Political theatre

Political Theatre

Political theatre is a type of acting/theatre that connects to three topics such as, political issues , political actions or protests with a political theatrical style to it.

Brecht used his theatrical techniques in a interesting way to show a political issue in his plays , by using gestures the characters could dramatise more to the audience how the character really feels about a certain political issue without them becoming emotionally connected to the character. Also by the characters not always having names this helped to create the distant from the character and audience while breaking the 4th wall in his specially Brechting way of theatre.

Political theatre is a effective type of theatre because it makes people think and it makes them feel something as well, it takes them away from the world they live in so they can evaluate the types of people in their world and how they make an effect on us. Something that I have learnt while studying political theatre using the Theatrical techniques of Brecht such as gestuss, Stass and epic theatre is that a actor or certain character can show a hidden story or a hidden message without saying without saying what their story actual is. 

Comment on Performance & Rehearsal

Out For The Road 

The play that we have chosen to explore the idea of torture is "Out For The Road" by Harold Pinter. Out idea is to set it up as a interrogation process, where the interrogators will be dressed up as a clown to intimidate the Characters of Nicolas , Nicky & Gila. 

I am playing the Character of Nicky , who we have said to be 13 but also childish because we have used torture in a state of panic for Nicky because he has just been ripped away from both of his parents. 

The line that I have chosen to use Gestures is when Nicky say ," Well...because they go so fast. Though the air.The real ones do." , I use my hands and legs to show the ideal the aeroplane moving and that Gestures movement suggests I express that movement because though the play that is the moment that I use the aeroplane gesture moment to take my self away from me being scared and tortured to being my self again and not scared no more .

Torture and interrogation is used in Morden day society by police and the government, therefore, in our productions we comment on the types of torture in a more comedic political way by using the Theatrical technique of Gestures by Brecht. In all the scenes that are being performed we have chosen a moment where the theatrical technique Gestures by Brecht has been used to show more of what the character is feeling but also remembering that we are taking away that emotional connection of the character  to the audiences, we have used Gestures to make the characters and audience to be a far away from each other as possible. 

The singing at the beginning was created by people in the class randomly singing and this lead to the idea of singing nursery songs to make the audience feel scared, improvisation was used the most to think of different devising ideas for out production of Out for the Road(Torture).

Evaluations Of The Performance On Torture/One For The Road

As a ensemble something that we did really well was that we kept the focus very strong throughout the rehearsal process and performance by watching and being observant over each other's scenes. Something that we could have improved on was the transitions from scene to scene because sometimes it looked Rough and hard to follow because we came in late on some of our ques , creating a long silence which killed the rhythm & tension of the production. 

As a group , we did well with finding our character and developing our characterisation by improving during Rehearsal to help find our characters voice and political mind set. The way the ensemble sang the two different Barney song was very effective because it helped us to bring the tension to the scene right before the play began , we defiantly immersed the audience even before the first person said their line, One side of the group sang the a nice song and the other didn't.

Group 1 - " I love you , you love me, we are a happy family with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you don't you say you love me to"

Group 2 - "I love you , you love me , lets go and kill Barney with a baseball bat and a four by four , no more Barney any more"

What I did well as an actor was that my physically of my character was very strong and understandable because my character Nicky is meant to be a young boy who is scared and when you are scared you tend to close your self off and not look at people, I did this by having a physically state which was very closed off, in addition to this my facial physically was good because I never looked at Luther's eyes but always at the window or door or at the wall which implies that I am to scared to look at him , this also suggested feeling of wanting to escape and to be free . 

It would have been even better if I didn't de-voice with some of the lines that I said because it helped to create the feeling of fear, however, sometimes you couldn't hear what I said at the beginnings of my line or the line it's self, what I could do to improve this was work with someone to make sure that I am understood but also show the emotion and fear of my character. 

I used the audience to my advantage because with the movements I took I made sure that I didn't close my self off to a certain part of the audiences by not only look like I am questioning Luther but also questioning the audience members as well. On the other hand , I could have shown my moment of gestures more to the audience instead of just keeping it to my self because that was a important moment we're the audience really see the fear and innocence of my character Nicky, who is just scared and want to see his parents. 

By working out the objectives of my character I used it to help me find freedom while acting , working out my objectives Went well because it help me to live in the moment of the play and to understands how would a small boy would actually feel if he was being Interrogated and everyone that he knew and loved was taking away from him. My objectives was very effective because I made sure I was playing my objectives way before I said any lines, for example, I started to look out the projection Windows to imply to the audience that my objective is to look and search , search for my family , search for a way out , search for a freedom in my self , this freedom in my self was then shown when I used gestures to say my lines " Well...because they go so fast. Through the air. The real ones do. " 

If I worked through the pace of my character this could have made my scene more effective because sometimes even though I projected , I was speaking to fast, concluding into my lines not being fully understood by all of the audiences, however , the projection I used was effective in my performance because even through I was talking to the wall for most of the beginning of my scene the audience still knew what I was saying and how my character felt. 

I did really well with sustained the youth and innocence of the character throughout, i was aware of my space and played some parts very natural and realistic and other parts very brechtian , however, To improve on my performance I need to make sure my voice matched my brechtain movements to help me make them fluent and equal. 

Script and objectives 

Protest for Political theatre and evaluation

Modern day slavery 

Our main idea is showing how black people have been belittled in Modern day Society by commenting on different matters such as...

1)Food by Tobi
2)School by Luther
3)Prison By Samara
4)Music By Yasmin

5)Modern day slave (played) by Chico

Tobi, Luther ,Samara and Yasmin would be given mini speeches addressing their topic in character of a posh England man/woman so show how people or cultural ethnicity in the Modern day have to rebuke their cultural side to fit in and be accepted to be apart of modern day society.

The image below enforced black stereotypes to do with food, the people of this company most likely chose A Black woman to be in the poster because most of their customers would be seen to be black because stereotypes such as "Black people love chicken more than anything" will make the company think it is beneficial for them to included a woman/man of black decent to make it more intriguing for their customers, who have been Generalised to be mostly part of the black community. Therefore, we are going to protest just because certain foods and cultures are dominated by a culture Minority does my make it accepted to In force these racial stereotypes and profit from them.

Theses are two link that's dramatized black stereotypes in a commercial way 

"http://youtu.be/nj3y4D7dABc" and "http://youtu.be/ZW25b_0k5qM"

This is part of the speech I am going to give on food and stereo types

Food

"My name is Alexander Griffin the 1st

(Chico goes no you name is oluwatobi)

(In an African accent) Shut daz is not my name you..

Look before me stands a nigga, Look at this little nigga, 

you are dirty scum, an embarrassment to the human race, do you want some chicken? , I bet you would even sell your soul just for a KFC wing.

What even is your name babatunde? Babatunde the monkey, does the little monkey want some food? Of course you do, that’s a good little monkey yeah, a little banana for the monkey, a chicken box for the gorilla."

Evaluation for the performance.

Our political protest was performed outside by the big tree at the middle of the school. Our performance space was very effective because it is seen to be somewhere that is seen to be the centre of the school, where everyone has to or will pass to get to a lesson or to their particular strand lessons.

Something that went really well during our performance is that we stayed in roll throughout the piece and this made a very big effect on the audience because it made the audience ask questions and to be more aware in the modern day society that we live in. The theatrical technique of SPAB was very effecting in our piece because the little speeches

The picture below shows the costume that was used throughout our performance, which made such a big effect on the audience because you would not really expect a certain type of people to support a organisation that is so well known to oppress them and their ancestors from the 1850s to now. The costume of the KKK made a effect on the people watching because it made them feel uneasy and scared of the contrasting factor of our performance, which was black people saying they didn't like people of their culture and skin colour .

The picture below shows the costume of Chicho who was portraying the modern day slave, the use of the him wear the colour black was very effective because it shows black important and contrasting with us making us look pure because we are wearing white and him looking un-pure because he is wearing all black. 

Gestuss and Spaß

Gestuss 

Gestuss is an acting technique dramatised by a theatrical practitioner called Bertolt Brecht. Gestures shows physically gestures to elaborate the emotional and mental side of a character or object , for example , an actor had to become an Angry car with their bodies and to express the angry they may use their voice, music or even the physically body to show rage and a aspect of angry which could be seen as the inner mood of the character which is not always shown but comes out bit by bit through a physically statement, for example , the body may look angry but the eyes may be opened and light to suggest that the inner is quite calm and ready to move. 

In the lesson we chose in-animated physical objects and gave them a feeling and a attitude to a situation through different types of devising work in group and pairs of 2 or 3. This was an a effective exercises because it helped to keep the mind constantly opened to new ideas and to stop us building the 4th wall by the use of Comedy and improvisations. It made people feel like they had just been educated and obtained some new knowledge that they could use to do something amazing with. It was a type of Theatre which combines both gestures and facial expressions and body langue to create a meaningful thoughtful piece of theatre, the Gestuss techniques objective was to make people go away and think about what they have just watched and make them what to do something about it. 

An example 

Seeing A priest walking across the stage slowly would not really have a effect on the audience , however, the priest was walking across the stage with thousands of dead bodies on the floor, this would have the audience member to ask different questions and be more engaged with what the priest is doing.  

Spab

Spab means fun in the German language, Brecht used the idea of fun to make his audience think in a very creative way that made it exciting for them to watch and understand, he realised that as we are laughing we are also thinking about the situation at hand, therefore, he used Spab to bring across his ideals and performance techniques and devising materials to make the audience think. He used Spab to bring across serious situations and themes in a fun way , as performers and actors we have decided to use he's technique of Spab to put on a play about torture but use dark humour to make it funny for our audience and less depressing. We also used gesture in a interesting way to show more of our character and how we are not become the character but showing the characters opinion not our own opinion of the characters.

Spab was used to stop the audiences being emotionally connected to the characters that they are seeing before them, Brecht acting techniques challenge the fourth wall dividing actors from audience , however, Stanislavsky didn't he believed there should be a wall between them and the actors should not acknowledge the audiences being there , but Brecht says that you should acknowledge the audiences being there and questions them.

Studying Brecht and his work

Bertolt Brecht

'Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer to with which to shake it' ~ Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht differed from Stanislavsky because Stanislavsky wanted his actors to become the characters, however , Bertolt wanted his actors to be as far from the characters as possible. Stanislavsky believed in becoming the character to make the character your self,however, Bertolt believed in knowing that you are just acting and that there is not a 4th wall between the actors and the audience but Stanislavsky believed in having a 4th wall by pretending that the audience was not even there. 

Verfrendungseffekt- The V effect

The V-effect is an alienation technique, strange making, Disaffiliation , reminding actors that they are in a play , alienation brown moments to highlight decisions , thoughts for the audience to question, what they are watching , this is different to the idea of Naturalism and Realism of Stanislavsky and his methods of becoming a character and living in the moment. 

Warm up exercises

1)Walk in to the room 

2)Ask to get into groups of numbers 

3)Object and attitude of object is called out 

- sexy washing machine 

- proud chair 

- angry motorbike - turned into a scene 

- sad sandwich with out bodies 

This exercise turns into a physical theatre exercises as well, an exercise to help disarm the actor to help them connect with the audience, where comedy is used a lot through the exercises. 

Songs are also used in the V-effect to help open the actor up to different emotional possibilities through the performance/piece. 

"The audience can no longer have the illusion of being the unseen spectator of the piece"

There is no fourth wall in this type of Theatre because there is no story but to experience relief , it would start making your think about the importance of the life you live in , the audience go away gaining something to think about thought this piece. 

Exaggerated gesture 

Exaggerating gestures is Another way of encouraging actors to draw attention to themselves and even come out character because it helps them to truly understand the type of theatre they are working on and how it's not about realism but creating an effective experimental type of theatre. 

Exercises on exaggerated gestures 

"I don't know" and "Stop" - theses to phrases are shown with actions instead of words and it was exaggerated to make it look a bit like physical theatre to make it become more understandable. 

Methods  

1) Gesture

2) Add a phrase 

3)Do the Gesture and phrase together 

4) Hyperbolic engaging piece of theatre 

5) It starts to draw you in 

 Characterisation Exercise

- Find neutral

-Create 6 Different Characters 

-Add a Political Theme 

1)Old man - physicality of the character is made by a Piece of string being attached to chest and nose pulling it outwards.

2)Old woman - waddles as she walks

3)Champagne drunk - chin down , hands  out with a glass of imaginary champagne 

4) special brewing drunk - Arm extended out with a imaginary alcohol in a paper bag

*The Political Theme was the revel of War through Comedy*

Ideas to do with Theme

-Children going to war

-Making Money out of war

-Denial: e.g. I'll just drink my troubles away 

1)Talks about past experience of War

2) panics and talks about past experiences 

3) talked about making profit to use to buy more alcohol etc 

4)doesn't care because he doesn't relies what is happening 

Epic Theatre 

Epic Theatre is when the actors avoid the engagement of the audience emotions.The Theatrical practitioner Brecht used Epic theatre to make the audience engaged and aware of their surroundings and be fully alert having their brains stimulated on the performance. He wanted there to be a  true genuine change in society by using Epic theatre to dramatise society and the rights and wrongs of his borders day society. Epic theatre connects with political theatre because both of types of theatre that comment on a political issue or a political subject in the world or the world of theatre. 

The main idea of Epic theatre is to make the audience think about a certain situation or topic that effects everyone, whether that is racism, sexism, political ideals such as communism or capitalist etc.