Rehearsing and Performing, 'The Most Horrific'

When we began rehearsing 'The Most Horrific' we first began with splitting up into two groups. There was the 'A and B' group and there was the 'C and D' group. I was put into the 'C and D' group. Our first task was to separate the lines evenly. To do that we sat in a circle, as we went round the circle we each would say three lines and those three lines would be our lines for the actual performance. When it came to me, it was at a C line. The group noticed that the character C had very few lines so it ended up with just me and Billy being the character C with the other 10 or so sharing out the D parts. Although us sharing the C parts it seemed that I had the bulk of the lines for character C, I asked Billy if he wanted some of mine but he seemed alright with it being like that. It ended up like this because a lot of the lines for C seemed to be repeated, so it would make more sense for me to repeat them also, kind of like a catch phrase or something like that. For example, one of the lines was, 'All Bankers Are Cunts' which was a prominent line throughout the piece.

After we had distributed the lines, we jumped straight into a run through. At this stage, we were just trying to play around with the lines and see what we could come up with, because half the play was allowed to be devised. So now and then we would have the A and Bs interrupt us and say something irrelevant like, 'who wants sushi?' This was quite a good exercise because it helped us establish to the audience what type of character we all were. Without going too far that the audience doesn't grow a bond with anyone but it could add satirical techniques to the piece. Comedy can be very useful for political awareness in my opinion, so I feel this was quite helpful to put our message across.

We needed to show that the idea behind our production is that C and D are pitching ideas for TV/entertainment projects to A and B who are disinterested media executives who have a superficial interest in contemporary news stories which they discuss languidly and with no detail or genuine engagement or understanding. So when it came to the actual performance we realised that the Cs and Ds needed to act at a 'seven' and that the As and Bs needed to act at a 'ten'. If we were able to keep up the energy the whole way through then we would've completed our objective.

In the actual performance, I feel as if I did well and I portrayed my character well. Because my character had a contrast in the group, I feel it may have been harder for me to show that because I was heavily outnumbered but I believe that I did myself justice because I think I showed that. I feel as if in the performance I definitely kept my energy up to a 'seven' which we were suppose to do and that my strongest point was delivering my line. My character had a catch phrase in the play which I needed to perfect to get the right reaction from not just the audience, the actors around me. I feel as if as a group, we all performed brilliantly and that we helped each other out when needed.

In my opinion, the As and Bs had a stronger performance than the Cs and Ds, I feel as if in the rehearsals the Cs and Ds would outdo the As and Bs because the As and Bs were often too quiet and had a lot less energy. But in the performance I feel as if the Ds suddenly lost their energy and it became very stiff. One section where Rhianne explains the Ugandan Lesbian story, the Ds reaction is usually very strong and clear but during the performance it lacked a lot of energy. On the other hand, there is a section where the As and Bs lean forward when they hear the words 'Terrorist' and lean back when it wasn't about terrorists. Usually, the As and Bs will be out of synch or low energy but in the performance it was tight and well synchronized and included a lot of energy.

Overall, I think the performance went well, I believe that Ds could have had a lot more energy but I don't think it was noticeable unless you knew what was meant to happen, plus  the As and Bs leveled the playing field as well because they really brought it in the performance I think.

Not..But Method, Most Horrific Research Articles, Exhibit B and Protest Evaluation

In today's lesson, we started off with the Not..But method/exercise. This technique allows the audience to see a characters decision making live on stage. This is useful because it can show the audience what the character is really like, it also gives an insight on how the character could have many different sides and layers to them. Furthermore, the not...but method could show the characters true intentions to the audience so it can be clear. 

In my opinion, this method is important for any type of actor because it shows that they have studied and truly understand their character to the point that they'd know how their character would react in certain situations.

Secondly, we looked at the articles featured in the play we had chosen to study called, 'The Most Horrific'. The topics included - The Christmas Island Suicides, The Guantanamo Bay force feedings, The Yarlswood detention centre and Homosexuality in Uganda.

In my opinion, the most interesting one and most important one is the criminalization of homosexuality in Uganda. I feel thiis is a disgusting law to be made especially in Africa, a place where the people know what discrimination is like and to the most extreme, they still treat someone differently for who they are. As a black male, who has experienced racism first hand, I know what it is like to be discriminated for something I cannot change and I feel it doesn't make sense for people in a country who have experienced discrimination to the extreme will still have the audacity to discriminate someone else.

To continue my point we looked at a new theatre project called Exhibit B which was to be shown at the Barbican centre in London. It was a political piece about human zoos, which were very prominent in the last two centuries. It was trying to give notice to the fact that no one really knew about the zoos full of African slaves many decades ago. When I heard about the piece I didn't feel as if it was good way to portray this and still do. I believe that there are many ways to bring attention to things like this but I personally believe that was not the way. I feel as if 'Exhibit B' was a project that allowed the history of it to not be fully shown into the light. I believe that the piece had good intentions but I feel as if it didn't do the slaves justice, personally.

Protest Evaluation - Asylum Seekers living conditinions
 
How did the research you have undertaken affect the protest?

We researched the living conditions of a lot of illegal immigrants seeking asylum in the UK and how terrible the standard was. It was clear to us that the conditions were not as if they were in a five-star hotel and that the conditions were terrible. It was obvious that we had to portray a living condition which is clearly not liveable; to truly make the audience understand that people actually live in circumstances shown. We knew we had to shock them and make them think. We found that many illegal asylum seekers, work as slaves with no wages. Most of the time, the pay is food waste or just shelter. We needed to portray this by asking the audience for work and making them understand that we were only asking for food or shelter. We went so far as to asking the audience for food straight away, it was so effective that we managed to earn food ourselves because some audience members gave it to us. We found that many asylum seekers have mental health problems, so we tried our best to portray that and say our story on how they got there because most the problems were formed from the horrors they've seen in their country.

What was my role?

My role in the protest was to be one of the asylum seekers who was angry at the situation he was in. Chem's character was more pleading and continued to ask people for jobs, food and water; where as I was the one who was angry at the system and was showing the effects of what war has done to his life. My role was to make people think and make them feel guilty for not doing anything and them not being aware of the issue.

What did I achieve for myself artistically? 

For me, I think I had to make it important that there was emotion behind the piece and so people can take it seriously. When you do accents, you can get two reactions, praise or laughter or even both. I needed to make sure people didn't laugh so I had to put 100% effort into it or it was destined to fail. I also remembered that I needed to show real life and not theatrics because that's what makes it powerful because I knew its easier for humans to relate to real humans than to fake ones. Most importantly, I wanted people to feel something when they watched it so I needed to feel something when I performed it.

Evaluate the level of professional execution.

In my opinion, I feel as if our execution of the performance was professional because we stayed in character the whole way through and we conveyed our point fairly and clearly. I feel as if it was important to give the people who live like that justice and I feel as if we didn't let them down when we conveyed that.

How did your piece make an impact?

I feel as if our piece made an impact on numerous people. As people walked by and saw us, many people said they were sad, upset and guilty. We were able to receive food and money because the piece was so believable. The fact that people even interacted with us and watched showed it had an impact on them to an extent because they wouldn't have bothered to do so if it didn't have an impact on them in the first place. Furthermore, people were taking pictures and videos to show to friends; this may be for a joke or not but either way, it made people think about the situation to an extent.

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses.

In my opinion, the weakness of our piece was that it wasn't 100 per cent clear that it was solely about asylum seekers and their living conditions and some believed it was just about homeless people. On the other hand, we did portray people living in conditions which were inhumane and that people in the world actually do live like this and in even worse situations. Also, it's important to note that homeless people's living conditions are under the same circumstances as certain asylum seekers, so in fact, they are under the same spectrum, which made our point stronger because it affected more people, even people closer to home for some.

Discuss the potential of protest as a theatre product.

For me, theatre in general needs to be a protest anyway; whether its on stage or on the street, as well as being entertaining, I believe theatre needs to provoke something in the audience and make them think. The reason as to why I believe this, is because I think that theatre has so much power to change that I think its a waste to produce a piece of theatre and it not spark some sort of debate or deep thinking. Therefore, if theatre is a protest, then surely protests are theatre to an extent because it has the same effect as theatre does. 

Gestus, Spass, Montage and 'The Most Horrific'

In today's lesson we started off with another Brechtian exercise called 'Snobs and Servants'. This involved a technique called 'Gestus' This was a very good game to play because it helped with my improvisation skills, it helped me think on my feet and be aware of your surroundings. This exercise is good for me as an actor because it kept me thinking about status and roles in a scene, it allowed these two factors to remain constant and stable as well. The fact that when you were a servant you subconsciously knew that any obstacle could have been thrown at you at any time it truly helped with my on the spot skills because I would be prepared to do any task.

Next we continued work on characterization and archetypes. We began with an exercise called 'Montage'. We were told to turn into, a mother, a mad man and a killer. Then we had to create stories but the three archetypes were actually the same person. This exercise was good for story telling and coming up with ideas for a characters story as well. On the other hand, I don't think that this exercise was too useful when thinking it is political term because I feel it didn't really show a political essence although it was Brechtian so I can see how it is in fact useful in a way. 

Finally, we looked at our chosen play, which is 'The Most Horrific' by the prolific political playwright, Vivienne Franmann. The play is very contemporary, containing modern political topics such as the, 'Bring Back Our Girls' campaign and the 'Guantanamo Bay Force Feedings'. The characters in the play are unamed, they are just A,B,C and D. This is a very Brechtian method called the 'V effect'. Not giving the characters names, distances them  from the audience because it doesn't trigger a relationship with them. In my opinion, this is a very good way for the audience to understand what the play is really about and not be distracted by any characters they have formed a relationship about. In a political theatre view, this is perfect for a political message to be portrayed because the politics is the only thing the audience will be thinking about throughout the piece.

Franzmann uses guilt as a device in the play to make people open their eyes to the truth in society. She understands that guilt is a brilliant way for someone to re-think/ re-evaluate what is really important and what are the priorities in life. A celeb or hundreds of girls being kidnapped by terrorists?

In my opinion, the play is very important for society, especially my generation. My age group are divulged in materialistic things and are not awake to things going on in the world. I feel that the previous generation have let us down and we need to change how we live as humans. The play reflects on the depressing fact that a human life is deemed less important than a photo on social media or a celebrity with a ridiculous tattoo on an even more ridiculous body part. I feel plays like this are important because it gives a lot of people hope that there are still people out there who want to help other people's causes.
  

Brecht, V effect, Making a Gesture Strange and Basic Charcterization

In today's lesson we looked at numerous exercises that our chosen practitioner, Brecht used when he was creating his pieces of theatre.

Today I learned a lot about Brecht and realised as to why he created so many political pieces. He lived in an era where Hitler and Nazism was prominent in Germany, his place of birth and he hated it. Knowing this I understood why he decided to make many political plays because he understood that theatre and performance were perfect ways to portray a serious message to an audience. I feel as if this was really helpful to my understanding of political theatre and its power because it made me realise that it is in fact easier to convey your message to a group of people through entertainment.

We used an exercise called the distancing effect or the "V effect", which allows the actor to distance their character from the audience. Brecht first used the term in an essay on "Alienation Effects in Chinese Acting" published in 1936, in which he described it as "playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hitherto, in the audience's subconscious" I feel after using this exercise, it helped me understand how political theatre was truly effective because I realised that once an audience member is distant from the characters and scenarios in a piece, then it gives them an outside view of the situation and allows them to see what truly is going on. This is good because maybe the audience isn't distant from the character or situation at all but instead in the exact scenario as well but may not have been able to see the true problem from their perspective. I feel that this is what makes political theatre so important because it can actually open the eyes of the oppressed. This means a lot to me as a person because I believe that society as a whole is oppressing the lower classes and it isn't being seen. Therefore the 'V effect' is important for me as a theatre creator so I can actually show my beliefs and what I feel is going on in society.

Secondly, we looked at basic characterization.Firstly, we began with 'moody objects'. This exercise was really good for an actor's physicality and how you can portray something using just your body. I feel that this exercise was good for me personally, because I feel, as an actor I need to work on my physicality a bit more then anything else. Then we did actual characters. This could have been done by doing the most basic of movements and changing your body shape slightly and you would have created a character. Many characters made were archetypal. I believe that if the characters were clear to us then they would be clear to the audience because the characters created were universally recognised. I think that the creation of familiar characters in a play is important because the audience needs to know who is who, obviously. It is important as a theatre maker to establish a character from the offset so the audience isn't confused. In my opinion if the characters aren't established early on then the whole political concept is lost because the audience members will not be able to truly understand what is going on what the message is. Also, I think this exercise benefited me because it helped me focus on body language and how to keep a constant in my character.