Final Performance Evaluation

In my opinion, our final performance was really successful and I feel that it flowed really well. I feel that as a group we really thrived as we put in the most energy and excitement, where as before in rehearsals we lacked in energy. I feel that we definitely progressed throughout our rehearsals and this showed through our final piece.  I think that the strongest aspects of my performance was my physicality's, I tried my best to present myself as stuck up and disinterested as possible but at the same time have a character to play. I attempted to try a posh accent to make myself come across as a snob to the audience, so that they would take a dislike to the character. The A's and B's were all very blunt and pompous and I think this also added a sense of comedy into our performance. When going up to make a coffee, I walked with my strong posture and nose up deliberately. I also attempted to involve and address the audience on all sides of the stage. I feel that I confidently knew my lines and cues which was good because I was then able to focus on my character rather then when I was meant to be speaking. I feel that this made my performance more truthful. 

I really enjoyed watching Ms.Goodall's group as i feel that they took a modern approach to "The Most Horrific". An aspect of Ms Goodall’s group’s performance I really liked was their use of music. At the side was Isabella and Roary singing and playing guitar which I thought was really creative and kept the audience feeling involved throughout the whole piece. Their characters were well defined and characterised. I particularly enjoyed watching the C's and D's, I found it really funny to watch how they portrayed their desperation to win over the manager. The play overall was very comical and light-hearted, however, Mr.Rennisons piece was a lot different. It looked at the play a lot deeper and seriously. Oscar being the main character of the play, portrayed an evil almost ring master character alongside Hayden the gimp. I found the portrayal of both characters extremely interesting as they both suited their roles. This was to show the dark and eerie side to the media. It definitely kept all of us engaged throughout. I really enjoyed how Oscar would tell Haydn what to do and what to write, almost portraying the sense that the media tell us what they want us to hear and we listen because we have too. The C's and D's use of the chairs was really creative as they would use them to represent how they felt.

Myself and some of my class mates made up a mini scene to perform before our piece for the audience to get a feel and experience some of the issues occurring in the media today. Our scene addressing the issues with being gay in Uganda went really successfully all three times and I was extremely happy with how it turned out, which was much better than we had originally rehearsed. Our piece was to show the audience what it felt to be gay in Uganda, as this is illegal, and how people are not aloud to speak out about their sexuality openly. I think that we could have improved our piece by being stronger and using our facial expressions more to really show our feelings, However, I am certain we made an impact on the audience and that they understood what we were trying to get across. I particularly liked at the end of our piece when we split in half to make a path way for the audience to go through, as we stood silent with our hands covering our mouths. This was to show the audience how we feel we can not speak up and that we are ignored.

I think that as a group we presented hierarchy really well, I felt one of the strongest performances was that of Felix. For me he stood out in the performance because he had a sarcastic personality. I especially liked how at the end of the performance he stood up to show his disinterest towards the C's and D's and answers his phone to 'Nigella, darling". I think that this shows how political theatre doesn't always have to be serious and that you can still get a point across even if its comical. I think we portrayed the relationships between A's and B's and C's and D's really well. It was clear to the audience which made it easy and enjoyable to watch.

Personally, I think our performance was perfect and that everybody tried really hard to do the best they could. However, I believe in constructive criticism and I feel that we could have developed on the A's and B's even further. 

One of the weaker aspects of the performance on a whole was that I felt the A's and B's weren't showing enough disinterest in the performance, even though I think everyone found this quite difficult. Maybe I could have developed my character further and pretended to fall asleep or been creative with my character. A strong point in the performance was when Mia said the word 'terrorists' and the A's and B's moved to the front of their chairs to show interest. I think that this really worked because everyone remembered the cue and A's and B's reacted. Another strong aspect of our performance was the gradual leaving.

Over this term, I have developed my understanding of Brecht and his different techniques which has definitely helped me to produce a strong political theatre performance and protest. I feel that our performance "The Most Horrific" and our protests got the audience thinking which is what Brecht believed a piece of political theatre should do. I feel we definitely managed to achieve this successfully! I have gained a thorough understanding of Brecht and will use it in the future. I am really pleased with myself and everyone else this term and found it so much more interesting than I first thought!

"I Can't Breathe"

Just recently in the news, a man in the USA was accidentally killed by an armed police officer for selling illegal cigarettes for money. However, the man suffered from severe asthma and as the police officer restrained him from moving, the man clearly stated "I cant breathe" and died a few minutes later. There has been so many protests and allegations in the news about this story and I find it really interesting whilst in the term of Political Theatre. This issue is relevant and links to all of our protest work. People around the world have taken action...in this situation they often display different statements about racial division... "BLACK LIVES MATTER".

In the White City Westfields, London, protesters laid on the ground as a way of showing their disgust on the matter. I feel that watching and hearing about protests makes me want to become more involved in them and stand up for what I feel is right. In my opinion, the man that killed Mr.Eric Garner should be sentenced for man slaughter.

According to a coroner's report, Eric Garner died due to "compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint" as he was wrestled to the ground by Daniel Pantaleo and fellow New York City police officers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30426245

Not/But

The Not/But is a Brechtian technique which involves the actor preceding each thought that is expressed by their character in words or an action rather than portraying a thought or action naturally the character arises from the given circumstances of the scene. The technique is a rehearsal exercise and its main function is to inscribe traces of the alternatives that were available to the character at each 'nodal point' in their journey.The effect gives the impression of a "sketching" in the actor's performance. 

As a group we looked at The Caucasian Chalk Circle. A scene was improvised where a rich snob only has a certain amount of time till the revolutionaries come over and take over the kingdom in which she choices to save her belongings over her son. However, as a class we looked at the some of the possible options that she could have taken. We came up with three different options. Mother Courage could stay with her child, she could stay and fight or she could accept her fate. In groups, we then staged the last scene from Mother Courage and her children. This is the final scene of the play. Mother Courage has returned from making her final deal from her war-profiteering, to find that Katrin, whom she has left alone for the first time, is dead. Katrin was warning the village that the soldiers were coming and so she was killed. In this scene, Mother Courage seems slightly humiliated about what is about to happen. She is confused and therefore panics and can not make a decision on what to do. The peasants follow along with whatever Mother Courage wants to do, as they are clearly of a lower class. We could communicate this by portraying the peasant to be rushing around doing what Mother Courage commands. 

In our scene, we decided to have two mother courages, Myself and Zoe playing them. One who was bleak and cold and didn't care about her daughter, the other, was loving and warm. I feel that the contrast between the two really worked because the audience were able to see two different sides to her and make their own opinions. The audience created their own opinion on the characters which is important because it gets them more involved which is what Brecht wanted to focus on. 

We staged our scene so that the audience had a clear understanding of each characters. As a group we decided at the end of the scene we would have two different endings. Josh would be the man who needed the money, and to show our contrast, I would give a lot of money where as Zoe would count her change. We both said our lines at the same time but with different tones of voices. Kim, Zion and Josh chanted the poem on chairs at the end of the scene. The audience where then able to see me pulling a kart along and receiving help from someone due to my generosity, where as Zoe struggling to pull a kart along by herself due to her bitter behaviour. I feel that this exercise gave me an understanding of Brechts ideas and how an audience perception is very important. I also feel that this technique helps the audience see who the character really is through their thoughts. The techniques highlights how one choice effects a whole situation. However, I feel it was more difficult to portray a mother because of the age range.

Questions

We were given a variety of questions to answer as a group.

How much time do you spend on social networking sights, watching TV or playing video games? I think I spend around five hours a day on social networking sights and around an hour watching TV. I don't really enjoy playing video games as I find them boring and brain numbing!

What would you like to change?

If I could change anything it would be how much time I spend on my phone... which is a lot! I find it so addictive and feel lost when I haven't checked Twitter in a while!

What power do I have?

To succeed. I have all the power to get what I feel I want in life and the only person stopping myself is me.

What am I scarce of? 

Failure. I love to succeed and do the best I can... and learn from it.

What are your ideals (what do you believe in)? 

I believe in world peace. An ideal world would be no racism, feminism, homophobes etc. I am a strong believe in positive energy and drive.

What would you do to make this happen?

Be the best person I can. Be strong, have good and strong opinions, always have wisdom and treat people the way that you want to be treated. I believe in the quote 'What comes around goes around".

What stops you from gaining what you want? 

You can blame others for stopping you from getting what you want, due to stubbornness which is what I tend to do. However, I have realised that the only person stopping you from getting what you want is yourself. If you want to archive something then you do everything in your power to get it.

Rehearsing "The Most Horrific"

On December 3rd, our political theatre group divided into two groups. One group being the 'A's and B's' and the other group playing the 'C and D's'. We all used our team work skills to fairly divide up the roles in which we were all going to have. We had a few idea's that we thought we could use in our performance. Due to our work behind based around Brecht, we decided to add aspects into our performance such as labels and white tape around our props. We eventually came up with the idea that  A and B playing the disinterested media executives who only had interest for the superficial stories such as Cheryl Cole and sex whereas C and D playing the desperate pitchers wanting to receive some attention from them so that their story's make the media. We staged our piece so that the media were sitting on chairs much like a conference room and the pitchers where all standing by a board huddled together nervously flicking through papers. I found that this really helped me to understand how to present hierarchy in the performance, I also feel that it gave a comical edge to the performance which would intrigue the audience. In my opinion, I feel that presenting the hierarchy really helped me to get into character as a typical 'snob'. I decided that I would walk a certain way to collect my coffee (with froth) and turn my nose up as Rhianne held up a sign saying 'Bring back our girls'. I could relate back to one of our previous lessons when we saw Josh and Ivrory act out hierarchy. I used Josh's techniques to develop my character further.

I thought it was effective how C and D never crossed past the blocks, this showed the divide between them. In rehearsal we experimented on different ways to communicate disengagement by angling positions of chairs or having some As and Bs looking down. I turned my chair towards Felix, where we would mumble to each other whilst the pitchers were talking to show our disinterest. As a group, we came to a decision that when certain situations were brought up such as 'Bankers are cunts' and 'Terrorists in Birmingham' the media would move forward to show interest, then move back when they talked facts. I think that this also strengthened my understanding of my character and how to portray someone who is not interested yet still show a character. I found this quite difficult at first because we were sitting on chairs, however as we rehearsed, we started adding in pieces which would help the A's and B's. C and D's used a whiteboard to put topics in a YES or NO column- all the stories that gained any attention from A and Bs would be written down in the yes, all the others where left in the no. I feel that this would help the audience to understand what the media find interesting which is all the unimportant situations. I really liked how the audience got to experience two different types of people within the media. I got the sense from our rehearsal that everyone was pleased and suited their parts and I feel that we all contrasted well. My weakness in our first run through would be how I portrayed disinterest with my practicalities, however with Simon's help, we all managed to develop our understandings of how we were all going to act on stage. 

Once we had run through our play, we came together as a group to discuss any other ideas that we had to develop our piece. We came up with the idea that we could act out some of the situations before the play so that the audience can experience them in a site specific manner. I got into a group with Zoe, Tyler, Romy, Klaudia, Bret and Euwan to discuss and portray the issue of 'Being gay in Uganda'. We decided that we would perform this as a protest. We all huddled together to express just how many people disagreed with the rule. I myself strongly disagree with people being killed if they are gay in Uganda or any other country, therefore this helped me to really feel passionate about the situation. Myself and Romy decided that we would make placards in a Brechtian style to use in our protest. One by one, we would push someone into the audience to speak, using a line from an article. My line was 'I came from a Muslim family, once I told my mother and sister I was gay, they told me I was a disgrace'. Once we had said our line, we would be dragged back into the protest, representing society and how society doesn't allow us to speak out, therefore drags you in. We wanted to be as creative as possible with our mini pieces. Once everyone had spoken, we would split into three's, covering our mouths showing our lack of independences to speak out and allow the audience to move past us. I feel that this would make the audience feel on edge and slight sympathy for us. We then presented these pieces to the rest of the group for feedback and constructive criticism. We decided to make our piece even stronger by having more people and also by turning our energy level from 5 to a 9. Overall, I think our first rehearsal went really well. Everybody seemed to be committed and knew there ques.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/10668168/Being-gay-in-Uganda-they-could-come-and-kill-me-at-any-time.html

·     

Protest Evaluation

“Protesting can topple governments, informs, illuminates, entertains and raises awareness –

and it's impossible to imagine life without it.”
.

For our Political protest, myself and my group had to research about our topic which was ‘Victim blaming against women’ and gather a variety of information that we can use to pass on to the people who are watching. I and my group came together in the library to use the internet so we can search up cases of victim blaming and peoples different opinions on them. We decided that the internet would be the best way to do this type of research because we wanted to research from other countries as well as England. To create an effective and strong performance we needed to have valid information as our topic was very personal. We decided as a group to find different opinions from people on Victim Blaming and write them separately on paper for people to make their own opinions on. This was to raise awareness on the serious topic and for people to understand that it’s a topic that needs to be evaluated.

I multi-rolled in our protest. Half of the time I was joined with my group to chant ‘Women are not guilty for the violence committed by men on their body, mind or spirit. We also had Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke playing in the background in which we chanted in-between. When the lyric ‘I know you want it’ came up, our group would shout ‘Do we?’ which really caught attention from the audience, especially because it was a popular and recent song so people could relate to it. The other role in which I undertook was to act as a drunken woman with a cup of alcohol screaming and dancing and showing the audience that I was having a good time. This was to represent how women should be able to enjoy themselves and have fun without being approached inappropriately. Willa would walk me down the stairs as I stumbled around. I sometimes read out quotes such as ‘But did you see what she was wearing’ and 'Boys will be boys' which caught people’s attention because I interacted with them.

I think that I portrayed my role really clearly and managed to make it artistic. I feel that by using a character it really helped me to feel even more passionate about it. Walking around and using Theatre to protest was really interesting and I enjoyed it as a whole. I found that when people saw me as a drunk lady who was clearly a victim of rape who would experience victim blaming, they started to film me and watch what I was doing as if I really was drunk. I think that by interacting with the audience I was using both protest skills and Theatre skills. I found it really interesting when a group of people asked me if I was ok when I was playing the victim in our protest, I would then go on to tell them about victim blaming. I feel that this was one of the most important ways to get our message across because it was actually getting into peoples minds. 


In my opinion, my group and I carried out the protest very professionally. We made sure that we took a lot of time to plan out exactly what we were going to do. The location was a key aspect in which we had to consider because we wanted as many people to see our protest as possible. We decided that the platform on the stairs in the main building was perfect as it would be easy to view and also puts people in a situation where they have to hear what we are saying because they would need to pass us.I think a protest needs a lot of planning because if it doesn't go the way you expected, then the message that you are trying to portray may not get across and therefore become unsuccessful. I think that a good way to quantify our protest would be to see how many people paid attention to it. If our protest was successful, in which I think it was, then more people are going to come and listen and start to think about the situation.
Our protest had many strengths. I think that one strength is that we had a very dedicated group with a lot of potential between us all. We were all very passionate about the subject therefore I feel that we all worked really hard to make the protest the best we could. I feel that our timing was really accurate and we each had different roles in which we kept on task the entire time. I feel that Willa and I worked together really well because we interacted with the audience together by walking up and down the stairs protesting about my clothes. I think Chloe and I portrayed our characters really well and it made people stop and watch which was the aim. I found it really interesting when every so often the whole group would come together and shout out a quote which we found in our research, once we had done that we would go back into our roles and play the music. Stuart our head teacher came over and told our group that he found our topic really meaningful and interesting so I think that it really boosted our confidence and made us want to work even harder because we felt that we had made a good impression. Everyone in the group put in even amounts of effort and therefore we became successful. However, there are always ways to improve a performance. A problem that we had to over come is that one of our group members that we had rehearsed with and had depended on for equipment wasn't in. As a group, we all had to use our initiatives and work around that. One weakness that I think the group had is that at the beginning when everyone first started our protests we were a bit quieter than other groups so we all felt like we really had to up our game in order to get attention, I think that identifying weaknesses is the best way to learn.
I think that Protest is a really good way to express our theatrical personality's! As a theatre pro



duct, it helps us to work together in teams to produce a piece of work, just like a play. Posing a question to audiences and making them make their own opinions relates to Brechts idea of making the audience create their own interpretation. Protesting helped me to focus on my voice. This will help me in the future when I do my political monologue. This also helped me to build up a strong personality because it was a serious topic. Overall, I think that the Protest was really exciting to do and I hope that in the future we are able to do another one. I feel we created a piece that successfully communicated our ideas to the audience in a way that left them thinking about their own ideals and approach to our chosen subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU

All about Gestus

Gestus is an acting technique which was created by Bertolt Brecht. Gestus combines gestures and attitudes to help us explore into detail the relationships between characters or how they feel.

The actors must do actions so that the audiences maintain a clearly understand what is trying to be shown.The actors will then add attitude to the actions, giving more depth to the character and story. This will have an effect on the audience, allowing them to make their own opinions and decisions about each character.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlCe3Ma0u8E

I learnt a lot more about Gestus and how it works after  we had a demonstration from two of my classmates...Ivory and Josh. They played out the relationship between a snob and a servant which was really interesting to watch. Ivory was seated on a chair with her back straight, legs crossed and nose up to portray the fact that she had a sense of power. Ivory also added a gesture to portray her character even furthur, waving her hand around to get the servants attention. However, Josh's portrayed his character a lot differently. Firstly, he focused on his posture by slumping his back and walking slowly with his head up to show his awareness and alert personality he must have as a servant. When approaching Ivory, he walked quicker which enabled us as an audience to see a clear contrast between characters. When Josh arrived, Ivory did not look at Josh and simply used one hand gesture to tell him what she wanted. I feel that watching Ivory portray her character helped me to understand Gestus in a simple form. She created her sense of power by not even looking at Josh, which means that she disrespects him. However, Josh constantly maintained eye contact with Ivory. He kept his distance when approaching and even slightly hesitated which told us as the audience that Josh may feel slightly manipulated by Ivory. This all gave me a clear understanding of Gestus and i believe that Brecht created this in order to get the audience involved in making their own opinions.

Bertolt Brecht

“All art forms are in the service of the greatest of all arts: the art of living.” 
― Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director. He was born in 1888 and died 1956. He lived in Germany for most of his life, before he fleed to America, just when Hitler became chancellor. Brecht gathered many different experiences due to working in the War as a medical orderly, gathering supplies and seeing to medical injuries. After working in the first world war and being out of Germany during the second world war, Brecht had created unforgettable memories, and therefore this enabled him to have a greater understanding of life and death. 

Brecht created the idea of the 'V effect'...distancing or de familiarisation creating an idea that the audience must not forget they are watching a play. The audience would have to do this by not becoming attached to the characters. The actors would swap around and multi role to prove to the audience, and helping them to focus on the meaning of the play, rather than the characters. Brecht had many techniques in which he would use to encourage the actors on stage to wear placards and announce their stage directions to remind audiences that they were watching a play. Brecht also felt as though audiences should focus on the reason why events in the play happened instead of the final result, often telling an audience what happens at the end so they can do so. We used Brecht's techniques which he would give his actors in our first lesson of Political Theatre. I found this really interesting to know that we can still use his techniques in modern day.Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense.

Brecht once became a pacifist. He found himself looking beyond what else was happening that could apose that so he becomes interested in communism opposed to naturalism... unlike Stanislavsky who believed in a truthful performance. Brecht was a German intellect and soon aligned himself to be involved with communism, because in Germany it was the only that was available. This allowed both parties to be fully aware of each other. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkiqGxD4CZ8
 A clip from YouTube of an example of Brecht's political views which I found interesting and helpful in my understanding.

Performance Workshop 11/11/14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-828KqtTkA - Youtube video showing an introduction to Brecht.

I think that I really benefited from our lesson in Political Theatre. We begun our lesson with a warm up game in which we studied the way we can tell a persons personality and social status by their gestures, facial expressions and posture. I found this particularly interesting as we are still using Brecht's techniques in modern day Theatre. We explored this through a simple improvisation through watching two different people act as characters. Firstly, watching Josh play the stereotypical 'snob' helped me to really understand how important it is to portray a character not only through voice but through small aspects such as walking. Josh strolled around the room, with his chest out, nose up and his hand behind his back to show a sense of importance. Watching someone else portray how they see a character is really interesting because is helps me to have a wider range of understanding through characterisation. We then watched Ivory portray the stereotypical 'snob' as a woman. Seeing and analysing Ivory portray her character enabled me to hold a clear understanding of how a upper class character can be played. I found the contrast in the social statuses really interesting, and how even a small aspect such as posture can completely change a character. We watched many different examples of a mother. I particularly liked Zoe's portrayal of a mother. She held her stomach and her back to show her posture is bent after the tiredness of pregnancy, however, she also changed her facial expression to quite glum which made me decide maybe she was portraying a mother who was confused on what she wanted in life. All these exercises benefited me to understand how characterisation is so vital in playing a role.

Carrying out these exercises all build up my understanding of Political Theatre.
In our next exercise to do with characterisation consisted of portraying the stereotypical mother, villain and mental person, again using Brecht techniques to portray them. I feel that this enabled the group as a whole to become clear with Brecht and how we can use him as a inspirational figure to make our Theatre to the best of its ability.

We then came into groups to discuss certain issues that we all thought were relevant in the media. My group discussed issues such as feminism, racism and animal rights. Being in a large group of people discussing different ideas helped me to have a wider understanding of how many issues there actually are. This definitely helped me not only to understand issues around the world, but with my group work and talking about all of our opinions and whether
to not we agree with each other. As a whole class, I think discussing all the different types of issues around the world benefited everybody because it added excitement and enthusiasm into our discussion. I find it really interesting to listen to everyone opinions and how they think things should be dealt. We all decided many different topics in which we could discuss.

A picture of a section of the Political Theatre play we read 'The most horrific'.

Before we started Political Theatre as Term 2, I was quite worried in case my understanding was as clear as the term before, however we were given a play each on Political Theatre to read as a class. Once I had read the play, immediately it helped me to understand how Political Theatre can also be humorous and doesn't always have to be serious. It told us how the media decide on what they find interesting and what they think should be shown on the television. The play allows you to relate to it because its so recent. C and D were looking at lots of different issues in Politics, characters A and B looked at fewer issues, C and D mirrored each other. I personally think C and D are made to represent the nation and how people can copy each others opinions. The character D had very strong views and opinions throughout the play, however nobody listens which could be the representation of issues. The play builds up tension to a climax. I feel that my strengths in Political Theatre so far are my clear understandings of characterisation. Even being through two performance workshops this Term, I have already learnt a lot about Brecht's history. I am really excited about our protests which are coming up because I think that this is going to give myself and the rest of the class a proper experience on what its like to be part of Political Theatre. As a whole so far, I am really enjoying Political Theatre and how different it is to our fist term Naturalism.