Show Evaluation

This term, we have been working on the unit of political theatre. Although in this unit we have worked on a verity of topics, the main focus of the term was on creating a piece of political theatre based around a specific chosen political issue and in our case this was to be around the issue of public library's and the fact that recently they are becoming more and more scarce as the government attempts to shut them down. 

The only real bases for our piece was the initial topic and a shot play called 'Spine' by Clara Brennan. Other than that and the general direction and guidance of Ms Niven, we where granted with a lot of the creative direction of the piece, with a large majority of the show consisting of original writing by the cast. I believe this brought a lot of depth to the piece, as it meant that the cast was able to relate and have a better understanding of the, simply because it came from our own opinions or people from our lives who's opinions have a direct connection to us. This relation provided us with a good stimulus and bases for the substance of the show.

While in the creating and rehearsal process of the show, a factor that would effect our work schedule was the limited time we where provided with. Being only a six week term, by the time we had actually begun devising we only had around four weeks left to do so. This defiantly upped the stress as we had so much to do in very little time. However, although at times I did find myself becoming distracted or not paying attention, overall I believe I brought some good contributions to the show and invested quite a lot of myself to it. For example I had one of the first opening monologues of the show, which I feel I delivered rather successfully as I new all my lines and was able to bring some good energy and power to the character with the use of techniques such as gestus. Everyone was able to bring there individual sections together to create one reasonably good piece of theatre.

Brechtian theatre was also big focus of this terms work. We learnt about a lot about his style of working and the techniques he developed through his work. So when making our piece, we where able to involve many of these techniques ourselves. This included things such as gestus, the v effect and spass which enabled the audience to have some interaction with the characters and brought a sense of immersiveness to the show. Also the quick changes and transitions in the direction of the piece and the use of different theatrical medians, such as singing added a fun and comedic edge. This made the piece much easier for the audience to watch as it included many facts and information, that otherwise may have made them loose interest and become board.

Overall I am greatly pleased with how the final performance went. Although at times In the rehearsal process I may have become distracted and lost concentration, in the end everyone put in all there effort to achieve what I believe to be a successful night and great learning experience.

Political Protest Evaluation

As part of the unit this term in political theatre we where assigned to create a political protest. In the case of our protest, this included the theme of immigration. Being an issue that is constantly on rotation in the media and being commented on by politicians, we thought it was a rather relative subject and being such a broad topic it offered us with many opportunity for theatrical input.    

 From the start we found it quite difficult to settle on one idea. This is either because we would find ourselves being indecisive or we would pick an idea that we would eventually decide we didn't like. An aspect that we found hard to get our heads round was working out the difference between a political issue and a social one. We found that there was a very fine boarder between the two and being a protest, it was very important that the message we where relaying was obvious to the audience. However this meant that when we finally settled on a idea, we had left ourselves with very little time in order to pull it off.

Due to this lack of time, we new our protest would have to remain simplistic but at the same time be effective in getting our concept to the audience. So as a result we came up with the idea of creating a barrier within the school representative of the UK a boarder. We placed this outside the entrance of the small canteen, where here we would pose as border control officers and as people attempted to pass by we would stop and interrogate them, some what simulating the experience of someone trying to enter the country.The majority of on goers took well to this, with a good understanding of what we where doing. Although on the other hand we found too often people would try bombard us, choosing to not cooperate and ignore our simple instructions. This was irritating at some points, but we understood this was during some of the students break and we didn't want to overly interfere with this. So considering those factors I was rather pleased with our audiences reaction, with many seeing a funnier side to it and some even coming back for more.

As far as a political protest goes, I feel we managed to represent a very small part of a very large scale topic. I think if we had put more time and effort into the research of this issue, we would have been more educated ourselves on the facts and statistics behind it and been better capable of enlightening our audience on subject. On the performance side things, I believe we created a very appealing and inviting demonstration for anyone who wished to get involved.

In conclusion, although there where aspects that could have easily been improved on, I was very happy with how it turned out and how it was received. I feel I have learnt many new things about the issue of immigration and the process of creating and performing a protest

Gestus

Gestus was another technique used and implemented in Brecht's work. Rather then developing the emotional state of a character, Brecht wanted his actors to play on a gesture or movement that would represent the attitude and feelings of a character instead. For this to be effective, each movement has to be bold and exaggerated, clearly showing its importance and making the type of person that the actor is trying to present obvious to the audience. It is essential the audience can tell by the actor’s gestures alone what was happening in the scene.

The physicality adopted by an actor to fit a certain role, is based purely on the characters social role and what it is that motivates them to act in this way, as apposed to looking inwardly at emotional motivation. This means the audiences judgement of a characters is created simply on the situation they are being presented with on stage.

The V Effect

Something that was clearly of great importance in Brecht's approach to theatre is the relationship and perception of his audience towards his work. With Brecht's work being largely based around the themes and issues of a more commonly a much wider moral message, it was key for his audience to question what was before them as opposed to finding themselves emotionally invested in the characters. In an attempt to distance the audience as much as possible from doing this, Brecht used what is know as Epic Theatre. The intended purpose of this was to break the fourth wall (the imaginary wall between the actors and audience which keeps them as observers) and in doing so allowing the audience members to remain interested and engaged throughout with a more intellectual outlook on the happenings. Methods such as the use of narration, direct address, coming out of character and placards where implemented within his shows, taking away from the audiences suspense of not knowing and allowing them to pay attention and really analyse the cause of the results instead.

All these techniques had the effect of distancing the audience from emotional involvement in Brecht's theatre and has lead to what we now know as The V Effect.

A Bit On Bertolt Brecht

Brecht was both playwright and producer/director of his own, and others', plays. He also wrote extensively on dramatic theory. You should explain his theory in terms of his practice in writing and production. You may be confused if you assume that the theory matches the reality of the plays in production. The theory, arising from a Marxist notion of drama as a vehicle for rational didacticism, describes theatre as Brecht, in a sense, wished it to become. This theory is only partly realised in his own work. Brecht would say that this is the result of the theatre's (and society's) not being ready yet for the final, perfected version of epic theatre. Modern theatre critics might say that Brecht's practical sense of what works in the theatre has (happily) overruled the more extreme applications of his theory.

'Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it.' - Bertolt Brecht

Extracted from: https://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/drama/brecht.htm