evaluation Political Theatre

Indulge in the Price - Evaluation.
On the whole the show was successful. It flowed well from one sequence to the next.The ideas of consumerism and the unfairness or capitalism in contemporary life came across clearly. There were distinct characters in the play who came across clearly.
The movement between the group was very fluid and consistent.I think the group worked well together. There was a good balance for fast/loud and quiet/slower scenes which gave contrast to the play and allowed for breathing space in places.
The audience was involved in certain sequences which brought more of a connection between the audience and actors. The audience reacted well to these humorous interactions.The comedic moments and lines were delivered well.

The play is structured with a series of sketches and sequences.Each sequence worked well as a set piece and yet felt integrated into the whole play. The sequences are as follows:
The Advertising company section showed an interesting take on how advertisers manipulate the public.
The Adverts were very successful and the fast timing and great ideas made them very entertaining. These went down well with the audience.
The Police sketch worked very well. The whole space was used with nice diagonal movements  and the two actors playing policemen made a good double act. It was entertaining.
The consumers shop was revised several times and some of these were more successful than others. The final section at the shop was very funny and each character came across clearly.
The Austerity Show was one of the most successful parts. The audience were involved and felt like they were part of the show. This engaged them and perhaps made them think about their own view of austerity and whether they would act upon it in anyway.

Britain's got Benefits another live TV was a funny and ridiculous parody of a talent show. This led onto the end whihc was more serious and led to the losing contestant committing suicide. In this section we made use of a Brehctian technique of tickle and slap, where the audience would be entertained, usually through laughter and then be exposed to something harsh and serious. This would hopefully make it stick in their minds more and make them feel guilty or slightly embarrassed for laughing at such a serious matter. However this segment felt rushed and perhaps too improvised, the staging was odd and could have been better with more consideration. However we were supposed to get the audience to vote on who would receive the benefit but this didn't work out as well as planned and we had to vote, this was unfortunate as this was a missed opportunity to make the audience feel responsible for their actions. Especially as the one who lost would have to do a monologue about how not receiving the benefits eventually led them to commit suicide.

I was able to commit to the character and this brought life to my scene as I was able to effectively interact with the other actors in my scene, however I feel like I could have had my lines embedded in my head more then I would have been able to fill any gaps of silence and make the scene tighter.

I projected my voice well and i articulated my words effectively, I'm fairly sure everyone in the audience could hear what I was saying. This befitted from exercising the lines while I was rehearsing and pronouncing every single syllable so that I could get used to saying the words and iron out any mispronunciations.

I had a few minor roles in this production, but I feel that I contributed well to the play. I enjoyed working as an ensemble, it felt comforting knowing I could rely on my peers for help, and that we were working as a team to create an atmosphere. It felt especially satisfying when we moved effectively together like in the apprentice spoof we created a very patronising atmosphere. I especially enjoyed my Simon Cowlesque Judge character in the Britain's got Benefits section. I feel that I can deliver funny lines well and I enjoy comedy roles.

In conclusion I think the message of the performance was clear, and communicated in a entertaining way, forming a informative and engaging piece.

http://www.poverty.ac.uk/report-disability-government-cuts-benefits/benefit-cuts-%E2%80%98hitting-disabled-people-hardest%E2%80%99

This article really highlights how vulnerable disabled people are when the benefits are cut, this article influenced our Britain's got benefits segment as we wanted to communicate how desperate people are for benefits to the extent that they will publicly embarrass themselves to receive them. This is obviously hyperbolic but I feel communicated our message loud and clear.

Character Development

GEIR:

My character Geir is very uptight and angry at pretty much everything. This is shown through his constant questioning and prodding "Ingvar is this really necessary?" and "Why can't you just be normal" these lines show how everything irritates him and how much he hates everything.  Especially Ingvar, When portraying Geir I need to think about how I am going to communicate his hatred of Ingvar to the audience. With my directors guidance we have developed a small gestus displaying a silent explosion of Geir's hatred. Where he perhaps silently shouts "fuck" or flips off Ingvar behind his back.

Geir is also a very anxious character "she did say half past ten?" "I just want to know what happened in that meeting." These quotes show his anxiety as he feels uncomfortable when he is not in control of the situation. To show this tension and anxiety I decided to try and walk only in straight lines, however I found this kind of movement limiting, so I tried allowing myself to walk in a diagonal direction as well and this felt like a sweet spot between tension and freedom of movement. 

To improve my performance of Geir I need to commit to the energy the character requires. The performance is not naturalism and needs a heightened energy to communicate its satire. This higher energy will also lift the interactions with other characters as the energy will bounce off each other and engage the audience. 

Research

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2015/05/fiscal-policy
This article helped me understand what austerity is as an economic policy and how it is currently affecting Britain. This obviously helped me have a deeper understanding for the piece and help me think of ideas for the piece. For example austerity has affected people benefits, and disabled people who are not fit to work aren't receiving benefits because the government is cutting corners. This leaves people very vulnerable and desperate. To capture this we created a parody of Britain's Got Talent called Britain's Got Benefits. In which we present a satire of the judges and forcibly make the disabled people dance or sing for their benefits. We will then get the audience to vote on who they think deserves benefits, this responsibility will make them feel partly responsible when the contestant not picked performs a short monologue and commits suicide.

short video about austerity

There is a segment in the performance that focuses on police cuts and how they may start to look for funding in other places such as sponsorships. This video goes into more depth in that subject and was useful when understanding what exactly will be cut and how that will affect the UK.
police cuts video

snickers inspiration
We used this advert to influence our advert about a product that makes you calm down. This familiar ad should bring in the audience and help them understand what were trying to communicate, that there is a product for everything.

Indulge In the Price

My Interpretation:
I see the piece to be about austerity, particularity about the austerity process going on in the UK right now, making this piece extremely relevant. The piece is cut into different sections, this is useful as it allows us to cover multiple different subjects seamlessly, such as disabled people desperately needing benefits and yet receiving none, and also the cuts to police making the force having to prioritise some crimes over others. We present this in a satirical and hyperbolic way to really get our point across to the audience. I interpret the play to be anti-austerity, this is because I feel the scenarios we present to the audience in some way represent an unequal and unjust society, a society controlled by large corporations and where humanity is ultimately lost to our overwhelming need to consume. For example there is a part of the performance where we all take out wads of money and begin to eat it, whilst embodying the physicality of barbaric zombie chanting "consume." This shows us losing our dignity and sophistication as human beings, almost de evolving back to our animal and Neanderthal states right before the audience. This will most likely impact the audience, it will especially if we go and get up and close to the audience.

political performance reflection

The performance went well and I think we conveyed our message of child soldiers well. We used placards and hung them around our chest, on them we wrote our age and that we were child soldiers. We misspelt it to simultaneously show that we were child soldiers and also that child soldiers aren't educated, that their ability to shoot a gun is prioritised over learning to read or write. We also wrote this as a slogan, saying "taught how to use guns before they can write." Our costume was very good and immersed not only the audience but also myself playing the character of the child soldier.

We also decorated our stage with picture of child soldiers and left placards with slogans and facts written on them so that even when we weren't there the audience could learn something, and perhaps realise that its a stage for something and wait until we eventually come back and see our performance.

Our routine was effective as we could rely on it to drive our message home with our audience once we had lured them to our stage. One of the main challenges we had was to get our audience to follow us to our stage, so we thought we would catch their attention and hope they became curious enough to follow us. Luckily this seemed to work and every time we came back to our stage after going round the school there was an audience to perform to. It wasn't ever a massive audience but I believe that the amount of people was much more manageable than say the canteen. Also in the canteen it felt like, because the audience was so massive, it was almost overwhelming for the performers and it seemed like their message was getting lost in the bustle of the audience. Where as with our audience it felt more intimate and that our performance was having a larger impact on the audience. Making it more likely for them to keep thinking about child soldiers long after the performance.

To improve on our performance when going round the school we shouldn't have been so 'in your face' with people as it seemed to have prompted them to not take our protest seriously. To make this better we should try to win over the audience with an isolated event that they could witness. This is why I think our routine was more effective than when we walked around the school. Because it invited the audience in to watch, where as being 'in your face' distanced them from our message and perhaps even alienated them.

In conclusion we had an effective and informative performance. That hopefully impacted the audience enough for them to do something about child soldiers.

political protest research

https://www.hrw.org/topic/childrens-rights/child-soldiers
this article has helped me understand how disposable child soldiers are seen and that they are treated inhumanly, this will be shown through Tom , who is playing the general, and his ruthlessness.

https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-child-soldiers 
facts about child soldiers to put on placards

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/lost-boys-what-became-of-liberias-child-soldiers-7637101.html
this article talks about what happens to the child soldiers after the militia and really illustrates how traumatising and damaging the experience is

political theatre idea

we are going to explore the ideas of child soldiers. we have decided to use the stage behind the canteen. Our biggest challenge will to lure the audience from the canteen and other areas and get them to follow us to the stage. We are planning on having a routine displaying the horrors for child soldiers. On our placards I wrote "childe solgers, age 8" this brehctian technique was used to get the audience interested. The misspelling is used to try and communicate to the audience that the children are not very well educated and are having their childhood robbed from them.

To get the attention of the audience we will maybe walk around the school and try to attract audience members through curiosity. The placards might evoke emotion in the audience as they may communicate that children have their childhood robbed from them.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/uganda/10621792/Konys-child-soldiers-When-you-kill-for-the-first-time-you-change.html

This article is an interview of a childsoldier and is very interesting and has helped me understand how traumatising the experience is  for children.

political theatre equipment

I need to bring in:
bandana,
toy guns,
sheets,
red dye,
army uniform,
placards,
markers,
picture of child soldiers,

What Is Political Theatre

Political theatre challenges societies traditions. It should provoke the audience to think about the message the performance presents long after the play is over.  Political Theatre is most effective when it convinces the audience members to go out and do something. 

Berthold Brecht

Brecht was interested in Karl Marx’s theories on socialism, this would be interoperated into some of his work. Brecht and “epic theatre” came about when melodrama, realism and naturalism were popular theatre forms. Naturalistic play aimed to reflect life and allow the audience to immerse themselves within the story, believing it was real. The audience could escape life and stop thinking about current affairs. 

Brecht hated this and wanted people to think, challenge and change not just accept and enjoy. He created his new form of Theatre in 1920s designed to make the audience question what their watching, he called it epic theatre.

He used these techniques…

V effect: This was used to direct the audiences attention to something new, he would interrupt the scene and throw in something unexpected. This would stop the audience getting lost in the emotion and story of the play making them able to think and question. The idea was to consistently remind the audience they were in a theatre, watching a play. He did this by, keeping the house lights on so the audience members were aware of each other. Music and dance broke up scenes, placards were used to give the audience info. All characters might be dressed in black rather than  individually costumed.

Brecht believed that the actors job was merely to show what happened, that the actor doesnt need to identify with the character and play it realistically, the opposite to Stan. 

Brecht believed actors should: 

-Make sure voice and movement do not match. 

-Speak as if quoting someone else and not dialogue.

-speak the stage directions aloud

-perform directly to the audience