Final Performance Evaluation

Overall, I believe that our performance went really well, however it certainly did not come without any complications that had to be resolved. In the piece, we aimed to apply a range of Brechtian theatre techniques to create a thought provoking piece of political theatre that did not emotionally engage the audience.

As stated in some of my previous blog posts, as an ensemble we had decided to perform our piece in an outside venue on a grassy hill and obviously we had spent several hours over a long period of time rehearsing our piece "In the Beginning" by Neil Labute in this specific area. However it was extremely  unfortunate that half an hour before we were due to perform our piece, we were told by site staff that our performance could not go ahead because no risk assessment had been carried out and the weather at the time was very cold, windy, and icy.  Therefore we had to perform an adaptation of our rehearsed piece in a classroom that was a complete different layout of the space we had been used to rehearse in, and also less than half the size. These few factors teamed with the utter shock of a last minute location change definitely left me and I'm sure all the other members of my ensemble slightly bewildered. Without our original location, as a group our initial reaction was that we would not be able to create the same impact indoors that we would have been able to create outside, and some members of the group believe that our piece would literally fall apart. However we all pulled together and collectively nailed it in my opinion.

Bertolt Brecht often gave names like ‘Single Parent’ or ‘Good woman’ to his characters to help with the defamiliarization of the audience so that they could make their own individual judgement on the situation. ‘In the Beginning’ is perfect in this context for use of Brechtian theatre technique as the character names are simply their status: Child and Parent. The use of speaking in unison as an ensemble was used for informing our audience whilst drawing emphasis to exactly what we were saying. At some vital sections in the text we also then repeated what had been spoken chorally to exemplify the information being offered to the audience for their own interpretation. Also this was very effective in terms of Brechtian style theatre it did cause a few minor issues during rehearsals. Because we were attempting to convey messages within large groups, clear articulation, volume and emphasis on consonants was absolutely essential for our piece to work. In our dress rehearsal I personally felt that we pulled it off and our chorus speaking was very close to perfect if perfection was what we were aiming for (which we were not.) also because our dress rehearsal was outside in a large open space, and there was a large amount of distance between us as performers and our audience and therefore more effort in the volume department was required as well as being clear and consistent with pronunciation and articulation. However our final performance was in a much smaller class room and the proxemics between the performers and audience shrank sizably. This meant that we did not have to focus as much on the projection and volume of our choral voice as we had done in our dress rehearsal.

In the final performance of our piece I personally believed that for about 80 percent of our lines that were spoken I unison were spot on in terms of clear articulation, volume and projection as well as emphasis on our consonants. However I specifically remember one section of the text where quite a few members of the ‘CHILDREN’ spoke out of unison and the lines merged into on another:

“...And I believe in these people, in helping give voice to all of them, in any way that I can. THAT is what I wanna do! THAT is what I wanna be a part of!”

Despite this our choral speaking in the final performance was very clear and consistent, and as an ensemble we felt very proud afterwards.

At one point in the final piece I stood up onto one of the blocks and held up the sign that said “STOP BEING SO EMOTIONAL”. I did this in the section of ‘In the Beginning’ where Shannon and Dajay had a very heated argument whilst the rest of the CHILD and PARENT ensembles literally held the back from each other. This was another obvious use of Brechtian style theatre because Bertolt Brecht believed that his characters should be representations of roles in society and not actual characters that you should not emotionally engage with. My holding up the sign to indicate that the audience should not be emotionally attached to the current situation onstage between Shannon and Dajay was aimed to detach the audience from the scene and look at it in a critical judgemental way. The way that as a group we had a clear and distinct division between who was a PARENT and who was a CHILD exemplified the non-individuality of every member of the ensemble. These are clear evidences of our use of Bertolt Brecht’s theatre techniques such as the defamiliarization or alienation effect.

The distancing effect, more commonly known (earlier) by John Willett's 1964 translation the alienation effect or (more recently) as the estrangement effect (German: Verfremdungseffekt), is a performing arts concept coined by playwright Bertolt Brecht "which prevents the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor, and which consequently leads the audience to be a consciously critical observer."^[1]

http://bertoltbrechtresearch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/defamiliarization.html

Shannon then stepped out of the action at the climax of the argument between her and Dajay, the moment where in naturalistic theatre the audience’s hearts would be racing. Shannon did this to then clarify to the audience what she has just said by repeating it all again very calmly. In the outside rehearsals and in the original staging of our piece Shannon came to the very front of the raised platform to do this, however in the final performance because of the different staging and layout of the room we performed in Shannon literally stepped off the stage and came right up to the audience to recite her lines again. In my opinion this was one of the better improvements in our work from the dress rehearsal to the final performance because it grabbed the audience’s attention more and it was very effective in terms of taking the audience out of the situation, alienating them to what they have just witnessed and questioning their first observation of her lines and what she was saying in comparison with their second judgement of her calmer more emphasized delivery of her lines.

Overall, I believe that our performance went really well despite the piece being extremely difficult to pull off in the final performance; however it certainly did not come without any complications that had to be resolved. In the piece, we aimed to apply a range of Brechtian theatre techniques to create a of political theatre that did not emotionally engage the audience and in my opinion a wide variety of Brechtian techniques were used effectively to create a play that was thought provoking as well as not emotionally engaging for the audience. It is clear that in the very end we did create a successful piece of political, Brechtian style theatre for the individual interpretation of each audience member.

Performance Pictures

Making My Protest Sign

Rehearsal notes

Today in lesson many directorial decisions concerning our piece inspired by Neil Labute’s ‘in the beginning’ were made as a group.

Here is a list of specific decisions that have been made:

•  Piece begins with all CHILD’S setting up tents and protest signs
• The first page of dialogue will be spoken in unison by all CHILD’S and PARENT’S
• On the line “I mean you love to say we’ll see or I don’t know” Milly does a ‘mic-check’ and then the whole line is spoken broken up into pieces in the form of human microphone, performed  by all CHILD’S, and once finished Milly then repeats the whole line again by herself.
• The next line beginning “yes I am... if you wanna put it that way” is spoken in the exact same way, however it is performed by Tyler and all the PARENT’S
• When Tyler says the line “I'm finally drawing the line. Right here” Josh will run through the middle of the raised platform and draw a physical line representing the division between the CHILD’S and PARENT’S
• When Tyler signals all of the parents they move into a formation standing at where the grassy area meets the right downstage section of the raised platform whilst Milly signals all of the CHILD’S to do the same on the opposite side. Once in position we are to all look as if we are ready for a fight.
• On the word ‘politics’ we are to all assume the look of excitement and anticipation. 
• On the word ‘religion’ we are to all assume the prayer position on the grassy area.
•  In the exchange of the next parent and child taking their position both Cory and Sasha are pushed into the two crowds and the energy that is provided in this movement feeds into the dispersal of all PARENT’S and CHILD’S across the grassy area.
• When Liyah raised her arm and points her finger all of the CHILD’S shout “asshole” at the PARENT’S simultaneously
• When the parent has a line that has either the word (BEAT) in it or an exclamation mark the other PARENT’S will actually say BEAT or EXCLAMATION MARK simultaneously.
• When the CHILD has a line that has either the word (BEAT) in it or an exclamation mark the other CHILD’S will actually say BEAT or EXCLAMATION MARK simultaneously.