Week 28: Improving Our Country's Good

https://youtu.be/EipA7-L9MIU

We used the whole of this weeks lesson to focus on the scene from Our Country's Good that we would be performing next week. Due to us only performing a snippet of the play and not having a full range of props and costume that we could use, we had to discuss what the set was actually going to be like and the costume that we would wear if we doing a full scale production of the play.

• Flags- Flags were used to show that Great Britain was deeply involved in the transportation of these convicts and that needs to be made aware to the audience that the society and rule that we live under, did play a part in the cruel handling of these people.
• Center Table - Currently we are using two risers to replicate the idea of a banquet table that would have stretched down the centre of the stage and would be filled with an excessive amount of food and alcohol. This is to highlight the idea that these men, who have caused so much pain in terms of their actions towards the convicts, are now gorging themselves on food that could be given to the convicts who are starving due to the lack of food they were given on the ship/
• Uniforms - All officers would be dressed in full military uniform with badges of the British flag on the sleeves and all their medals on show. We would have chains and keys hanging from their belts to highlight the control and power that they hold over the convicts.
• Set - We would be under a canopy outside a big mansion or meeting house because one of the characters makes a comment about the stars and so we would be eating the banquet in a public place almost as a declaration of the power that they hold.
• References to convicts - There are particular lines that indicate towards the convicts and we wanted there to be a physical representation of the convicts onstage and so we thought that we could gesture to an outline of what could look like convicts working off to one side. This is emphasizing the idea that the convicts are being worked and treated so cruelly whilst the officers who have authorized that are eating and wasting food.
• Placard - We would have a placard at the front of the stage with "Authorities Discuss the Merits of the Theatre" on as it was another element to Brecht's theatre to help accentuate the "V effect" or the distancing method that allows the audience to focus on the political message at hand more than making emotional connections to the characters.
• Last line - The last line of the play is "The last word will be the play, gentlemen" and wanted to respond to that line in a bigger way as at that time, making grand statements that were slightly philosophical made you look more intelligent and intellectual. So we thought that the rest of the officers could see that and appreciate that in different ways, some by raising their glass as though in a toast and others with verbal agreement.
• Marriage - During the scene there is a comment about why two characters in "The Recruiting Officer" get married and Ralph comments that they got married for love and then to confirm wealth. We wanted to make this a point about the societal expectations for marriage in the time that the play was set and so we all reacted to "love" in a kinda of disgust and then when Ralph confirms that they did it "to secure wealth" then we responded in a more positive manner.
• Lighting - Due to use being outside and because there are reference to the stars, we thought that it must be late at night and so the lighting needed to resemble that and we thought that we could have lamps both around and on the table to show that it was later in the evening.

Week 27: Gestus and Our Country's Good

Gestus

At the start of the lesson, we had a short discussion about the elements of Brechtian Theatre that we had found out about last week. This also gave us the opportunity to feedback any research that we had found out about Brecht and his style. Majority of what people had found out was the same as me and so we had the chance to talk it through as a group and help everyone understand his style a little more.

We then moved onto talking about the Brechtian style piece that we did the week before as we had done some more researched outside of the lesson and therefore could comment on some improvements with a more educated mindset.  

• Stereotypes. We did use stereotypes in our piece last week, but we needed to make sure that they were all on the same level in terms of accuracy and also intensity. We concluded that sometimes it is alright to have real characters, like Alexis and Connie’s characters, so that they can highlight the idea that everyone is surrounded by stereotypes and it is hard not to get caught up in them. I think that we could use this idea to our advantage especially with the scene being so political and have those real characters express their views in a realistic way.
• Creating process. Whilst we were in the creative phase with this scene, our core thought process probably wasn’t about the political message of the scene, which it should have been, but more about the hierarchy and who was interacting with who, due to the topic that the discussion was about.

Moving on from the scene that we had previously looked at, we started talking about another technique of Brecht’s that we had partially touched on last week which was Gestus. Brecht said that he wanted to pick a scene from any part in a play and be able to pause it and, from that specific point, be able to understand the political motives behind the actions of the characters onstage. To help us understand the idea of Gestus more, we decided to relate it to Stanilavski style, as we have done production in that style before. We compared it to a moment of orientation where you learn the relationships between characters onstage but with Brecht, you learn about the political background to the scene. Or in perhaps an easier sense, a freeze frame. He wanted to be able to see the political arguments that are going on as well as the political motives behind the actions.

We then did a small task in pairs where we thought of 4 things that, if we were doing a piece on slavery, would indicate that slavery was the political message behind the scene. In my pair we came up with:

• Chains. Both the sound of them rattling and the visual reminder of them always being there can remind the audience that no matter what the topic of the scene is there would still be slaves that are being mistreated somewhere in the background.
• Levels to reflect hierarchy. We thought that because there was a clear divide between the slaves and those in power we could make the staging reflect the status of those in the scene. Those who were higher up would therefore have the most power during the scene.

During some of the scenes, there would be a moment of stillness or a slowing down of movements so that the audience would be able to take that opportunity to understand and think about the actions of those in the scene in relation to the political message. The root cause when making a scene or a play in a Brecht style should be what the political message is and making sure that the audience don’t get distracted by their emotional connections to the characters, but they’re still engaged with the performance in terms of realistic behaviour onstage.

We decided to compile a list as a group of different examples of Gestus which we could relate to Our Country’s Good. 

Splitting them into the columns allowed us to recognise that there are many different types of Gestus and we have a wide range of elements that we could add into a scene. We then proceeded to find a scene that we could add clear elements of Gestus to and we found that finding ways to add in Gestus in the actual script was quite hard. We had to think not just about the lines and the characters, but about the props, set and the bigger picture regarding a scene. We also decided to think about putting on this play on a bigger scale than which we would be able to afford and so we decided to use staging as big as “The Tempest” which we went to see at the Barbican theatre in London last year.

In our pairs, we each picked a scene and discussed the staging, props, lighting and characters that we would set up as directors. We chose the scene right at the beginning of the play: “Act 1 Scene 1”. This was on board the ship with the slaves at the bottom of the ship whilst they were witnessing a whipping of a fellow slave. The scene involves a mixture of characters who each speech about topics that are unrelated to each other as they have been confined in a small place for a very long time and it has started to affect their mental health which is evident through the syntax of their speech. We decided that we would have a layered staging so that we could show the idea of a boat and reflect the hierarchy involved between the officers on board and the slaves. We decided to have the whipping taking place on the highest level as that would be on the deck of the ship and so we wanted there to be an almost harsh white light being focused on them. In juxtaposition to this, we would have the slaves on a lower level with quite dark lighting with the slaves only just being seen whilst they are talking. We would also have the British flag flying on the mast on the main deck and have all officers onstage with flags embroidered onto their uniforms to highlight that Great Britain was involved in the slave trade and highlight the disgusting measures in which the slaves were being treated by the officers on board. This is a sketch of what we wanted our set and staging to look like:

Here are some pictures of the other groups staging as well. 

I found the Act 2 Scene 2, which is the last picture, interesting as the staging in which we were discussing had an officer at downstage right and a prisoner at downstage left with Ralph, the officer leading the rehearsal, in the middle. As a director, and thinking of it in terms of Brecht, I would use this to show Ralph trying to form relationships with the convicts that would allow them to listen to him so that the play could go ahead. Having him positioned in the middle of the two opposing sides could be seen as him trying to blur the lines between the two classes of people.

We were then given a series of pictures, and we had to decipher which ones were from a Brecht play and which ones weren't. Included in the pictures was the "Silent Scream" which we had looked into previously and we already knew was from a Brecht play called "Mother Courage and her children." After discussing which ones we thought fit the Brechtian category, we were then told that they were all from a Brecht play called "The Threepenny Opera".

The Threepenny Opera is a "play with music" written by Brecht which is based on an English Ballad opera called The Beggar's Opera. Brecht once commented on the play at a concert performance that "You are about to hear an opera for beggars. Since this opera was intended to be as splendid as only beggars can imagine, and yet cheap enough for beggars to be able to watch, it is called the Threepenny Opera." It focuses on the lives of a group of beggars being lead by Macheath, also known as Mack the Knife, who marries Penny Pechum which displeases her father. He sets out to have Mack hanged and the story evolves from there. It has been performed at the National Theatre and one review said that it included "enduring fascinations and a timeless appeal for the bold satirical strokes of this malleable story of lowlifes, criminality and justice. The particular joy of the Brecht/Weill version, of course, remains its insinuatingly dark musical score, pulsing with brass, strings and harmonium sounds, and rendered here with stunning elan under the musical direction of David Shrubsole for his onstage band." (https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/reviews/the-threepenny-opera-review)

We then split into 3 groups and did a more detailed account of the set and staging for a different scene than we did earlier. In our group we did Act 1 Scene 7 which is when Harry and Duckling go fishing. 

As we were making the set for the scene, we wanted to keep both the political message behind the scene, hence the slaves still being seen, to remind the audience of what is happening on a bigger scale of things and also we wanted the elements of Gestus that we had discussed previously to be involved which is in things like the addition of the Great British flag and the military uniform. 

Here are the other scenes that people were staging:

I think that all of the staging that was proposed kept the political aspects very clear and they all included different areas of gestus.

Marketing Poster drafts

Draft 1

Positive aspects about this poster:

• Includes both SToRMS and N2C Theatre's information so if anybody needs to get in touch with either organisation then their information in there.
• Has rehearsal pictures on there so that the target audience see what the process was like and can get a taster of what they can expect when they see the performance.
• Questions relating to the main message of the piece, communication and the need for more people to openly talk about what they are experiencing with their friends, for the audience to answer once when they enter the room and once when they go out so that they can see if their opinion has changed over the course of the piece.
• The layout of the pictures, I feel, gives the whole poster a focal point and with the companies information in that central section then I feel like they are more likely to contact them.

Negative aspects:

• Lots of blank space because I didn't want to overfill the page with lots of information as that would immediately make the target audience switch off from reading it and that defeats the whole purpose of a poster which is to inform people of the piece and interest them to watch it. 

In order to fix this I made a second draft that fills up more of the space.

Draft 2

I think that draft 2 will be the poster that we use as it includes all of the main messages that we want to focus on without it being overbearing to an onlooker. The photos are from the rehearsal process which show what is to be expected of the piece and the links included to both the Theatre company and the SToRMS website are clear for people to find out more information.

Marketing Techniques Essay

The product that is the focus of this advertising is a Theatre In Education piece that is being performed by a year 13 BTEC drama class in order to raise awareness for the charity SToRMS, who focus on male mental health, and also highlight the growing need for communication, specifically in the male population of our society. Therefore, the piece is aimed at young males at the age of 15-17, as this is the focal period where boys begin to realise social pressures that are placed on them and they try to find their place, not only in the modern society that we live in, but in their social and home lives as well. We are planning to go into as many schools as possible to ensure that the message can reach as many male students as possible. Before anything else we need to delve into the world of advertising and marketing for us to find the most valuable and effective method of advertising the piece to the teachers who could be interested in us coming to their school and performing. Advertising methods can be categorised into specific and non-specific techniques: specific being a focused campaign that is aimed at a group that we know in our target range and non-specific being a campaign that has a more widespread field of focus.

A common advertising technique that is used in the current society is emails. Using emails allows the recipient to easily forward the email onto someone else, which could include teachers at other schools, and therefore can become known across a wide range of people in a short amount of time. Files and images can also be attached easily onto emails meaning, we can send small videos or photos of what they can expect of the piece and emails are also free to send meaning that they wouldn’t cost the theatre company anything to send them. Also sending an email doesn’t require a face-to-face meeting so that means that neither we nor the recipient need to take time out of our schedules to meet. Emails are a specific method of advertising and so we can narrow down who the emails are sent to in order for our piece to be advertised in the correct way and to the correct people. Although emails are a good method of marketing, emails do also have a down-side. We would need to find the email addresses of the specific people that are associated with the target audience’s age range, and we are aware that teachers are very time consumed and so we may not get a reply back as soon as we would expect. Emails can still be considered as a reliable method of advertising and marketing and so could play a major role in our campaign.

If emails cannot be accessed by everyone, then we could send out a letter instead so that those who do not have access to a computer can also be reached. Letters are seen as a more personal form of communication and because the topic of our performance can become quite hard-hitting at times, a letter could portray the emotions that are behind the performance and can link to the charity supporting the piece. Like emails, letters do have a negative side; it takes time to write a letter, to look up an address and then find a mailbox. Meaning, that writing letter would take us much longer than sending an emails would but if a letter was needed, we would accommodate to that. Letters also take longer to be delivered than emails, can be lost easier and rely on a postman to deliver it meaning, that we are not responsible if the letter is sent to the wrong person. Letter can still be considered in our campaign as the majority of teachers/schools, our target audience for advertising, have computers and email addresses so a letter can be considered as a secondary response after the emails are sent out.

Phone calls could also be regarded as a primary method of sharing our campaign as they are direct and specific, the conversations are relatively private between us and the recipient and calls can be made at any time in the day so if we miss one call at a specific time, we can proceed to ring again when they are available. Also, majority of schools are equipped with phones that are specific to people and so we can contact them directly. Although many things can be said in a phone call, not everything is always remembered, and sometimes small sections of information can be lost due to signal or interference and therefore key details could be lost or misheard. I think that including phone calls in our campaign would be crucial as they play such a huge part in the modern society and, it is a quick and easy method in which we can fully explain our piece and find out directly whether that school is initially interested. We could use phone calls as our first step in our campaign and see where the advertising audience are interested by our product and we can then proceed to send them more information about the piece through emails, and/or more phone calls if necessary, which allows them to gain full knowledge about the piece and about the message of communicating efficiently that we want them to take from it.

Another specific technique using in advertising can be to send written letters to the schools of interest as this would give them all the information that they need to know in one area and we could also include our contact details so that if they do need any extra information or would like to book a performance, they still have those options as well. With letters, you can include photos as well as writing so that the advertising audience can see what we have done, in terms of the rehearsal process, and how we've gotten to our end product. It is more of a formal way of approaching the schools instead of sending an email which may add to our overall impression on the teachers whom we are targeting as we come across more professional. Although, writing letters can be very time consuming and so might not be the most efficient way to advertise our piece and we would have to wait for the letters to reach the schools and wait for a reply. This would take up an excessive amount of time and so sending emails might be the better option in terms of speed in relation to our rehearsal period.

N2C Theatre, is the theatre company that all members of the cast are a part of and is involved with the school and the production of this piece, has their own website that we have access to which they use to advertise performances[1]. We are planning on using this to help advertise the piece and it will not only benefit the marketing audience when they are looking at it, but also the theatre company as they will get recognition as well. Using a website or a webpage is another specific type of advertising as it is focused on our piece and is directly linked to the theatre company that we are a part of. A website is also an easy way to see the full product as well because all the information is on the screen in front of you and you can get instant information from the website along with pictures to help them visualise what the end product would potentially look like. It is also very easy to change a website to help with the understanding about the meaning of the piece and what Theatre In Education pieces are normally used for. A website is online twenty-four hours a day so there is no time in which the ad will be up for, meaning that the audience can view the information about the piece whenever it is convenient for them and there isn't a limit on how many times they can view the website. This means that they can access our website as many times as they want, and they are therefore looking at the section advertising our piece when we look through the website.

Like all other advertising methods, websites do have their disadvantages. Sometimes there can be too much information on the site and so our marketing audience may lose our piece in the extremity of all the other performances and their descriptions. To prevent this from occurring, we need to ensure that the layout of the website makes the information about our TIE piece easily accessible and the information that is included isn't overwhelming. We also need to take into consideration the fact that websites are a very modern advertising technique and we don't know the exact experience that our marketing audience have with websites. We need to make sure that our website does not only appeal to those interested in joining the theatre company but to those, like our target audience, who are looking at performances that they are interested in bringing to their schools. Although our website is very specific to the work that N2C Theatre does and therefore it won't get lost in all the other drama company websites as our TIE is specific to this drama company and so I think that using the website will be beneficial to our campaign as it is specific to our theatre company.

A marketing technique that may add to our advertising campaign could be marketing products such as t-shirts and mugs with the piece, and the companies' logo that are involved, on the sides. Having actual objects such as cups that have the piece on them whilst out in public may catch people's eye and if we do have the website on there as well then, they will be able to access more information from that as well. Because this piece is what we are focused on in drama at this particular time then we can use that focus to our advantage and make certain products that would advertise our product both as a reminder of the piece to those that have seen it and also as an advertising method to those, specifically teachers, who may want to see it. The more people that see the logo on various items such as t-shirts and/or cups then it may spark their interest and they may proceed to ask questions about the piece. We can be very specific and selective of what we put on the marketing products meaning that it will be relative to the piece and we control what goes on them, so we would make sure that it wasn't excessive and overwhelming to the audience. We can therefore develop a reputation for both SToRMS and N2C meaning that they can both benefit from this method of advertising and the piece can get recognised from these companies as well.

Regarding marketing products, it is difficult to create a product that will interest a wide group of people without knowing what techniques our marketing target audience are interested by. If we make it a certain way that may not appeal to the correct audience or may not advertise the piece in the best way meaning, that we would have to conduct an experiment on which presentation on the marketing products appeals to our target audience the most. It would also be difficult to get the products to more than one school as our theatre company is based in King Ecgbert School and so we would have to ask teachers whom work in more than just our school to carry our advertising products with them and this could potentially not work as we are asking them to advertise for our product without them knowing anything about it.

Like marketing products, other techniques such as publicity stunts are also time consuming. Publicity stunts are planned events that are designed to attract the public's attention to a specific organizer or cause. Previously, we have created flash mobs in relation to another charity and so have experience in creating these which we could use to our advantage and create one to advertise this piece. Publicity stunts can reach a large quantity of people in a concentration location and the awareness generated by these stunts leads to the audience seeking out more information and therefore becoming interested in the piece that we want to show them. If the stunt makes people stop and think about what is happening, then perhaps they will begin to talk about it with their colleagues and maybe the will try and find out more information which would be on our website. Stunts like this also have a time limit of how effective they are, for example someone who watches the flash mob first-hand will be impacted more than someone who saw in on a video or just heard about it When creating publicity stunts, we need to consider the professional image that it would be sending to the audience about our company and about the piece. If we create the wrong atmosphere surrounding the piece, then our audience may not take the piece seriously and therefore become uninterested. To use a publicity stunt in our marketing campaign, we would need to study the reflection that it would have on both the theatre company and the charity and so taking this into consideration, I think that it would send out the wrong message to the audience about the piece.

A non-specific technique that could also be included is posters in town so that if our marketing target audience and other possible influences that are associated with our target audience for the piece are in public, they are still seeing an advert for the piece regardless of whether they had existing knowledge of the piece. An advantage of using posters in public area is that if we put all the needed information on the poster design, then they are still giving a substantial amount of knowledge about the piece without someone informing them. These means that the information regarding the piece can reach a broader audience than, for example, a flash-mob as we can put them in multiple locations so that our piece is being advertised in more areas and therefore reaching more people. We would still include the website and phone numbers associated with the directors of the piece so that if more information was needed it was easily accessible. Also, multiple designs of a poster can be made so that we are still advertising the same product but in different ways using different techniques to intrigue an audience to read the poster.

If an error was to occur for example, a spelling mistake, then it would be very difficult to readjust and reprint the posters which means that we would need to look over the final draft off the posters, in fine detail, to make sure that it was ready to be part of our campaign and making sure that it gave the right impression of both the piece and the companies involved. It is very difficult to make a poster that will stand out when compared to others that will also be in the public spaces and there needs to be a substantial amount of time put into the creation of these posters as they could be an essential part of the campaign. During the process of creating a poster you need to identify the key information that you want as the focal point of the design and this needs to be carefully picked out and placed in a way that is informative and professional yet intriguing.

A similar non-specific method of advertising is newspaper articles as our marketing target audience are older adults and so they are more likely to read the paper and ask for more information about the piece through the contact information that we would have to include in the advert. If we were to use a newspaper advert to gain publicity for the piece, then one of the positive aspects is that there is a variety of display options that we could use to advertise the piece. There are smaller adverts and then there are pages that are specifically about schools which could be the best way to advertise the piece as there is more chance that our target audience would potentially look at this page as they are teachers. Newspaper are also a form of targeted advertising as if we use "The Star" newspaper as an example, then that would be sent out to just Sheffield and we could have an audience across all of Sheffield interested in the piece. There are obviously going to be some disadvantages to using a newspaper article and the main one is the fact that we cannot guarantee that our marketing target audience read the paper as it quite old-fashioned in relation to modern society's ways of communicating. Having an advert in the newspaper is only there for a limited time and if you want it in for longer then you must pay for it meaning, that we would be taking money out of the budget to use a method of advertising that is diminishing in society. Also, it would take time to create the article in the correct format and language that would advertise the piece in the correct way towards our target audience and wait for it to be edited and published.

Another, less common, form of non-specific advertising is word of mouth, which involves the product being advertised through people talking about the piece and hopefully the product would reach our target audience. Word of mouth is a potential way of quick advertising as word can spread very quickly but it does put a lot of trust on those that are discussing it in terms of giving the correct information out. A downside to word of mouth is the amount of control that we have over the information that is being given out and the time scheme in which it could possibly reach our target audience. We can also not control the overall impression that is given about the piece and the opinions that people give out could therefore affect the overall impression of both the theatre company and SToRMS as a charity. Although word of mouth is a free method of advertising, it is quite difficult to evaluate the concluding result that it had as we are unable to control who the information is passed to. In terms of our piece, I feel that word of mouth could be useful especially between teachers, perhaps in different schools. We only have a limited time to advertise the piece before it is being performed and because we cannot control the speed at which the information will reach our target audience it may be hard to guarantee that other people will find out about it.

After looking at the range of advertising methods that are available, Emails, phone calls and the N2C Theatre website and social media, seem to be both the quickest methods of advertising and the most effective. As an advertising plan, I think that phone calls should be the first point of advertising as we can make phone calls to specific year group managers and we can then follow up with emails containing information about the piece and the theatre company. Alongside this, we could use the N2C Theatre account on many different social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter, to advertise the piece as well. We could include pictures of the rehearsal process and pictures of other schools watching the performances. All the aspects of advertising that have been discussed could be used in our marketing and advertising plan but there are clear methods that will enable our piece to be widely known in a short space of time. 

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[1]www.n2ctheatre.co.uk

Week 26: Starting Brecht

Researching Brecht

As we were finishing our last module, we were informed that in the next module which was Contemporary theatre included Brecht and so I decided to do some initial research before hand so that I might be able to understand the style slightly faster and also when we begin to actually work on the style hopefully I will be able to put my prior knowledge into the physical performance. I began my research by searching for a definition of contemporary theatre and I found a website called http://contemporaryperformance.ning.com/forum/topics/how-do-you-define-contemporary that defined it Contemporary Theatre as "hybrid performance works and artists that travels between the fields of Experimental theatre and dance, video art, visual art, music composition and performance art without adhering to one specific field's practice." I then moved on to researching Brecht's methods and techniques. One of the main points that there was a lot of information on was his use of "Verfremdungseffekt" which has no English translation but is known as the "Distancing method." I found a website (http://beautifultrouble.org/theory/alienation-effect/) that described the time period in which Brecht was writing which was between the 1920s and 1940s. They say that "the theatre of his time, like most Hollywood movies now, relied on emotional manipulation to bring about a suspension of disbelief for the audience, along with an emotional identification with the main character. Audience members were taken on an uncritical emotional roller coaster ride, crying when the main character cried, laughing when s/he laughed - identifying with him/her even when the character had nothing in common with them or their interests." This is where Brecht's distancing technique came from, as he wanted to replace this emotional manipulation with something that had a more political background to it. "Rather than investing in or "becoming" their characters, they might emotionally step away and demonstrate them with cool, witty and skilful self-critique." Having the actors on stage almost come out of role, it was allowing the audience to realise that they are indeed watching a performance and he wanted them to focus on "why" the events were happening rather than "what" those events are. The audience almost become morally aligned during his plays as their mindset changes to what they can do to help rather than what is going on in the situation.

Classwork

At the start of the lesson, we were given some background facts about Brecht before we started exploring the style so that we had some ideas of both the time he was alive in, perhaps allowing us to see the meanings behind his style, and also the times in which he was writing his plays, to see whether his writing corresponded with any main events going on at the time. Using Brecht in this module means that we are pushing quite far back in the Contemporary theatre genre as he could also be known as a Historical. During the 1940s was when Brecht's writing was really starting to become known which means that he was formulating his ideas and opinions in the 1930s. We know from previous research that Brecht was German and so the ideas that he must have based his plays off of must have happened in Germany throughout his life.

We did a short task of making 3 freeze frames of what we thought was going on in Germany throughout in the 30s, 40s, and finally, the 50s to help us understand some of the events that were going on in Brecht's time period. We decided that we would make a freeze frame on the Nazis rise to power for the 30s. For the 40s, we decided on the war as World War II started in 1939 and lasted while 1945. And for the 50s, we did about the divide between East Germany and West Germany. We found out that Brecht was a Liberal, or more so a Socialist, and he was living in Germany around the late 30s and through the 40s. Like we had picked out in our freeze frames, Hitler was gaining support for his fascist regime during the 30s and at this point he started drawing out lists of people that were against his ideals and who were speaking out against him. Brecht was on one of Hitler's death lists because he spoke out about his opinions which were against Hitler.
When the war broke out, like we had shown in our freeze frames, it became too dangerous for Brecht to stay in Germany and so he left to live in America where he spent most of his life afterwards. When he was in America, the divide between East and West Germany began and, as a Socialist in America, he was actually called before various committees to answer to claims about him being a Communist and they brought out an array of poems that he wrote that could be classed as having Communist views behind them. He was a political writer and this segregation became his driving force as he wanted to inspire change through theatre.
One of Brecht's famous quotes is "Theatre isn't a mirror that we hold up to reality but a hammer in which we shape it." Showing that Brecht's theatre was much more about the audience watching the play and coming out of the performance wanting to change something and help solve the issue that has been portrayed on stage, rather than watching a performance a getting a large emotional response to it. We brought up the question of whether evoking the audience into wanting to change something could be classed as an emotional response to the performance and we talked about Brecht wanting to argue that what you want to change is a broader political idea rather than thinking about an individual thing that you can do to help change that issue. We used the film Titanic as an example to help us understand this theory more and we identified that the story of the Titanic is based really tightly around and through the story-line of Jack and Rose, which is a love story and truthfully the audience becomes more focused on their story as they become emotionally connected to these two people but, the audience are therefore forgetting about the larger political side of the film. If Brecht were to do this play in his style, he would not on the amount of people that were killed in this tragic event but the class of those people and the effect that it had on the different classes that were on board. It would be seen as a motivation to try and make the audience feel something political rather than emotional. A popular misconception about Brecht is that he didn't like emotion which is a lie because he's not saying that he doesn't want his audience to feel emotions, he just wants them to use these feelings to fuel them to make a change. Linking this idea to his use of the V effect, we can clearly see that this technique was used to make the audience focus on the political message of his play and relate that to something that they could change in their own lives.

We participated in another small discussion exercise where we were given the situation of the time period which was "the majority of the people at this time, went to the theatre to be entertained and there were lots of musical type theatre going on or there were high-brow intellectual realistic theatre going on." The questions that we needed to discuss was "What are the things that you feel you would have to do to a piece of theatre to start people being more politically motivated by it?" and "What would you change about the theatre to make it more political?" We weren't trying to relate this to Brecht's theories, we were just trying to think of our own ways on how we would address this idea. 

We had discussions in smaller groups about the strategies that we would use to move the focus onto the political message.
Some of the ideas that we came up with as a class were:

• Conversations being directed at the audience - So rather than the conversations taking place between characters, we would "break the fourth wall" and use direct address towards the audience so that they would know that this is a play they are watching and focusing more on the relationship between the audience and the issue are arising rather than the relationship between the characters on stage being effected by that political issue. This will also help educate the audience which comes about through a more direct dialectic discourse between the actors and the audience.
• Using plays that are written with a more political intention - This means that we would be able to follow the writer's intentions more clearly and the political message would be clearer for the audience to grasp if the political intention was the focal point originally. These would then enable the characters to discuss the politics of that time as well.
• Drawing attention to the political motivations behind each character - We could have things happening to our characters but we're looking at the political motives that fuel them to make their decisions, like the example of Rose and Jack in Titanic. Instead of it being emotional, we draw attention to the reasons why they are in that situation.
• Satire - It is the use of humour and comedy to expose/criticise people's political judgement. There is normally an element of wit involved as well.

We imagined that we have used our theatre company to create a performance using all of these techniques to put on a performance and we started to discuss how well we think the piece would sell on the box office and we said that people just aren't interested in the heavier topics that we would have brought to light and some people aren't interested in politics at all. If we were trying to mobilise grounds of support to try and politicise the audience, it means that we're trying to focus on a new audience and those are the type of people who are the least likely to come and watch something like this.

Brecht's idea of Spass revolves around the idea of using humour to engage the audience and make them think at the same time. If you are making your audience laugh then they have already made a decision about the piece and are therefore open to thinking about why the events are happening as they have already made a decision on how they feel about the play. Spass was also a way to break tension on stage as Brecht needed to break any kind of tension so that the audience weren't becoming emotionally involved. Spass can include anything such as breaking into song at random junctures, slapstick comedy and even stand-up routines. Before Brecht got to the idea of Spass, he went through a period of time where he wrote the "Lehrstucke plays", also known as the "Learning Plays" which we the idea of working with the audience as a group of actors are they are going to work through the play with the actors guiding them and there would be a moral lesson at the end of it, normally a political lesson as well. As you may expect they weren't very popular and he tried to go into places like the steelworks and they weren't very successful. They are rarely performed today due to their lack of success but they were a key stepping stone for Brecht and the development of his ideas. The key idea is that Brecht's play should be funny and have humorous elements to them, and so Spass is important in understanding his plays and the language involved.

We then moved onto talking about another one of his techniques which was the "V effect" which I had previously researched and we talked about the fact that there is no English translation which has caused many problems. It wasn't something that he invented, it's more a collection of things that he did during his plays which lead to this effect being in people's brains while they were watching the piece. Like, for example, if we were to say "we want an emotional response" that's not a technique that you use, it is the response that you want to happen. Brecht wanted this "V effect" to happen throughout everything that he was doing in his plays so the audience would watch it with this effect going on and it would make them think about the political message instead. It makes the audience tilted their perception slightly at what they are watching and hopefully see it in a different light.

He accomplished this effect by what he called "Epic Theatre" which looked at the form in which the performance is presented and what the audience would be watching. Epic theatre's purpose is to emphasise the audience's perspective on the piece and their reaction to it through the techniques that we have already discussed which forces each individual audience member to react in their own way instead of having a collective reaction. This allows each audience member to make their own opinions on the issue that has been pointed out and therefore throughout the piece will be thinking of that issue in relation to their lives and what impact that could have had on them. Epic theatre also included the use of Historicisation which was used in order to make the audience look into the connections between historical events and a similar event that was happening in our modern world. Plays like "Mother Courage and Her Children" and "The Good Person of Szechwan" highlight issues that were relevant in that time period in relation to another historical event. Also in Epic Theatre, majority of the set that was used was realistic as were the costumes worn by the cast to highlight the reality of these problems and how relevant they are to the audience regardless of their societal positioning. The actors who were involved had to portray a believable character with making the audience think they have become that character. This is where another technique called Gestus comes in. This means that the actors on stage take on the characterization of what is being said during the social commentary. An example of this would be that if there was a character of a housewife, their movements could be very quick and agitated whereas her husbands could juxtapose with that and be very slow and sluggish to reflect there position in society at that point. Actors also played multiple roles to show that everyone was acting and they were told to be specific characters at those points in the play.

After discussing some of Brecht's main aspects, we moved onto doing a short scene where we had one person who came home late, to their partner because they were working late at the office. They were tired and their partner was a little irritated that they didn't call but were okay with it. The last person in the group was to be a child who comes in to say goodnight to the parent who just arrived home. We made a short realistic scene that highlighted the weariness of the father and the frustration of the mother and then we had the child come in at the end to say goodnight even though they should have been in bed. We then show the other group our short piece but we had the added feature of a placard, which was another aspects of Brecht's theatre. He used placard to add to the "V effect". On the placard was "Alexis arrives after a hard day's work, a frustrated Megan serves her food. Connie arrives to say goodnight." The other group that was watching us had to imagine that they were seeing this placard all throughout the scene and afterwards we were discussing that because they knew what was going on in the scene already and what was about to happen, they were watching the scene in a different way. They were more tracking what was going on in the scene and it stopped them being emotionally connected with the scene as they weren't trying to understand what was going on because they had already been told. It's not that the actors have stopped acting realistically but the audience's perception has slightly changed due to them knowing what was going to happen. One things thing that Brecht thought was an issue was the idea that if the story had massive amounts of suspense in it and the audience were looking to find out what was going to happen all the time, they actually get distracted from thinking about why it's happening.This is one way that he used placards, which is to remove suspense from what the audience were seeing by telling them what was going on in the scene.
We then watched the other groups scene and we were looking at a different way to use a placard. Theirs said "Charlotte has been having an affair for the last 6 weeks. The husband does not know." As an audience member, with that use of placard, it added a reason to the way that Charlotte was reacting towards Caitlin and it gives the scene some sort of context without having to spend a lot of time building up this backstory, the audience are just given it. Using placards, can also begin to create a sort of judgement like if the placard hadn't been there, we might have thought about the interaction on stage in a different way.

We then moved onto discussing some other aspects of his work and one of the main topics was structure. In a realistic play, the most common structure is chronological and during the realistic plays that were being performed when Brecht was alive, there setting was in a short span of time, like a week or an afternoon in someone's life. Some plays were set in real life time situations which makes sense if you are performing a realistic play. Brecht opted for a more episodic structure, which is shorter scenes which might be consecutive but they might be consecutive and years apart. So this gave Brecht a chance to explore a whole decade of issues that might be going on in a short space of time. This accentuates the "V effect" because the audience don't have an extended amount of time to connect emotionally with a character, they could see them when they are a child and then the next time is when they are an adult and are married. If we tie in other aspects like being told what is going on, with placards or placards telling you what is going to happen, very quickly the audience's perception does begin to shift from trying to work out what is going on, to working out why its going on. Brecht also liked to use music and songs in his productions, sometimes in the middle of the play and this is clearly a distancing effect for the audience as it has nothing to do with the scene that was just happening. Brecht also liked to use realistic props, but only enough to set the situation up. For example, he would use the corner of a building, made very realistically but the rest of it wouldn't be there. So he would use elements of realistic staging but not whole set pieces which adds to the "V effect" in the idea that the audience would be able to see that it was set that was being used and therefore it was a play that they were watching and not real life. Adding to the idea of wanting the audience to know that they are watching a play, he liked to show the scene changes and the lighting desks as well.

After studying some of the theory behind Brecht, we looked at one of his plays called "Mother Courage and her children." We read through the scene and then proceeded to look for elements of the Brecht style that we had been discussing previously and outline them.

We then began to discuss the scene and we found that the language was colloquialised but if we were to perform it in our modern day, we could do it with an earthy tone to it and the colloquialisms would be able to be recognised by the audience. We then ran through some confusions that may occur with the scene as the language was slightly hard to understand and we clarified that Mother Courage's son was killed because she wouldn't pay the price for him to be released and kept bartering to get the price down. She wanted to bring the price down because she likes to keep hold of her money and she originally was relying on the money from the cash box, that Swiss Cheese had hidden, to get the money to get the wagon returned to them. From this you can sense the Capitalist background as there are many bargains being made and everyone wishes to spend the least amount of money possible. Mother Courage has got herself into this situation as well as her family and her son is in a worse position that she is at this point. She is desperately trying to work her way out of it using money to do that but essentially it doesn't work.

After discussing Mother Courage, we moved onto looking into "The Silent Scream" picture by Helene Weigel, she was Brecht's wife and he gave her all of the main female roles in his plays. They were married about 4 times and she was one of the best actresses of her time. He gave her the part of Mother Courage and the "Silent Scream" was included in the scene that we had just read through in her performance. One thing that is cut out from the picture is the body of her son which is over to the left.

During the scene, she actually had to silently scream because if she screamed out loud then the guards would have heard her and known that this was a result of seeing her son's body. This became part of the "V effect" as it is a highly emotional moment but the audience are distanced by the facts that are surrounding the scene, they can;t get emotionally attached to Mother Courage and they cannot have the emotional attachments to the son considering there isn't much character development on his behalf. At the start of this scene, there is a placard that tells the audience what is going to happen so at this point they were expecting a reaction from Mother Courage but perhaps they did not know to what extent.

Mother Courage is an actual play written by Brecht so we moved onto looking at a play called "Our Country's Good," that is written by Timberlake Wertenbaker, which is a more modern version of a Brecht play. We have previously studied this text, during Director's Challenge, were we had to research the play and use that to direct a group of actors. One of her biggest influences, of course, was Brecht and Epic Theatre. We looked at a scene and read through it and began to see it in a Brechtian way rather than just a text as, in our previous research, we had only skimmed over the idea of Brecht and we had focused on why she had written the text instead of her influences. I did some more research into the text and got some extra background information which may help us to understand the conversation subjects a little more. In the 1780s, convicts and Royal Marines were sent to Australia, hence "the savages" also known as Aborigines, as part of the first colony there. This play highlights the class systems both within the convicts and within the racks of the officers. It discusses themes such as sexuality, punishments, the Georgian court system and the idea of using "theatre to be a humanising force". Wertenbaker actually went to see a play performed by convicts which allowed her to see how they acted with one another and also allowed her to see a play that was actually being performed with people in the same situation as her characters. She said that "the convicts were, at least momentarily, civilized human beings, and they had taken their work very seriously: The convicts knew their lines absolutely because they had nothing else to do and they didn't want to waste time with pleasantries; as soon as you came into the room they started rehearsing. The two hours were very intense because the time was so valuable and we saw immediately how doing a play could become absolutely absorbing if you were incarcerated." In Our Country's Good, most of the characters are based on real people that would have been aboard the ship as Weretenbaker was allowed to read the journals of the First Fleet members in order to portray them accurately.

Here is our interpretation of one of the scenes from "Our Country's Good"

https://youtu.be/sD97oklxqZk

- We used chains to reflect the idea of "the savages" as they are slaves so we had the chains to add context to the scene and the constant noise of them banging together or against the chairs showed that the slaves hadn't just disappeared but these men were just drinking and laughing as though they didn't exist at all. The chains would ideally be fitted into the costume, if we were doing this scene professionally, and we wanted the chains to become the tassels that majority of high ranking officers have on their uniform so that it would be a constant reminder for the audience that they were to blame for the mistreatment of the slaves. We also wanted to include the idea of keys and one of the characters have a large amount of keys on their belt.
- In the centre, the smaller tables are representing a large banquet table that would be filled with an excessive amount of food and drink. Reflecting the idea that the slaves are starving and these men are wasting so much food that could be given to those who need it. And with the added use of forks, the officers use them to accentuate their point and so use them as tools to point with and then continue eating. These props, both the food and the chains, re-enforced the irony of the topics that we are discussing and the language of what we are saying.
- In terms of the delivery of the lines, we are directing some of the lines out to the audience and then some to other characters on stage. Those who opposed the idea of the play have the bigger gestures and bigger movements around the stage to reflect the idea that they are commanding and therefore can project their lines outwards but because of the power that they hold, whoever they are talking to still knows that the lines are being directed towards them. One of the character makes reference to the stars as so the setting must be outside with some sort of slight covering over the food and so the higher ranking characters direct their lines outward as though they were observing the scenery. We wanted to make it clear on which characters were for the play, against the play and those who were neutral ground about the play.
- We did realise that there were two singular characters who were coming across more realistic than the others which were Connie's characters of the Ralph, who was going to direct the play, and Alexis' character, who was the Captain of the ship. We thought that this was based off of the ideas that they were the more calmer members of the group and they were more for the play to be held whereas the rest of the cast were more exaggerating their disagreement towards it due to them wanting their point to be heard.
- The use of stereotypes and stereotypical actions allowed us to heighten the aspect of the audience knowing that this was a play. They also add as an element of social commentary about the opinions that were present at the time in which the play was set.

A possible next step would be to look deeper into the characters of Ralph and the Captain to see whether we can use their realistic nature to reflect a political or societal issue. They could be the voices of reason in the scene as they do try and justify the play being held. Connie's character is the more diplomatic whereas Alexis holds more power due to her status and so she has the final decision on whether the play will go ahead or not. There are also references to people like Rousseau which reflects how educated both these characters are in contrast with mine and Caitlin's characters. We are so against the idea of the play that we begin to stereotype the people that they bring up such as the Irish and the Swiss. Our characters could reflect those who have strong beliefs about the British Empire and believe in everything that they say is what we should live by which, in a modern setting, would equate to xenophobic and racist people who believe that punishment is punishment and the convicts are in prison because that is where they belong. We do not see them as human beings which reflect what the play is about as we are exploring the idea about the morality of punishment and rehabilitation which are the political arguments that are being made apparent for the audience to consider.

Week 25: Primary School Review

Review of performance

During the last week, we performed our Theatre In Education "Survival Guide" to an audience of around 50-60 students at Dore Primary School. The piece lasted for around 45 minutes which was more than we had originally anticipated due to the interactive discussions being in more depth that we had originally thought. We did, however, leave extra time for this in case the students needed more help or needed us to go into more depth about the subjects we had mentioned during the piece. After the performance, we had given us some time to talk to the audience to get their feedback on the piece and we thought that we could also use this time as a discussion that the audience can use to ask us any questions that they had about secondary school whether we had mentioned them or not. Here are some pictures from the performance:

Some of the positives from the performance were:

• The opening - As we were doing the high school musical dance, I was looking over the audience and could see that a lot of them were enjoying it and even started to laugh at us whilst doing it which was the point of using the dance, for comedic value. And the dance clearly had started to interest them in the piece and they were starting to become intrigued by what we had to say about both high school musical and what it had to do with secondary school. Also the fact that they were finding it amusing accentuated the fact that they knew it was false and knew that we were using it as a gimmick.
• Interactive Sections - Every time that we asked the audience for suggestions whether that be "who can I talk to?" in the Little Worries Chapter or "what could I do in this situation" in the Bullying chapter, they were constantly engaged with the piece and could give us an array of suggestions very willingly. This made it so much easier for us to interact with them as the cast fed off of their energy which made the piece all the more enjoyable to perform and, I hope, to watch. The enthusiasm that was shown for all the questions that were thrown at them, reflected their interest in the piece and the answers that they gave were both intelligent and expected. Majority of the answers that we got were what we expected but there were some unusual ones especially in the Little Worries section.
• Responses to their "Little Worries" - I think that overall, we responded to the audience's personal little worries both professionally and confidently. As the narrator of this specific chapter, I didn't have a set group to myself and so I had the freedom to go round each group and join in all the different discussions that were going on. I found that everybody was talking through the worries and acknowledging that the worries that they had were what we also had when we were in their position. I was able to help with this and I had a conversation of my own with a student who told me that he didn't have any worries which was what I was like when I was moving up to secondary school. This allowed me to have a short discussion with him about the ways that he could help other people who have some worries and he agreed that now that he knows what people are worried about, he can help them to feel a little more comfortable with transitioning to secondary school like he is. I also had another conversation with a girl, during the friendship chapter, who wasn't going to the same secondary school as the rest of her friends which allowed me and another cast member to reassure her that it's okay to be nervous about these things and making new friends does take time so she doesn't need to rush.
• Freeze frames - The freeze frames that came from these little worries were very interactive and the whole audience worked hard to come up with some interesting freeze frames of their own little worries. They were a range of different worries which allowed the audience to see an array of worries from all of the students. The audience were both enthusiastic to show their own freeze frames and guess what other people's were as well. This interest in the freeze frames allowed us to explore them in depth both in the individual groups and as a whole.
• Quiz scene - This was the most interactive part of the whole piece as it took up a whole chapter and the response to it was more than we could have ever imagined as they were really competitive which added to them wanting to get the best answers. Especially my group, came up with a load of different answers obviously, some were jokey answers but majority of them were great responses to the question like "ask the teacher" and "remove them from the situation" Doing the discussions between each question, the whole of my group was really involved in the answers that we were giving and as a collective we came up with the best answer. Both me and Jenna, who was also in charge of our group, tried to include the whole group in the conversation and brought everybody's opinion into the mix so that we could choose from everybody's answers for the best one. This allowed us to have a big discussion about which answers were the best to suit the situation and at times there were discussions between not just me, Jenna and the group but between people in the group as well which gave me and Jenna the chance to build on those conversations.
• Question and Answer Session - At the end of the piece, we broke off into smaller groups to discuss what the audience had learnt from the piece and to try to answer any questions that they had remaining about secondary school. In my group, we started with discussing what they had learnt from the piece and they all said that they felt better about transitioning up to secondary school and some said that they're even looking forward to it. We moved onto some of their questions and I got a lot of questions about detentions and what you get them for. I explained all of the reasons why you could get them and explained that they are only there if you go against the school values. I also got questions about the work and whether it was much harder than what you get in primary school which I assured them that it may seem difficult at the start but you soon realise that you can do it and it isn't much different. I also mentioned that there are also plenty of teachers that can ask for help as there are multiple teachers in each department which also shocked them because they've only ever had one teacher for each year. We also talked about being late which was the biggest worry out of my group and I made sure that they realised that once you get used to the school then it really isn't as big as you think it is and if you're late in the first couple of weeks all the teachers are understanding enough to let you off for being late as it's a new school.
• Responses from the audience afterwards - Our teacher was able to get some feedback from the children in the audience after the performance and some of those reactions were: "It helped us with our worries" "They showed me that moving to secondary school is not a big deal" and "It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders." Hearing these comments being made about the piece shows that the things that we had discussed really allowed the audience to become more comfortable with the subjects that we had mentioned and that was the whole point of the piece.

Some of the things that went slightly wrong in the piece were:

• Asking the audience after the freeze frames - During the "Little Worries" chapter, which I narrate, after each group had shown us their freeze frames I forgot to ask the rest of the audience whether they had the same worries to accentuate that majority of the audience were feeling the same. But I feel like the in depth discussions that we had whilst making the freeze frames were enough to show that many of the audience had the same worries. I did make a conscious effort whilst I was going round the groups that I had heard some of the other groups with the same worries. The flow of the piece wasn't jepardised and the pace was maintain so that the audience didn't realise that a mistake was even made.  
• Pace - I know that at the beginning of the piece, the pace was very fast and I know that some of the cast members thought that I was talking too fast at the beginning but I thought that I was speaking at a pace which was understandable for the audience. I think that I, and the rest of the cast, did slow down pretty rapidly when we all became comfortable with the piece and accepted the fact that the audience were really enthusiastic about being involved in the piece. I don't think that it effected the piece at all, as the pace was slowed down anyway and the audience still grasped what was going on and the fact that it was my own personal experience that we were talking about.
• Responses during the Bullying chapter - During the section where we asked the audience for their opinions on what Harriet should do in that situation, I don't think that we took enough suggestions in from the audience as we didn't manage to get all of the responses that we wanted. I personally thought that we could have taken another couple of suggestions from the audience as we didn't get one about physically fighting back and I feel like that was a key one that the audience needed to see how the situation played out with that. Although the responses that we got were some of what we expected and allowed the audience to witness what their choices didn't to the situation.

Overall I feel like the performance was successful and ran as smooth as we could have wanted. I thought that the audience understood the messages that we were trying to send them, that moving up to secondary school isn't as scary as you might think. Although I did miss some things out I feel that the pace was kept up throughout the piece and the energy levels didn't seem to drop at any particular point which enabled both us and the audience to feed off of each other in terms of interaction.