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

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