Section One: Evidence of exploration/research into the chosen style, with reference both to the play(s) studied and appropriate production(s) seen, and justification of the choice in relation to dramatic intentions for the audience; accurate use of specialist terminology.

Our chosen style is political theatre incorporating aspects of physical theatre with a combination of didactic and dialectic traits as even though we offer our audience the freedom to come to a conclusion on their own most of the performance is one-sided constantly reinforcing our political message told through a series of short stories. Political theatre is used to challenge the audience’s beliefs, exposing the truth of an important aspect of society which tends to be hidden. After the performance it is common for the audience to have either agreed or disagreed with what has been shown which hopefully leads to the audience assessing their own beliefs on the subject. While there are many possible features of political theatre such as exaggerated and satirical characters and outbursts of song which are used to emphasise a certain idea and exaggerated to create a greater impact on our audience. Other key features of political theatre which I intend to use are multi-roling and an episodic structure for my performance.

Splendid Productions are a professional drama company who specialise in creating political theatre performances by incorporating Brechtian techniques. After watching their adaptation of ‘Antigone’ I was inspired by their use of breaking the 4th

wall to keep the audience involved in the performance. Throughout, they would talk to individual members of the audience or directly address the entire audience through either song or narrative. I hope to use this technique in my own performance to emphasise the message and personally involve the audience so they no longer just watch the performance but actively think and question what they see.

Another aspect of Splendid’s work that attracts me is their use of juxtaposed songs and lyrics. For example, while watching their performance of ‘Everyman’ they began with an upbeat song and then began singing about death. Their music makes the audience instantly question the topic on which they are singing as they are often querying whether they should be enjoying the song or not. I plan to use this idea of contrasting music and lyrics in my performance to stress the barbaric conditions of the homeless community. Both of these performances by Splendid Productions are political theatre as they always have a political message and purpose to the performance expressed through an episodic structure.

I was also able to watch Frantic Assembly’s performance of ‘Beautiful Burnout’ which raises the issue that regarding the dangers of professional boxing. This performance allowed me to see how physical theatre can be used to express a political message successfully. Every movement piece had a reason for its existence and it was the audience’s responsibility to understand the true meaning of the piece. At the end of the performance you leave questioning what you have seen. I hope to achieve a similar success with my devised performance.

Brecht was influenced partially with Chinese theatre which he discovered during his exile from Germany. It is from the Chinese theatre that he first experienced the ancient techniques of distancing and later named this technique ‘V-Effekt’ (verfremdungseffekt), “distancing makes commonplace events rare and astonishing.” Brecht achieved this distancing effect by actors Multi-roling on stage and the use of

songs resulting in the action of certain scenes being broken; releasing the audience from any emotional ties they may have begun to form. The use of distancing allows the audience to remain a ‘conscious critical observer’.

Our main aim is to raise awareness of the dangers and difficulties of surviving on the streets. Also, for the audience to question how society treats the homeless and hopefully in the process disregard any previous stereotypes they have created. A way we have made our play more effective is that the stories we are using are real-life stories that I have researched and found. Our main dramatic intention was to make the audience question why there are so many homeless people and also to encourage them to try and seek a solution; to become an active participator in fighting against homelessness. This will be achieved by the use of sympathy, shock and also the V-Effect throughout our performance.

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Plays Seen or Studied: Beautiful Burnout by Frantic Assembly Everyman by Splendid Productions Antigone by Splendid Productions The Caucasian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht Out of the Shadows by Nobulus

Bibliography/Webliography: http://www.splendidproductions.co.uk/about.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_theatre http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/brecht.pdf

Section Two: Development of devising strategies/production and performance skills to create drama which fulfils shared aims; critical evaluation and refinement of work in the light of both practical and theoretical research and feedback.

As we had decided that we wanted to use aspects of physicality to help portray our political message we had the idea to create a movement piece to showing an internal illness. To begin devising we first selected a piece of music which had a fast beat we could move too. Our first strategy to devise was to experiment contorting our bodies into different shapes. Once we had several different positions we all liked we began to incorporate them with the music, allowing us to create smooth transitions between them. For one move I used inspiration from Nobulus’ “Out of the Shadows” to create an arch shape with my back mid-air. The final way we developed this movement piece was by researching common illnesses from homeless people and interpreting some of the symptoms such as disorientation and lack of control.

To help towards devising short stories for our episodic structure I researched several stories relating to homelessness which would help form a basic starting point for each scene. One scene in which we used this research was the final scene of the performance. The story spoke about a homeless man who lay dead and naked on the street while people passed taking pictures. Using this as our start, I had the idea to strip me like a fashion-program showing the new trend on the street offering my clothes to the audience for free imitating Gok Wan’s, “How To Look Good Naked”. To create funny characters we each attempted to make an exaggerated character which we then mirrored. By doing this, it allowed us to try out different characters and also witness how the appeared to the audience. By developing these over-the-top characters we were able to make the scene comical even though the subject matter was disgusting. This will enable us to successfully create a V-effect which was one of our original intentions.

One story spoke about an ex-military who had returned from service and was incapable of coping with PTSD with no help offered. Our original idea was to have Michael (the ex-soldier) to be sat among a group of other homeless refugees waking up in the night having panic-attacks which would lead to him explaining his experiences. When we performed this idea to ourselves we felt that the true message was being shrouded by this story telling approach. Instead, we tried to have Michael sat alone silent with rhythmic music playing in the background. Sophie and I would be behind Michael and would become his mind, expressing all his fears and memories and portraying those using simple yet recognisable movements, such as aiming a gun or crouching for cover. To improve this scene further we repeated it multiple times to increase our precision and synchronisation. This scene is much more effective in making the audience realise the injustice this man has faced and that it is not within his power to go anywhere but live on the streets which fulfils our original aim of exposing the truth.

Another story I found that I believed had the possibility to create a successful story was based on a woman who suffered abuse from her partner and the only way to escape was to run with nothing. We first thought it would be best to show the physical abuse Sophie endured realistically but when we performed a short section we were told the physical abuse looked awkward, fake and the realistic style didn’t match our chosen style of political theatre. Therefore, we changed the scene to have Sophie and Michael face the audience and perform to the audience with the abuse no longer physical but mental with Sophie continually being bullied and restricted

from any freedom. Sophie’s character was altered to show her more as a victim by reducing her spoken dialogue and instead using her body such as head lowered and arms holding her for protection. To prevent the audience from just sympathising with Sophie we decided to add in me and Jake performing a short movement sequence in the background. This scene is more successful now because we have managed to distance our audience from the action which was necessary for our audience members to remain critical observers.

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Section Three: Assessment of the piece in terms of its style and potential effectiveness for an audience as a piece of live theatre and in terms of the candidate’s own contribution/development of production or performance skills; awareness of health and safety factors.

I am pleased with the performance I have helped create as I am confident that it will achieve our original aim which was to reveal the truth of those who are homeless, showing that most have little control over the situation and have no way to escape from their current situation. We have remained focused on our political message throughout the entire performance with every decision we made having a political purpose and each scene as important as each other.

I believe that our performance has the potential to meet our original dramatic intentions. One scene in particular that I feel will have a lasting effect on the audience is the final scene which involves Michael, Jake and Sophie laughing around a trouser-less dead body taking pictures while encouraging the audience to join in and laugh along. However, when they realise what they have actually just done is barbaric they will begin to question their own morals which achieves our original aim. The fact that we have used a true story will create a greater impact on the audience.

The ex-military scene also has great potential as our audience will relate more to the story because many people know of relatives or friends who have been in the army. Our choice of dialogue is very direct and aggressive revealing the struggles of the homeless. This would also achieve my dramatic intention as we are stripping away the pretty picture of society revealing the hidden disgusting truth.

Prior to my death, we show my body deteriorating through a fast and energetic movement piece. As a performer, my skill level of physical theatre has dramatically increased since creating this movement piece. I was constantly pushing the boundaries of what my body was capable of. By challenging my body, I have become more flexible and can sustain a highly-energetic activity for longer. This development was crucial as I am now able to give a pleasing and effective performance. This scene was inspired by the fight scenes seen in ‘Beautiful Burnout’ and by showing my internal pain it would make the audience sympathetic for me which is necessary for when I die, creating a lasting impact resulting in the change of their beliefs fulfilling my original intention.

Due to the episodic structure of our play, I had to improve my ability of multi-role clearly and effectively to keep the stories separate and not creating any unintentional links between them. I play 3 main characters all which need to be significantly different. When playing a choral role I used inspiration of Clowns from Splendid’s ‘Antigone’. Their actions were greatly exaggerated with faces showing over-the-top emotions. When changing into a neutral character used during the ex-military seen my actions still remain exaggerated. However, they are sharper and more distinct with my facial expressions always reverting to a blank stare. My final character is a homeless man. For this character I acted timid and shied away from conflict. It was important to develop my skill at multi-roling as it is imperative that my characters are distinctly different to match my non-realistic theatre stopping the audience from being immersed into my performance letting them consciously think about what they are witnessing achieving my dramatic aim.

As a dancer, one of the scenes I had most creative input into was the final movement scene which shows my illness worsening. To make the movement pieces effective I offered different positions we could form with our bodies and those we liked we chose to develop further. It was important that we were confident when

performing otherwise we could be seriously injured as some of the movements have a high risk level.

Throughout the process of devising our piece there have been numerous health and safety risks which we have had to analyse and prevent any of these leading to injury. Most of these risks occurred during the movement piece especially when I had to be lifted off the ground. We started on crash mats with Michael spotting the lifts behind. To understand how the landing would work safely we first tried out the move on the floor and only when we were comfortable we moved into the air.

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