Poltical Theatre Plays introduction

Play One

We read the first play that we will use in our performance this term. This was a play was based on the Seven Deadly Sins. The play was quite interesting due to the controversial subjects within it such as big companies taking over small companies and putting them out of business. I find this interesting because Britain is mainly a Protestant country, however there is a large variety of different religions. This stands out as the play write made the decision to base this play on Christianity and discuss it, rather than discussing other religions such as Islam. Unfortunately, there is a lot of racism that is bought up in the news towards them due to articles about terrorists, extremists and bombings. I also found it interesting that the play discusses the Seven Deadly Sins and links it to everyday life. I liked this play as it was quick paced, humorous and interesting. The concept was clever and enjoyable. However, at times it became rather confusing which meant that I lost interest in it. This play wasn’t as hard hitting as it could have been.

Play Two

The second play was called ‘The Price’ and was written by Lea Kitsopouloy and translated by Aliki Chapple. I found it much easier to follow and to enjoy due to the shocking themes which captivated the reader and kept us interested. I really enjoyed this play. The play was about two people at a supermarket who buying a child. They were talking about the child as if the child were merely an item rather than an actual human being. This was a shocking and grotesque concept to think about, however it really made me think about how we can relate the topics covered in the play to our own personal lives. The play also states how foreign children were cheaper, this is very controversial as it brings up theme s of racism. And suggests that foreign people could be seen to be a lower form of life. Moreover, it implies that disabled people are also a lower form of life. These issues to be very interesting and though provoking. I was cast as ‘Man’ in this play which I was happy about as I have monologues which talk about inequality and how unfair the system is. I began to think about how we can simply determine the value of a particular life then thought about parenthood and how some people are unable to have children, therefore they have to adopt instead. In America, it is extremely expensive to adopt a child, as it costs between $8,000 and $40,000. American citizens can be stripped of a parenting opportunity if they simply do not have the funds. This may bring up the question ‘Is adopting a child in America the same as buying a child?

Devised scenes

We are also devising scenes based around current issues which are classed as our own seven deadly sins. A topic for our scene was about benefit cuts. This is very unfair as they are less able to work and will not receive the support that they need. This sparks many creative ideas about how we could covey this issue in our piece and how we can show how unjust this problem is. I did some research on the topic and found out that in a survey, 79% agreed having disabled employees helps a company understand its disabled customers better. In addition, 45% of representatives who have not employed somebody with a learning disability were concerned it might be more difficult for members of public to deal with members of staff with a learning disability. This drops to 30% who have employed staff with a learning disability. There are just 7% of people with a learning disability in paid employment, compared to 46% of disabled people. It is clearly very difficult for people with learning difficulties to get a job, therefore it is very cruel to take away their benefits. There was another scene based around the question ‘Is anger the same as passion?’ This is very interesting as the two are very similar and there is often a very fine line between them. If someone is passionate about something, there are likely to defend it and become angry if someone offends the thing they are passionate about. Both emotions can lead to arguments or conflict. It is very debatable where the line is between the two emotions. A rant can be caused by both of them and often, passion will lead to anger. It is very debatable where the line is between the two emotions. A rant can be caused by both of them and often, passion will lead to anger.  The style of the performance is set out as a game show, this is very interesting as it relates to how TV and the media can misinterpret information or change it in order to make a story or interesting or entertaining. I feel like the play could go very well and I’m excited for it.

 

Political Protests

Political Theatre Protest

   We were told to create a political protest based around a political issue or problem that is currently going on. The protest would have to be 20-30 minutes long and should draw in a large number of people and have an effect on them and make them want to do something productive to improve the issue. Our idea was a protest about child soldiers- an issue which isn't currently talked about a lot in the news. We didn't want everyone to forget that this is still a hugely important issue which still affects hundreds of thousands of people today.

Research

We researched the topic of child soldiers in detail in order to expand our knowledge and understanding of our protest and the reason for protesting. I found out many fats which shocked me. Some children are under the age of 10 when they are forced to serve. Also, a few of the countries who have reported use of child soldiers since 2011 are Afghanistan, Colombia, India, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Mali, Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In addition, 40% of the slaves are female, many of which are used as sex slaves, and therefore they are sexually assaulted or raped. A very worrying fact is that there are over 250,000 child soldiers in the world today, this is a huge number which made me wonder why the subject isn’t covered much by the press and doesn’t get the attention and support it clearly deserves. I found some of these statistics shocking and upsetting me which motivated me throughout the protest. This idea became very political when I found out some chid soldiers are recruited by the government rather than rebels, this shows how the corruption and cruelty of governments in some countries needs to change. Child soldiers go through many traumatic experiences. Some of the children have to go through the horrifying experience of killing their own family member. The child soldiers can be rectified or abducted in many ways. Some are abducted from their own homes. Villages may be forced to provide a certain number of children in exchange for their own protection from attacks. In rare cases, children volunteer because of ideological reasons to avenge the death of a family member. A crucial aspect of the protest is that there needs to be some way in which the problem can be resolved. There are various charities that can help decrease the number of child soldiers in the world, these include http://www.unicef.org.uk/ and https://www.warchild.org.uk/issues/child-soldiers.

Creating the protest

We had to think of an enticing and original way in which we could convey the ideas of our protest that would captivate the audience and make them want to change. We decided to use the stage area outside the canteen as this was at a high level and was at a place that many people could walk past to watch our protest. Our idea was to show three child soldiers partaking in military exercises such as marching, press ups and practising shooting. This all happened while they were being maliciously shouted at and beaten by their general. This helped to convey that hardship and trauma that the younger vulnerable children have to go through while fighting. The three soldiers wore placards around their neck which showed their age. The ages around our necks were 7, 8 and 9. This showed just how young the soldiers are and how traumatic this would be at their young age. 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." We also had two girls playing the sex slaves, they were tied up to a pole using rope and were whipped by the general. We created many posters for the protest in order to capture the attention of people passing by. We also created large signs in order to add clarity to the protest. We were dressed up as soldiers and brought in props such as rope and guns. 

Problems

A key problem for us was the weather because we had chosen to set outside. Unfortunately, it was very windy which meant that many of the signs were blowing away and it was very cold. The cold weather made it more difficult to perform to the best of our ability. Furthermore, it meant that less people would want to be outside, therefore less people would be watching our protest. We had to use staples and a lot of tape in order to make sure that our signs wouldn’t blow away. This made the signs harder to see, therefore meaning we couldn’t catch the attention of the audience as easily as we would have liked and our location became less aesthetically pleasing. There weren’t many people outside which meant that it was hard to get the attention of everyone and get them to watch our protest. This meant that we decided to march round the school, going through the foyer by Reception and through the canteen in order to catch everyone’s attention. I feel like this was quite affective as we were able to use a marching exercise to demonstrate the military exercises the young children have to go though. At the beginning of the protest, one student decided they would walk up to us and try and join in the protest by picking up the guns and other props, marching alongside us and making immature comments. This became very distracting and frustrating for us, as performers. In addition, it became more difficult to act when Tom, who was playing the general, became clumsy with his whipping and actually whipped us with his belt which was very painful and distracting in the performance. Finally, we were unable to get any water guns for our protest because it is winter, therefore nobody was selling any. The water guns were meant to represent the childlike nature and innocence of the children. Moreover, we would have shot out fake blood or some other red liquid to make it more effective and scary. However, we had to use toy guns instead. In my opinion, this didn’t have the same effect as the water pistols would have had. 

Evaluation

Overall, I was pleased with how the performance went. I feel like we conveyed an important message to the audience and this made them remember how important it to make a change is. I feel like the performance side of our piece was very good and captured the attention of the audience and was entertaining as well as thought provoking. We had a lot of ideas for the performance and managed to include all of them. The piece was shocking for the audience and hopefully rather emotional. We marched around the school as Tom repeated simple phrases such as ‘250,000 child soldiers in the world today’ and ‘did you forget?’ in order to make everyone think. The costumes, set and props all came together well to make our performance very clear and simplistic rather than misleading or confusing. This is an important aspect in political theatre as the message is always obvious. However, I believe that we could have included the audience in some way in order to make our protest more memorable or keep the audience more interested. When I saw other groups speaking to the audience or including them, like in a piece of immersive theatre, I thought this was very clever and worked very well. Moreover, we could have made it clearer to the audience about how they could help and make a change. Perhaps, some of the member of our group could have been giving out leaflets or interviewing people passing by in order to improve their understanding of the topic. In addition, I would have changed the location to somewhere where there are more people, therefore we would have had a larger audience. I hope our protest had a lasting effect on the audience and would have been memorable. 

Political Theatre- Lesson 1

What is political theatre?

Political theatre is a type of theatre that challenges issues in society in order to make a statement about the world around us to the audience by exploring and challenging current political affairs. It aims to make a point and make audiences question the performance and message behind it rather than merely enjoying the experience of seeing a piece of theatre.  It is described as theatre that comments on political issues, political action or protest that has a theatrical quality to it. Political theatre can be thought provoking, relevant and educational towards the audience.

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a theatre practicioner. Brecht believed "Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it."  This means that we shouldn’t just experience theatre and then move on with our normal everyday lives. Theatre should have a major impact on us that will enable us to make a beneficial change in society instead of showing us a naturalistic version of occurrences and events that we already know and can easily relate to.  Theatre can easily influence us and the way in which we lives our lives. Brecht wanted us to take advantage of this. He created a version of theatre called epic theatre, hence how the V-effekt came across. He shaped theatre in a way that had a huge impact upon its development. Before Brecht, naturalistic theatre was very popular and appeared to mirror society. Brecht believed that theatre should be used as a force for change.  We also learned about  Verfremdungseffekt or 'The V-Effekt.' This can also be know as alienation or distancing. It is a term Brecht used to describe the way in which actors created characters in Epic Theatre. This aims to use techniques designed to distance the audience from emotional involvement in the play through reminding them of the artificiality of the piece of theatre being performed. By discourging the audience to identify with the character or create an emotional attatchment to them by making the performance strange or alien. This enables political theatre to make the differences between political theatre and other forms of theatre clear as it establishes that it is a show. This helps make a clear answer to the question ‘Is all theatre political?’ All theatre can have political aspects but most theatre has political context or undertones within the play. Gestus is an acting technique developed by Brecht. It is a combination of physical gestures and "gist" or attitude. It is a clear character gesture or movement used by an actor that captures a moment or attitude rather than merely portraying a character’s emotion. The interpretation of the gesture being performed is built on the character’s role within society and why they need to behave in a particular manner, rather than looking at the inner emotional motivation. Gestus can also be gesture with social commentary on current political events. Spass literally translates as ‘fun’. Brecht wanted to make his audience think rather than just enjoying the show. Brecht realised that while we are laughing, we are simultaneously thinking about the message behind it. The message itself may be serious rather than comedic. Comedy could be an excellent way of engaging the audience and forcing them to actually think about political issues of the piece. Spass was also an excellent way to break the tension. The dark humour of foul taste of this would be shocking for an audience. However, this actually highlights the painful truth of depression through shocking contrast and dark comedy. The audience will laugh. However, they will also question why they laughed.

Opposites and stereotypes

We had to get into pairs and create a still image of two opposites such as Rich and poor or winter and summer etc. It was interesting to see the similarities between the still images across the class. For example, the rich were usually standing up with open body language and confident or occasionally arrogant facial expressions whereas the poor were on the floor with enclosed bod language with shy or intimidated facial expressions. This clearly demonstrated how levels were used to portray status and emotions. This is interesting as political theatre relies on clarity and stereotypes. The fact that everyone used a very similar still images was a representation of how society believes that the rich are a lot more powerful than the poor and even look down on them due to their lower status and lack of power within society. This demonstrated how political theatre can affect the actors as well as the audience because they all see political events or issued through the same viewpoint. This related to when we did a performance in the lesson based around three emotions. Our group used the emotions of love, disbelief and intimidation. In our piece, two people were in love until the wife had an affair and the husband got very violent and abusive. This also showed the constrast between the light hearted comedy at the beginning and the shocking and scary violence at the end. Furthemore, this shows how the political message in a play can have a large impact on the actors and the audience. 

Cards

Each person was given a playing card, the card we were given was a representation of what our status for the exercise would be. The higher number, the higher the status. For example, a King or an Ace would be a very high status, however a 2 or a 3 would be a very low status. The card I was given was a King, therefore I had a very high status. This had a significant effect on the way in which I walked around the room and I made sure I stood up tall in order to appear taller as a higher level reflects a higher status. I made sure my posture was very good as my chest was sticking out with my chin up. My facial expression changed so that it was large and slightly exaggerated to demonstrate an arrogant and pompous attitude to those around me. I made sure I looked down upon those I thought had a low status and showed respect and smiled at those who also has a high status. This exercise demonstrated the stereotypes society has about status, wealth and power and how everyone thinks about how the status of individuals has a significant effect on the relationships between them. You could immediately tell how much status everyone had due to their body language and the way in which they interacted with everyone else. This shows how the class subconsciously made a political statement about society. After this, we lined up against the wall and two by two shook hands in front of the rest of the class, this also made the relationships between two different people very apparent depending on their status. However, for some pairs, placards were given. A placard is a sign or additional piece of written information presented on stage. This showed the prominent effect of language. The words had a significant effect on the action on stage and allowed the audience to see what was happening and the relationship between the two people from a completely different perspective. One placard read ‘Policeman on the take’ which reflected on the reports of police brutality and how they can abuse their power in society. These 4 words on the placards had a huge change on our viewpoint of what was happening. At first, the ironic nature of the placard appeared amusing for us, as audience. However, the effect of what was happening kicked in to show important political issues in society and some very serious issues. This helped me realise the effect that political theatre and language can have on an audience. 

Shrug

We all stood in a circle and were asked to shrug and say 'I dunno.' We were then told to exaggerate this in order to make it appear almost like a caricature of a stereotypical teenager. We performed almost as if we were puppets and we were being controlled by a puppeteer, when we shrugged it was like someone was pulling on our strings in order to lift up our shoulders. We then said ‘I dunno’ in a zombie like manner. After this, someone went up to the front and stood on a chair behind one of the zombie like teenagers in order to portray the puppeteer. The puppeteer then said ‘I am society’ in order to portray how society controls us and gives us a lack of freedom or individuality. This was a clear political statement which shows how a few words in a performance can have a major impact on the meaning behind it. The actor playing society said it with a large smile to represent the obnoxiousness and narrow mindedness of our society. This was clear and blunt which are two crucial aspects of political theatre. 

Nursery rhymes

We got into pairs and were told to stand on opposite sides of the room and perform a nursery rhyme to each other. This was difficult as the whole class had to perform a nursery rhyme all at the same time which got very confusing. We were then told to guess what our partner’s nursery rhyme was, this was very difficult at first as it was very hard to hear them when everyone was talking at the same time. We were then told that if we didn’t correctly guess what our partner’s nursery rhyme was that we would be shot. Suddenly, everyone became more urgent in what they were doing and the motivation made us work harder. This helped me realises the important of mime and gestures, which relates to a piece of political theatre. Brecht was the founder of ‘gestus’ which is similar to gestures. Gestus is an acting which carries the sense of a combination of physical gestures with attitude.   This exercise definitely highlighted the fact that clarity in political theatre is imperative. Clarity is crucial in political theatre, without it the message behind the piece could be misinterpreted or misunderstood which would completely take away the purpose of the performance.