Bertolt Brecht Quote

Final Performance Evaluation

On the 11th December we performed 'Blondie' to two separate audiences. The first audience was to our peers at school. I believe that the performance went well; the comical devices used in the play were spotted by the audience as they laughed at the appropriate times. However, I believe that the message behind the play was not seen by the audience. I think this occurred because we are familiar with them and their main focus was to judge our acting skills rather than actually watch the play. The second audience we performed 'Blondie' to was the friends and family of the actors taking part. I believe that their reaction was very different to the first audience as they did not find the comical devices in the piece as humorous. This may have been because there were many different age groups in the audience therefore; their idea of comedy may be different to the younger generations. On the other hand, the second audience reacted to the message of the play a lot better than the first audience. At the end of the performance, the audience made no sound and just looked at the screen displaying the question left with them; I took this as a success as they were too busy thinking about the performance and its meaning to applaud the actual performance.

In our performance, we used many Brechtian techniques successfully. One technique we used was using stereotypical characters from society and exaggerating their posture and movement even further. An example of this was when I played a cockney man going for a drink at the pub. To portray this character clearly to the audience I had slightly lean backwards when walking and also swing my arms a lot more. I also made my voice sound croaky (imitating a smokers voice) to show the stereotype. I believe that this was effective as this technique assisted in disconnecting the audience from the characters as it is so obviously exaggerated it is almost comical.

Another technique we successfully used which was Brechtian was the use of narrators. An example of this is the political leaders’ scene (Hitler in particular). Throughout the Hitler scene a narrator tells the whole story whist it is being acted out. I believe this was effective as it took away the seriousness of the topic and allowed the audience to focus on the events taking place. The also spoke with a storytelling voice as if they were speaking to children; this put the audience in an uncomfortable situation as they were not use to seeing history being re told in that way. I believe that this aided in making the audience focus on the message behind the play as they were interested in the relevance of this scene and why it is being told in such a way.

A Brechtian technique we took advantage of in our performance was the use of multiple actors playing one character at different times. When taking part in the 'Blondie' scenes, we were assigned tags of what characters were in the scene. There were 4 characters always on stage and for each character, roughly 4 actors played them at different times. The tags we were assigned signified when we were those characters and when the scene was finished you would remove the tag and leave it where it was found. This was another Brechtian technique which disconnected the audience from the characters and the emotions behind them. As the actor playing the character is constantly changing, it makes it more difficult for the audience to connect with the characters story as it is made very clear it is not real and they are watching a performance.

 

Personally, I feel that the final performance went rather well, apart from the technical difficulties at the beginning. As an actor I believe that I did we'll when working together in the ensemble scenes. I believe I took part very well and the transition from scene to scene was very slick due to my contribution of improvised dialect before the scene began. I was able to use this time period and dialect to show the audience what the scene was changing into which made the piece a lot more clear to them. I believe my scene as boy 1 went according to plan. However, I believe that I could have pushed my character even further towards the stereotype through movement and body language. As character A In the 'Blondie' scenes I think that I delivered my lines effectively although I feel like I could have done more communicating with my body movement. As a cop, I could have leaned forward to show I was interrogating them. After this scene I take part in the Bin Laden political leader scene. I believe that this scene went very well as the audience reacted in a shocked way which is what we were intending. On the other hand, I believe I could have put more effort into my acting. When playing a child I could have pushed the stereotype a lot further to add Gestus technique to the scene. Although I had many flaws in the performance, they were not big enough to jeopardise the positive outcome of the performance.

One of my peers, Parris had a very successful performance in the piece. When taking part in the ensemble scene, his transitions and the use of his body to create the setting assisted in the piece being slick and professional. Also, when playing B in the ‘Blondie’ scenes, Parris exaggerated his movements and changed the way he spoke to almost make a mockery of a woman; this added Brechtian techniques to our play which disconnected the audience from the characters and the storyline. Although Parris performed well in the piece I believe that there were some areas which could have been developed further. For example, when Parris was playing Bin Laden, I believe that he could have pushed the character even further. This would of effected the piece in a way which would have made the audience think about the play in a deeper way; if the character was extremely exaggerated then the audience would ask why this was done and possibly make links with the overall message the performance is attempting to send.

In creating this piece and researching about political theatre, I have learnt many things. Personally, I believe that political theatre is a place where you are able to express your views on society regardless whether they are right or wrong. Political theatre contradicts stereotypical theatre and challenges the audience, allowing them to react with the actors giving them an experience that only political theatre can provide. I also feel that political theatre gives practitioners the opportunity to question humanity and the habits we are surrounded by. I have seriously enjoyed working on this genre as it is different to anything I have ever experienced and made me think about theatre in a completely different aspect.

At the beginning of the term, I was asked the question ‘is all theatre political?’ my response to this was no they are not as each genre of theatre tackles ideas and issues in a very different way, whereas political theatre challenges the ideas and issues. Now that the term is over and I have been given more information on political theatre, my opinion has changed. I personally believe that almost every piece of theatre is political. No matter what genre you are working with, the practitioner has embedded a moral to be learnt or an implicit meaning behind the piece. The theatre does not have to be political for the piece to question certain aspects of our lives as most performances do. After this term I will look at all theatre differently and look deeper into the performance to try and understand what the piece is really trying to tell the audience.

 

Rehearsal Notes

As our ‘Blondie’ piece is finally put together fully I believe it shows a clear message to the audience. I believe it implies to the audience that we constantly judge people from what they look like and not who they actually but also, that we are ungrateful for all that we have. After the performance, I believe the audience may discuss why they think everyone does this including themselves. I also feel that they may reflect on the positive events which have happened in their life and wonder if they appreciated the life they have enough.

 

I believe that the most powerful moment in the performance is the last monologue said by Blondie. In this monologue she is explaining why she carried out the genocide of innocent people. At the end of this monologue she asks a rhetorical question which ends the play. I believe that this is the most powerful moment as it shows a different side to Blondie which the audience has never seen before in the play; the end scene leaves the audience in shock as Blondie justifies her actions and makes the audience believe and think about what she is saying deeply. My favourite part of the performance however is the political leader section. This is my favourite section because it shows a completely inappropriate and opposite side to some major political leaders. It also highlights certain events in history which are so difficult to talk about in a childish way. I like this bit because it makes the audience react in an awkward way as they want to laugh at the comical elements of the scene however they hold their tongue due to the events the scene is retelling.  

 

Our performance uses many different Brechtian techniques to keep the audience disconnected from the characters emotions. For example, when working in ensembles the change in location is shown on stage and is made in front of the audience. Also, when Blondie is reciting a speech, we used GESTUS and the Verfremdungseffekt to disconnect the audience; this consisted of using exaggerated movement and describing the movements which Blondie was using. Personally, for the performance I need to develop my characterisation a lot more during my ensemble scene. I believe I need to exaggerate my character a lot more and become a lot more stereotypical to ensure the audience are disconnected.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protest Evaluation

In small groups, we took part in a political protest performance. My group focused on the issue concerning the stereotypes of black youth in modern day society. To challenge this issue, we created characters for each person in the group who were the complete opposite of these stereotypes. For example, my character was a gang member who was actually homosexual. The idea of our protest was to make pour audience think about the situations black youth are in before they judge them on their looks or dialect. To do this, each person in the group created a monologue as their character. Next, we printed out tags which had words which are used to describe the youth on them. We stuck these tags on our bodies and when performing the monologue we ripped them off one by one. The audience would approach us and we would not start our monologue until the audience members came close enough or tapped the play button we had strapped to our chests. Once our monologue was finished we would stand in neutral until another audience member approaches us.

I believe that we picked this protest idea as every member of our group had African-Caribbean routes. We were able to relate to this issue as it had meaning to our lives and we were passionate about this topic; this gave us motivated us to create an effective protest performance. We did research individually; each person in the group was given a certain issue concerning about the black youth and we found certain statistics through the internet and books. We then came back together, shared our ideas and included each members research in our protest. I believe that this was successful as our audience consisted of a lot of black youth which allowed them to relate to the protest and made the performance more engaging. Also, the surprising situations are characters found themselves in really made the audience think about what we were saying which made our protest successful.

I believe that the tags stuck to our bodies were an effective element of our protest. I believe this because it was the first thing that the audience noticed and drew them into our protest. It also included colloquial language which was used a lot by the majority of our audience which also made them interested in our protest. Another effective element of our protest was the interaction between us and the audience. The audience had to come into contact for us to begin our monologues and when this occurred, we were face to face with them whilst performing them. I believe this was effective as it really stuck the emotions and issues of our protest in their mind as it was a lot more interactive than regular theatre. After our protest the audience reacted in a shocked kind of way. They were unsure whether to clap or think about what was being said in the protest. Majority of the audience walked away talking about the separate monologues which shows are message got across to them.

If I was able to take part in a political protest again there are certain aspects I would change. The first element I would change is the location we chose to do our performance. Personally, I believe there were not enough audience members around our area so the amount of people watching was limited. Next time, I would choose a more populated location and also one which is inside so if it is cold or raining it will not restrict people from seeing our protest. Furthermore, I would the amount of interaction taking place between my group and the audience. In some cases, the audience would not know what to do and walk past us causing us to lose audience members. Next time, I would influence my group to walk around in a certain perimeter and drag the audience in physically; that way they know we have begun the protest and they have no choice but to watch it and understand the meanings behind our protest.


 

  

 

Short Conversations - Blondie Scenes

The opening scene to our performance consists of a selection of short social scenes combined together. All of these scenes talk about why the characters are voting for ‘Blondie’ to be the new prime minister. We brought these sections to life by creating the different locations using an ensemble of people. For example, in the first seen I was acting like a rug on the floor and in the next scene I was a boy talking with his friend. We used slick transitions in which everyone is moving to create the next location quickly. We directed this way as Brecht used ensembles in a lot of his pieces to ensure the audience does not focus on one specific storyline but on the true issues and meaning behind the piece. It is not possible to focus in an ensemble as many people are doing different things. In these short scenes we are trying to show the audience that people voting for Blondie are only doing so because of her beauty and not her political views. To do so we need to use a lot of sexual innuendos and mention looks in the scenes which I believe my character has.

Script – I am playing Boy 1

Boy 1 I’m getting to vote for the first time.

Boy 2 Waste of time.

Boy 1 I just want to experience it.                                           

Boy 2 You want to experience putting a tick in a box?

They laugh.

So who you voting for anyway?

Boy 1 The one with the bangers.

Boy 2 Of course! I suppose we get to see more of her on the box if she gets in. Yeah vote for her.

They mimic her talking.

When playing boy 1, I have chosen to speak in a cockney accent and slouch slightly when I move. I have done this because I have gathered from the language used (‘bangers’) that this is the way he has been brought up and also, it is a stereotype of people who are brought up in this way. I have also decided to play my character as a drunkard as the scene sounds as if he is celebrating voting for the first time and the stereotypical way which cockneys would celebrate is with a drink of alcohol.

 

 

Hopefully this is a Brechtian style performance...

Brecht Research

http://www.usq.edu.au/artsworx/schoolresources/mothercourage/Brechtian%20Techniques

Margaret Thatcher - Blondie Research

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/11/germaine-greer-margaret-thatcher-anniversary

Theatre Workshop 1 - Exploring Brecht

Theatre Workshop 1 - Exploring Brecht

What is Gestus?

Gestus is a technique which combines exaggerated movements and actions to get across the emotion of a character. Gestus often uses stereotypical characters to allow the audience to disconnect from the storyline and focus more on the bigger implicit meaning of the piece of work. It is a very confusing technique as it ensures the audience that they are watching a play. They do this by breaking down the fourth wall, interacting with the audience and also use different narrative techniques to make the audience emotionally disconnected from the characters. An example of the gestic technique is the still image exercise. Creating an image of two characters with very little body language is not gestus. However, if the image clearly shows an exaggerated image of two contrasting stereotypes it will be gestus. Personally, I believe gestus techniques are very effective for a political piece as it addresses social and political problems and portrays them in a very confusing yet interesting way. Also, it doesn’t allow the audience to get connected to the characters; gestus and other devices used by Brecht forces the audience to face the views of the play rather than the storyline which is very peculiar and mind blowing to sit back and watch.

Gestus Exercises:

To begin this exercise you would find a partner and stand on other ends of the room. Next, one of the partners will begin to recite a nursery rhyme from across the room. As there are many other partners participating in this exercise, there is a lot of shouting and gesturing at the same time. For the partner to make the nursery rhyme they are singing clear, they would next use gestures to tell the nursery rhyme. This form of communication, along with singing the nursery rhyme is used at the same time. Personally, when my partner was shouting the nursery rhyme to me, I found it difficult to understand him as there was so much noise in the room the nursery rhyme was not clear. When they began to use exaggerated gestures however it was much clearer as their body language told the story as well as them singing it at the same time.

Another exercise used was creating still images; in groups, we are given scenes such as Romeo and Juliet, Cat and Mouse, Sweet and Sour, War and Peace and the Rich and Poor. When creating an image for the Rich and Poor, almost every group created a similar picture. The picture in general showed the rich character standing high whilst the poor character is lower than the rich character. The majority of the groups had the poor person begging for food or money from the rich character that was looking rather arrogant turning their head away or up high. I believe that the groups portrayed the Rich and Poor in this way to show the status difference between the two characters. Also, it emphasises Brecht’s use of gestus and stereotypes; it does this as the characters emotions must be shown through their body language and movements. Therefore, the actors must exaggerate the characters to show the audience how they are feeling but to an extreme point so they do not become connected to the character.

 

An exercise which is seen as a gestus technique is having an actor walk on and off stage as a soldier. They will do this another time but with several dead bodies on stage. The soldier will then walk on stage, react to the dead bodies and then walk off again. Observing the way that the actor walked onto the staged clearly showed they were a soldier. They came on stage with their chest out, head high and walking rather slowly to show authority and power. They also turned at attention to face the audience to ensure that they knew that they were acting as a soldier. When dead bodies were added on stage, the way in which the soldier reacted to the bodies gave the audience an opportunity to judge this character. For example, if the soldier kicks the dead bodies he is seen as a villain however if he salutes the bodies with passion he is seen as a hero or mourner of the fallen. The difference between the two scenes is that the character has a story behind it and a very strong personality to go along with the movement. This exercise is gestus as it consists of stereotypical character that has a social meaning behind his actions. The characters movements are also extremely exaggerated to get who they are across to the audience which is a gestus style of acting.

 

The last gestus exercise of the session consisted of the participants getting into groups and creating two still images. One image was of ‘War, the maker of heroes’ whilst the other image was ‘War, the taker of lives’. In this exercise we chose to show the first image as soldiers sending a salute to the fallen men at war. The contrasting image led mine as well as many other groups creating a still image of innocent people being executed by soldiers. I believe we did this because we wanted to show what our picture was trying to imply and to do so we had to create a much exaggerated picture to make our image clear. This exercise was gestic as the images created had an implicit meaning behind them and consisted of exaggerated images to make the meaning of the scene clear.

EXAGGERATION:

In the politics session we performed a scene with a patient and a doctor. The characters played were stereotypes of the people being portrayed and their movements had to be exaggerated physically and vocally. When playing the doctor I sat up with my chin high to show my higher status in the scene and my characters upbringing. We were then asked to switch roles so instead of playing the doctor I would then play the patient. This was done by the clap of the hands and we would have to change character instantly during the scene. When we did change characters the reaction from the audience was very comical as we exaggerated our movement and body language a lot more when we switched roles. Typically when the roles switched the scene became more eventful and active. I believe this was because when improvising we felt the need to emphasise the characters background which made the scene even more humorous for the audience. Personally, I believe that this was a good exercise to explore Brechtian theatre as the switching of roles disconnected the audience from the scene and allowed the, to look at the deeper message in the scene. Also, this exercise allows the actor to practice using body movement and gestures to communicate with other actors and the audience.

NARRATIVE:

In groups, we were asked to pick a fairy tale in which we would like to act out. We were then asked to add four different styles of narrative to the piece. These narrations were:

A narrator – our piece consisted of one actor telling the Fairy as we acted it out. This created the effect of walking commentary which disconnected the audience from the events in the play as the narrator describing what was happening made it rather un-realistic.

Actor stepping out of character to narrate – when two actors were in scene, we used this moment for one of them to come out of character and narrate to the audience how they were feeling at this moment in time. We did this as it made the scene quite humorous and made it clear to the audience that it was a show they were watching and it was not a true story.

Actor speaking in 3rd person – we interpreted this style of narrative by allowing the characters to say what they were going to do before they do it. This defeated the element of surprise and shock and replaced it with a comical moment which made the audience react in the complete opposite way in which the story expects you to.

Singing narration – to use the singing narration we took songs which are well known and replaced the words to them with lyrics which were relevant to the story we were telling as a group. I believe this aspect made the piece funny but also, it related to the audience as majority of them would have known the songs we interpreted into our piece.

Personally, I believe that Brecht used narration to ultimately to take away the emotions from the play which will cause the audience to become connected. In doing this, it allowed his work to portray deeper meanings which the audience could focus on rather than the storyline. Also, I believe the narration added the sense of humour to the piece which is a great way to disconnect the audience from the piece. The objective I believe is in place is to stop worrying about how the characters are and think about the issues and morals they lack or are challenging.

 

VERFREMDUNGSEFFEKT:

The verfremdungseffekt is a German technique which simply means to make strange.

An exercise which we did included this technique; to begin, with a partner we created a scene which was extremely realistic such as an argument or bereavement. Once the scene was made, we rehearsed and memorised the climatic moments of the scene and practiced the specific stage directions in this particular moment. We then continued to use the dialogue and movement in the scene however the next step was to speak every stage direction used whilst performing the scene. I believe that this task was very difficult as an actor due to the speaking of stage directions being very un-natural. Saying every movement you do in the scene made it difficult to add emotion to the scene which is another way of disconnecting the audience. I believe that Brecht used this to disconnect the audience as it made them realise they were watching a performance. Often negative moments in a play are very climatic; taking away this moment takes away the emotion behind them allowing the audience to concentrate on other aspects of the play. Furthermore, this gave me a greater understanding of the verfremdungseffekt as the strange behaviour of the actors is communicating to the audience that is not real, making them emotionally disconnect.

After taking part in these exercises and been given information about Brecht and his practice it made the whole technique interesting. The way in which he chooses to portray his views are completely different to any other practitioner which makes his work even more special. I believe that political theatre and Brechtian theatre works well together as you are able to tackle your views and issues using different techniques which will make the audience actually think during your performance rather than just sitting and watching. The exaggerated and comical acting almost confuses the audience and once the true meaning behind the play is revealed, the devices used are appreciated a lot more.