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.