Evaluation of Political Protest

Today we did our political protests at break time. I was in a group with Gus, Keon, Raph and Emily and we did ours on maximum security prisons in America. We had to change it a little because Emily was not there on the day; however I think it still went really well.

We ran through it a lot of times and because it was in the style of a circus, it didn’t really work or feel effective until we had an audience to watch. When Sarah came to see it, we also didn’t have an audience and she told us to work on making it clearer and really focus on the political side of it. When it was about five minutes into break, we managed to get a crowd of people to watch us, as they were interested in why Gus and I were stuck on the fire escape. Raph then walked up to them and started shouting facts and statistics, which really caught the audience’s attention and made them want to listen.

We then got Keon to walk out from the audience and have a debate with Raph, which further engaged the audience. I think that Gus and I being locked in was very effective because it made people stop and want to listen.

We managed to get another large crowd, which was really effective because we could all feed off their enthusiasm. It was very effective and one girl even started to join in the debate. When Raph went to let us out and show what it would be like to have us released, some of the girls were becoming really nervous and backing away, which was exactly the effect we wanted to create. When He opened the door and we went running, they all screamed and ran away. This proved to us that we really connected with the audience and managed to get across the feeling of being at risk from people, but also the fact that prisoners should not be kept in such bad conditions.

If I could have changed anything, I think I would have made more signs, just to be really clear what we were supporting and what we were meant to be expressing. I also would have maybe played some circus music and had Raph wearing a hat to attract more people and to make our idea clearer.

I think most people understood it, but some of the people walking past looked very nervous. It worked so much better when we had a large audience, who got really involved and excited. I would have liked to have had a bit more time to perform it, maybe over lunch, just so we could show it to larger groups of more people. However, I met up with some of my friends who were watching and they told me it was really good, really effective and really engaged all of them and they wanted to know what Gus and I were going to do. One of my friends in Year 11 told me that she had no idea of some of the conditions people were treated in prisons.

Overall, I was pleased with how our performance went. I think I would change a few things, adding signs, having more people and maybe including the audience a bit more in the debate too. I was happy with how it went and I think we managed to convey our message well and managed to create an atmosphere which engaged and informed the audience. Next time, I might wear more layers, as being out there was very cold! However, the rain added to the effect and the cold made me feel more in character because of the cold the prisoners would have faced. Overall, I was happy and feel we did well, it definitely improved the more we did it.

Epic Theatre

"Epic Theatre is a dramatic form developed in Germany after World War I by Bertolt Brecht and others, intended to provoke rational thought rather than to create illusion. It presents loosely connected scenes often interrupted by direct addresses to the audience providing analysis, argument, or documentation. Brecht's goal was to use alienating or distancing effects to block the emotional responses of the audience members and force them to think objectively about the play. Actors were instructed to keep a distance between themselves and the characters they portrayed and to emphasise external actions rather than emotions."
http://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/goodwomanofszechwan/epictheatre

The "Money, Money, Money" Song

Theatre Workshop

Working on our play, "The Price"

In Theatre Workshop today, we  mainly focused on getting our play blocked. We gave out the parts and set about either learning lines or our songs. As I am a checkout girl, I had to learn the "Money, Money, Money" song, where they have changed the lyrics to make them relevant to the play. Other groups worked on their songs whilst we choreographed what we would do during the song.

We discussed what made our piece Brechtian and came up with these reasons:

1. We are reading the stage directions out loud to the audience.
2. The name of the man and the woman in the play are quite abstract.
3. The fact that we are singing songs, is a version of the "v-effect" as it alienates the audience by speaking our exact emotions.
4. By giving receipts to the audience, every time they move or touch their hair, this breaks the fourth wall and reminds the audience that they are still watching a piece of theatre.
5. Using bright lights - by keeping the audience lit up, it wont allow them to relax, therefore involving them more in the piece of theatre.
6. Our Characters: the physicality and voice of our characters helps them to be portrayed in a very two-dimensional way, which portrays clearly who they are. We can do this by stereotyping our characters and making them really bold and over the top.

Initial Ideas for our Political Protest

My group immediately decided to focus on psychiatric prisons and how the conditions there can make prisoners come out of jail a lot worse than when they went in. On researching this topic further, we were able to find out some of the shocking conditions that prisoners are treated.

"Prisoners in isolation are confined for at least 22-and-a-half hours a day in cells measuring less than eight square metres. In one prison alone - Pelican Bay State Prison, a remote facility on the north Californian coast - more than 1,000 inmates are confined in single, windowless cells with poor access to natural light. Exercise is limited to an hour-and-a-half a day, alone, in a bare, concrete yard with 20-foot-high walls with only a patch of sky visible through a partially-meshed plastic roof.

Prisoners in isolation don’t have access to work, rehabilitation programmes or group activities on any kind. They are also prevented from any contact with the outside world, and even consultations with medical staff take place behind barriers and visits from family or lawyers take place behind a glass screen. Prisoners are not entitled to regular telephone contact with relatives." a selection of text from this website exposing the awful conditions people are forced to live in.

 

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=20346

 

Some of our initial ideas were to do it by the basketball courts, so that we can stand behind the mesh and pretend that we are inside the prison. We also decided to wear t-shirts that are going to have giant words on them that spell out what medical condition we have and the crime we committed, we will stand in the audience with hoodies on and then step forward whilst taking off the hoodies to reveal the t-shirts.

 

My most recent idea has been to then introduce the prisoners as if at a circus, so someone starts shouting "Roll-up, roll-up, come and see the most shocking, horrendous creature on the planet! The human!" as the prisoners are behind the fence shaking it, staring out and screeching. As the audience look at us the ring-master can explain that this is how prisoners feel everyday. Isolated, pressurised and segregated from the civilised human world.

Initial Political Protest Research - Prison Conditions

1752. The Quakers in Philadelphia were the first in America to make an organised effort to care for the mentally ill. The newly-opened Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia provided rooms in the basement complete with shackles attached to the walls to house a small number of mentally ill patients. Within a year or two, the press for admissions required additional space, and a ward was opened beside the hospital. Eventually, a new

1773. To deal with mentally disturbed people who were causing problems in the community, the Virginia legislature provided funds to build a small hospital in Williamsburg. Over the years, the hospital grew in size as needs arose but remained within the historic area of the city until the mid-20th century, when a new hospital was built in a suburb. Today it is the Eastern State Hospital.

1792. The New York Hospital opened a ward for "curable" insane patients. In 1808, a free-standing medical facility was built nearby for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and in 1821 a larger facility called the Bloomingdale Asylum was built in what is now the Upper West Side. In 1894, it was moved further away, to the suburb of White Plains and is currently under operation as the Payne-Whitney Westchester Hospital, a Division of the New York Hospital-Cornell Weill Medical Centre.

1817. In Philadelphia, The Asylum for the Relief of Persons Deprived of the Use of their Reason was opened under Quaker auspices as a private mental hospital. It continues to serve this function to this day as the Friends Hospital.

1824. The Eastern Lunatic Asylum was opened in Lexington, Kentucky, as the first mental institution west of the Appalachian Mountains. It still operates today under the name, Eastern State Hospital.

By 1890, every state had built one or more publicly supported mental hospitals, which all expanded in size as the country’s population increased. By mid-20th century, the hospitals housed over 500,000 patients but began to diminish in size as new methods of treatment became available.

http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/prison-mental-health/forced-psychiatric-drugs

http://www.hrw.org/news/2010/03/22/solitary-confinement-and-mental-illness-us-prisons

Some links to websites that have some more information on the ethics of prisons and a true story of a prisoner forced into using psychiatric drugs.

Gestus

Gestus is a combination of gestures and attitude.

For example: Keon marched on stage, stood at the front of the stage, saluted and marched off again. The gesture of him saluting made it clear to the audience that he was a soldier.

Then, by putting more people on stage and pretending they are dead bodies and getting Keon to march on, kick the dead bodies and then salute to the audience, reveals his true attitude towards them. The gesture of him kicking the soldiers gave the audience and insight into his attitude.

Another example: Dainty Fidget - one of the stereotypical characters - We know she is a beautician already. But by handing a customer's coat over, holding it at arms length by her finger tips, her attitude comes across very clearly towards upper class people.

We developed our own actions, so for Lucy Luscious, I decided to be serving drinks happily, but then when I turn around to shake a martini, my face is bored, annoyed and how I feel will also be reflected in how I make the drink and my actions. This successfully allows my gestures to convey my attitude.

Characters Exercise

In this exercise we were all given stereotypical characters. I was Lucy Luscious the barmaid. We had to develop the characters to make them even more stereotypical. We had to think about our physicality and our voice and had to develop this further. We had to have a tag-line to emphasise our character, "Can I get you anything? Beer, Vodka, plate of peanuts?" we then had to really exaggerate our characters physicality and voice.

From this exercise I have learnt even more about Brecht stereotyping characters to create a sense to the audience that they are a certain class, which portrays to the audience why they are doing the actions on stage.

This allows the audience to question their presence on stage. It also made me realise that Brecht's characters are not three-dimensional, they are being stereotypically represented on stage to portray themselves to the audience.

It engages the audience because what they are doing on stage is interesting, yet it also manages to distance the audience because there aren't real people being portrayed onstage, they are stereotypes, so the audience are not trying to work out who they are and why they are there.

It doesn't engage the audience in the character's story either. So they focus on why they are there, not who or what the story is about. This is another clear example of Brecht's alienation technique. The tag-line we say alienates the audience from who the character is, so the audience don't have to work to follow the story.

Class Notes on "The Price"

People being unable to meet financial demands

Objectification of children

The importance of material things

Do we now see children as a burden on our income?

Everything has a price

Are we obsessed with money?

Money rules our world

Why is the child cheaper than the box of tea?

How much are we willing to pay for things?

How have we got to this point now?

The play addresses a strange question but in a very familiar setting-a supermarket  

Does money always reflect value?

Everywhere has crisis

My First Impressions of "The Price" by Lena Kitsopoulou

I found this play very interesting to read, as it seems to be quite confusing at first and no one really knew what it was about. However, by spending longer trying to find what message she might be trying to convey to the audience, her message became a lot clearer.

Lena Kitsopoulou has tried to simplify the financial difficulties in Greece, by putting the issues into an everyday situation.This makes the play seem very abstract of the social and political issues that she is trying to portray to the audience.

I think the simplistic language and the short sentences make the play easy to read and understand and allows the audience to gain a clear insight to the man and the woman in the play.

It is very interesting that they treat the topic of having a baby as if it doesn't really matter and they state the main reason for not having one is because of their money. This could emphasise that everything has become objects. Nothing has it's own personality anymore and we are able to buy anything we want. This creates a lot of tension between the man and the woman. By referring to the Roquefort cheese that he used to have as a child, emphasises that he only cares about appearances and how he looks to his friends, not the welfare of the child. The woman seems to only want the baby because the man insisted on it. She then goes on to change the baby for a deaf and mute one. This strongly questions their morals and focuses again on the social difficulties they are facing.

The play seems very detailed and confusing, however all of the social and political views become apparent as you read through it. I think this will be a very interesting play to work on and even though there isn't much you can do for characterisation, you will be able to research all the background information into Greece's financial problems and the repercussions caused. You can tell that this will be really interesting to produce in the style of Brecht because it focuses the audience more onto, not what the actor's are doing, but why they are doing this.

Dialectical

di·a·lec·ti·cal/ˌdīəˈlektikəl/

Adjective:	Relating to the logical discussion of ideas and opinions. Concerned with or acting through opposing forces.
Synonyms:	dialectal - dialectic

Marxism

Marxism:

"Marxism is the science of perspectives - looking forward to anticipate how society will develop - using its method of dialectical materialism to unravel the complex processes of historical development. It endeavors to teach the working class to know itself and be conscious of itself as a class."

Marxism in our Time: "…if the theory correctly estimates the course of development and foresees the future better than other theories, it remains the most advanced theory of our time, be it even scores of years old." - Leon Trotsky - Russian Marksist revoluntionary and theorist.

http://www.marxism.org.uk/

Brecht's History

Brecht's Life

Bertolt Brecht is a drama practitioner who has changed the way that many people now look at theatre. He was German and was born in 1898 and died aged 58 in 1956. He was married to Helene Weigel, who was an actress and played Mother Constance in one of his most famous plays. Bertolt Brecht was a Marxist and many of his beliefs are portrayed through his work.

He was born in Augsburg, Bavaria in 1898 and had a fairly middle-class upbringing. He applied for an additional course at Munich University to allow himself to get out of the First World War. It was here that he studied drama. He had a relationship with Paula Banholzer and they had a son together, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother passed away. Brecht managed to get a job with a newspaper, in which he wrote reviews for recent theatre productions. He then produced a play, which had very mixed reviews, so he moved to Berlin for inspiration.

He produced many plays, however they were banned in Germany. He was then exiled because his plays had hints of communist views in them. He then went on to produce a ballet which was performed in Paris and Brecht continued to develop his alienation effect technique. He moved to America to start making films, but he found it unimaginative. He was invited back into Germany in 1949 and produced his play "Mother Courage" in Berlin. He then founded the theatre group the Berliner Company. Brecht died of a heart attack in 1956.

Unlike Stanislavsky, who believed that the audience should focus on what the character's are doing and focused on making the audience become as involved in the theatre as they could be and wanted them to forget about their surroundings and be put into the world of the play. Brecht believed that you should not question what the actor's were doing, but why they were doing it. This involved the audience on a deeper level and made them very aware that they were watching a play. Brecht wanted the audience to remember they were in a theatre and everything they were watching has been made up. This allows the audience to connect on a deeper level to the characters and why they are doing what they are doing.

Theatre Workshop Exercises

 The Soap Box Exercise:
 
We started this theatre workshop lesson by doing a soap box exercise. We had to stand on a box and talk about what we are passionate about politically. Personally, I found this exercise very important, as it helped to start off our term with us all thinking openly about politics and everyone's different views. This exercise helped us to understand how people speaking out and expressing their views is very important and allows other people to question their views, to explore whether they feel the same way or whether they disagree, which opens more dicussions. This refers to Brecht's idea of getting the audience, not to just accept what they see on stage, but to challenge it and to ask questions.

Moody Objects Exercise:

We then did an exercise which helped us to question the alienation technique. By Sarah asking us to get into groups and become certain objects with emotions, for example, a happy toilet, a sexy calculator, an angry motorbike or a shy car, it helped us to realise that this exercise links into the alienation technique or the v-effect because it makes the audience realise that they are watching something which leads them to think and question things. This made me realise that it is very easy to question things, which made me aware of how important the audience's "suspension of disbelief" is, when it comes to theatre.
 
Daily Tasks:
 
This exercise made us act out a certain moment from our daily routine and mime it. We then had to repeat this, whilst narrating every action we did. From this exercise I have learnt the extreme difference between Brecht and Stanislavsky. I found it really interesting to realise that in the mime, Stanislavksy would use it to make the audience focus on what the character is doing. However, in the narrated version, Brecht would use this technique because it breaks the fourth wall, allowing the audience to focus on why the character is doing a certain thing. Because none of their focus is taken by what the actor is doing, they can ask themselves much deeper questions behind the character's actions.

Bertolt Brecht