care for her daughter. Other groups also included their versions of the Mother Courage and her Children scene and we found that although they included techniques that Brecht introduced they could've made their gestic moments even more heightened and clearer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rehearsal

 

 

Today as a collective we separated the lines through just separating the class into A's and B's and then D's and C's. As a D in the second latter group we gave 2 others a C part to split between themselves, almost as split personalities of the same person. Then we gave a few lines to everyone around a circle as to share the parts equally.

 

We then started to perform the piece working out all the kinks and twists that may occur and found that as a body of people saying lines that only on character is meant to say made it difficult because of the queues and continuing the energy of the person before you whilst also giving it your own flavour. Also because we had to climb onto a box it made the exchange between the next person difficult and so everyone had to be alert at all times in order to be ready and prepared to jump in and say their line whilst also being actively present in the background. However the jumpy queues added to the concept of this adaptation of the script as we found some people false starting and crouched down which allowed levels and a sense of diversity as a collective. The strengths of this gave us more opportunities to be more active in the scene without taking too much way from the other side which were acting slovenly and bored. Moreover another possible hardship we faced as a company was the fact that giving a lot of energy but acting exhaustingly bored was hard to display and so the other group had to try hard to be present and unaware at the same time, whilst also exaggerating this persona.

 

Also as a group we wanted to develop the stories further from what was said about them in the play and so decided to devise short scenes based on some of the news stories. My group was selected to create a piece of theatre based round the refugees at Christmas island. We sectioned our group into mothers, children and immigration officers and then devised a silent scene showing the mothers leaving the children, (including a No, but idea) killing themselves and the soldiers then allowing them to pass through. On receiving feedback as a group we decided to make it clear what story we were presenting, we then discussed the use of labels to differentiate between us. We also wanted to incorporate song into the piece and used silent night as it is reminiscent of family and giving, two themes relevant to the story, and so the soldiers hummed the tune. We placed this scene under a corridor allowing there to be a transition.
 

In the afternoon we developed short scenes that highlighted four of the stories referred to in The Most Horrific:

·         Force feeding in Guantanamo

·         Yarlswood detention centre

·         Refugees on Christmas Island

·         Treatment of gay Ugandans   

Another group developed the Force feeding in Guantanamo and I found that creatively it was incredibly and I enjoyed the sense of censorship and the sounds of the beeping recalled an idea of life machines and the horrible hardship they face being force fed. However as a group to enhance the idea they should just thoroughly time the mouthing to the beeping sound and I found the clear facts introducing the scene made it increasingly more clean.

 

As a group we discussed gestus and possible moment that we could incorporate into it. As a class we conversed about the characters within this scenario and that this media masterminds may be quite snobbish and selfish, and how we could create obvious and externalised moments of this. An idea offered up was that people discussed on the phone in mid conversation or that someone may serve the media bosses coffee, creating an idea of gestus as the status was clearly displayed and made a comment on the present society, and the idea that people will do anything to be heard, even if it isn't regarding their own job specification.

 

In the next rehearsal I think it would be nice to incorporate more of Brechts techniques such as labelling said places or locations possible plaques making it clear on who is what and distancing the characters from the actors and making it glaringly clear to the audience. Also possibly including Spass into this piece of theatre as Brecht realised that whilst laughing we could also be thing in the mean time and so we would be having fun whilst deeply considering the concepts behind it.

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Protest Evaluation: If Only You Could Hear Them

I researched into the companies that used animal testing for their cosmetics, food and medicinal products. I found that P&G are a huge user of animal testing for multiple companies that endorse and apply the use of animals to test their products, damaging creatures and fatally injuring a huge fraction of the 100 million animals that are killed each year, due to animal testing.

" "Procter & Gamble" also known as P&G, is an American multinational consumer goods company headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, founded by William Procter and James Gamble, both from the United Kingdom. "

We researched the brands that are directly associated with P&J and used them in our protest in order to educate our audience on the products that use animal testing in the hope to raise awareness and thusly encourage them to boycott the products.

Some of these products and brands include:

Max Factor
Aussie
Clairol
Olay
Pantene
Herbal Essences

and many more.

The harsh realities of the sufferings that animals must go through really ran through our protest as I used elements of what we had found throughout. For example, I looked up the affects that animal testing has on the animals themselves, as "71 per cent of all experiments were carried out without anesthetic". I wanted to really highlight how painful it must be and that the truth of animal testing isn't that it is all easy, kind and delicate but rather torturous and painful, going against the natural instincts of the animal and so forcing them to permit experiments that they don't want to have or may even be life threatening, I really displayed my resentment and distaste towards Billy and |Felix, I constantly looked for a way out and tried to escape their clutches, naturally I didn't want to allow them to force feed me pills or spray on my face wanting to move and avoiding their glares was highlighted to expose the miscarriage of justice and their going against my will as a human and as the animal I was portraying. The fact that "chemicals are rubbed into their skin or dripped into their eyes" we used multiple cosmetics that allowed us to do this and exposed lots of skin in order to allow them to test as much cosmetic products on the largest amount of surface area. "Until they are killed at the end of the experiment – which could last days, weeks, months or even years – their lives are marked by pain and fear." The use of sellotape as my costume displayed the use of animals over extremely expansive periods of time and so the fact that they use these deformed and worn out creatures for way past their physical ability and mental capabilities.

My role in the performance protest was performing as the animal that had to suffer the common abuse that several animals face every day. As a human I feel that the performance became even more distressing for the audience, as evidence of animal cruelty isn’t advertised and we wouldn’t of been able to perform this to an audience using an animal due to the fact that it would’ve gone against the aim of the protest humanising it helped the audience to relate and see the harsh realities of this form of cruelty, in a way that was kind and as I was able to display my willingness to take part in this sort of immersive protest.  They used multiple cosmetics and medicines on me as well as food, informing that not only the cosmetic industry uses animals to test the products; they applied it to me and also lead me around with a leash attached to my neck. My role was to fight and use animal instinct that developed across the length of the performance and resist as an animal would to the treatment. On researching animal behaviour I found that they displayed erratic behaviours and found that after numerous animal testing experiences they bit and ran in circles. I re-enacted this in my protest and helped explore real accounts that occur due to this abusive treatment.

I think that our performance was developed properly and I believe we really knew thoroughly our subject and what we were aiming to fight for, as a group we wanted to raise animal testing awareness concerning the treatment and methods they go through to utilize innocent creatures, we aimed to instil a mild level of guilt in order to encourage them to not use brands that endorse that treatment, we did this through allowing the audience to test on me which I believe displayed the direct effect of using products and brought animal testing to a personal level and experience . We also helped the audience do something about this as we displayed products that used animal testing to develop them, leading them on to be able to boycott such products. We remained in character for the entire 30 minutes which I believe made this performance extremely well executed and enabled any viewer to see the torturous experience of the animal.

The practise and thought that we went through enabled it to be extremely effective and thought-provoking as the audience visibly and verbally displayed their distress, proving the honest and obvious discomfort that the piece gave, making it incredibly effective. The audience spoke to the doctors and displayed their disgust through shouting and image taking of the horrendous conditions that some animals suffer.

I believe that the weakness of this performance was mainly the placement and the surrounding sounds of the other performances and the fact that the silence of the piece wasn’t considered because people struggled to hear anything anyway and so the silence wasn’t as noticeable. It may have worked better in a quieter place, perhaps the canteen or library as the sound of other performances drowned out the silence. However the other performances around really allowed us a constant flow of people to disperse and view our performance. I believe that the concept was strong as the “If only you could hear them” really hit home and displayed the fact that if this happened to humans here in the UK it would have heightened media attention and awareness.

The fact that the protest was performance based made the protest much more interesting and multi-dimensional as it became passionate and allowed us to show a literal display of animal testing abuse, rather than shouting and the use of placards and banners that although are effective, are a much more common use of protest and it allowed the audience to increasingly relate and a much easier level, persuading them with quiet personal experiences, rather than shouting your argument in their face, which I believe isn’t as persuasive.



Reading the Play

Reflecting on the Political play:

I found through reading of the play that for me it gave me an idea of paparazzi and the filtering of what is allowed to seep through into the public's eyes. It reverberated a sense of what's worthy enough to be exposed in the news and what the reporters and editors consider will sell, highlighting an important political stance in the idea that a famous persons excursions take place over the impoverished sufferings of others and the awareness of the hardships that brings them.

The use of no names in the play and just the use of the labellings "A, B, C and D" is another way to lead towards a Brechtian performance, as the V effect is increased in a sense that you have no association with the names on a personal level, they can be played by anyone, it can represent whomever you want so that you can as an actor question the "Why's" instead of what, because this play isn't clouded with narrative, more like snapshots of several conversations that as modern day people we are all familiar with.

There is also an underlying sense of tension ricocheting throughout the play and it's scenes as i develops into something that slowly becomes clear, causing a grating anticipation when we read the play, you are able to familiarize and identify the different personalities that come across and that undeniably brings a climax.The characters are able to become more apparent as time goes on and develops through the play.

I enjoyed reading it as I found that it was an extremely relevant to right now, the stories that have been laced into this play are very fresh and controversial, it is culturally relevant and so the audience already have an understanding, therefore the audience wonder less about the narrative of these stories and can distance themselves from what happened and again ask more of a "Why" as they wonder how hey can reach this state of discord in what we believe is a modern society. 

You are able to see the parallels between conversations that we have nowadays and the conversations that are touched on in the play and the possible unfamiliarity between some characters and the shock of news stories and how we aren't almost able to fathom how or why or even how to communicate to another person about your feelings towards such things.

In class I was struck by the amount of things we felt were political problems or things we would like to discuss and change, I felt that political issues are so widespread that we definitely could've gone on and that the relevance of this term is something that can be expressed in several ways and several art forms.

Research based on news stories in the play: 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/23/ugandan-lesbian-deported-uk-aidah-asaba

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20026910

Brecht Day 1

Research:

Name: Brecht
Born: 1898
Died:1956
Nationality: German

• Lived through both World Wars and the Great Depression. 
• Worked as a medical orderly in WW1, therefore must've witnessed horrific injuries and deaths of fellow Germans at a young age, possibly making him susceptible to the idea of extreme views towards war, life, death, justice and politics.
• Became a Pacifist
• At the end of the WW2 he was an established figure, he was out of Germany during that time and was able to witness the war at a greater distance than the immediate countries that were directly involved, he was able to see the domino effect that the war brought. Looking at something at a critical difference echos his techniques in the theatre. 
• Reparations for Germany to pay minimized the armed forces, and increased the bills they had to pay as well as humiliating the Germans as they had to take the full blame. Out of this dark time fro the German people it made space available for Hitlers rise to power, creating space for radical and extremist views to grow. 
• This is relevant globally at this very moment as UKIP and and Isis really display the need for power at such a economically hard time. 
• Brecht as an intellectual in the 1930's saw facist views grow and looked for alternatives, the only other extreme power being communism. 

communism

• ˈkɒmjʊnɪz(ə)m/

  noun

  1. a theory or system of social organization in which all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs.

  
  

• The Reichstag Fire caused commotion and danger for communists as they man "blamed" for the cause of this attack on parliament was communist, enabling Hitler to eliminate the communist party from power and position. Brecht was able to leave Germany the day before Hitler became Chancellor.

Practical Exercises Completed:

As a practical exercise we were asked to get into groups of however many the teacher called out and produce a simple stationary inanimate object physically. We created a chair using five others and were asked to go from a happy chair (without changing physicality) this was strange as we had to really concentrate on how we display this tension in our bodies without moving and really release a particular feeling without internalizing it, we just had to create an external and universal sign for happiness. We then went to become a sad chair within a frame of five seconds. This was effective because then we witnessed other peoples work and created scenarios on who's chair this might be, for example, as a sad chair people had ideas on whether it may have been the furniture of an obese person and therefore it is characterized as sad because of the constant burden of being a heavier persons resting space. This was very interesting because I feel that as a Brechtian exercise it really makes the chair poignant and rather than highlighting the story line or the plot the audience is able to speculate and actively decide what occurred to this chair and why the director may have suggested it be made up of humans. This could possibly expose an idea of oppression,(although the person may or may not literally use people as a chair) they may use people for their own benefit and disregard their discomfort. It created in my mind an idea of politics within making a chair physical as could be a sign of oppression of a higher class using humans as a chair, echoing a sense of authority power and excess of human labour, this makes it strange and unique for the audience as they are able to spectate and maybe explore a sense of the chair being a metaphor or representation for something much bigger than the chair. It really externalizes a lot of ideas, rather than keeping them hidden Brecht shows the use of power through deliberate physical activity. 

Using the idea of a string being pulled from your nose drawing it forward and also a string pulling out coccyx. This simple exercise, through finding a place to lead and creating points of tension in the body created a narrative in itself, this simple motion made some of us appear to look like elderly and previously hard working coal miners, or sassy old women, or possibly even sleuths. Through the way we accessorized our bodies and the way we placed our other limbs it altered the character immensely. We then lead from our knees forward, some of us appeared to look like geezers, or real "jack the lad" type characters because the tension in our knees caused us to fall backwards in our upper body and created a laid back character. This juxtaposed the elderly character and gave an interesting idea on status and possible class ranking of the characters through the externalization of their personality. Through performing the character outwardly emotionally we were much less drained than a previous term in Stanislavsky, our outward emotion reverberated into us and really pushed us to appear as we wanted to without thinking about the characters mindset but rather their physical alterations in certain circumstances. 

News Stories YouTube Clips: 

In this clip it really gives a sense of Brecht's work emerging into modern day theatre and they converse about the alienation technique, and how it is used in their play. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-828KqtTkA