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.