Today we performed our political theatre piece - ‘The Debating Chamber’ - to an audience. Overall I think the performance was successful in its tightness and refined subject matter, as we all clearly knew what we wanted to say in bringing the social issues to the attention of the audience.
The piece was fresh and exciting, and unlike our performance of ‘The Seagull’ last term, which was done three times with different actors in each scene. In this case, the audience had to stay present throughout to unravel the whole idea, whereas with ‘The Seagull’, the audience knew what to expect from the rest of the piece after it had been performed the first time, as well as it being a popular story. The audience therefore were more likely to have been completely immersed, which is essential in the genre of political theatre because the struggles of the characters are often the struggles of real people, and it is imperative that attention is payed to their story in order to inspire social change.
In terms of my group with our performance of ‘The Visit’, I thought we were able to relate the ideas of a piece written decades ago to the modern day in an effective way, by using pop culture references such as ‘The Jeremy Kyle Show’, as well as Beyonce’s clothing label ‘Ivy Park’ as an example of garments in high public demand although they have been made in sweatshops . These links put the issue into a modern day perspective, so that our audience could see how money’s power to corrupt is a prevalent issue that hasn’t changed since ‘The Visit’ was written, and in many ways, with the ability for markets to distribute on a global scale, the issue has grown worse. I feel we also made good use of humour, song, and dance - three key Brechtian techniques that aid in the ‘Slap and Tickle’ effect, which reels the audience into a comfortable position with light themes, and then is inverted into a dark reflection of reality. Our use of this effect made the audience believe that the plight of Claire Zachanassian in the story is not one they can relate to -which is a main part of Brecht’s distanciation technique (not relating to the characters) - and then highlighted how relevant the issue is in the world today with serious tones at the end of the piece. The audience then had to re-evaluate their understanding of the issue that they formed at the beginning, and how it had changed with the addition of our factual evidence at the end. After taking on the Director’s note that the use of gestus needed to be increased, it was used in a much greater amount by the time we performed the piece. The actor playing Claire made use of actions like smoking a cigar and stroking her fur coat, as well as myself and the other actor playing the mayor hunching our backs over to resemble the stance of someone villainous, and clasping our hands together in a calculating manner. This use of gestus greatly improved how the audience could compare what characters were saying (which could set them up as good natured) with their actions, in order to make a judgement on which side to take, like in Brecht’s idea that each performance should be like a boxing match; one against the other.
However, I regret that we didn’t rehearse enough with other aspects of character, like costume, or placards. The comical moustaches that myself and the other Mayor planned to wear (to make the difference in the multiple roles we were playing more obvious) were not tested out at all, and so we were unaware of how they wouldn’t stick properly on our faces. This resulted in me tearing mine off quite early in the piece as it hindered my acting by constantly slipping down my mouth. In the piece, we also throw off the jackets that portray us as the rich, and flounce around the stage as the young women in the restaurant scene. By not rehearsing this costume change enough, I found myself unable to get the jacket back on in time as it was inside out, and had to abandon the cause. I therefore delivered the last of my lines as the mayor whilst still in the young woman’s costume, which I’m sure confused some audience members! I also relied on my jacket to aid in my gestus as the Mayor, by gripping the lapel to insinuate authority, and using its broad shape to indicate my masculinity, and so the loss of it deeply hindered my acting. On the other hand, I also feel I should have relied less on voice and costume to provide gestus, and instead made bolder physical changes (like waddling with a fat belly, or remaining hunched over), so that I would in no way have lost the character. Secondly, if we had rehearsed the changes enough, I’m sure we’d have found a way to make them slicker, aiding to the aesthetic of the piece in turn and improving it professionally and artistically.
In terms of what I have learned as an actor, I wanted to abandon all that I had learned during the naturalistic term. This included the techniques like unitisation and physical action, which I think would have really helped me in deliverance of lines, and even coming up with character physicality that would have aided me in gestus. I know now that the genre shouldn’t dictate the way that I approach a text in order to act in the best way I can. I can take something different from each practitioner I learn about, and as I know that the Stanislavskian principle of unitising the lines and working out physical objectives really aids my acting, I will carry that with me until I potentially find a better technique. From this Brechtian term however, I have greatly developed my creativity in devising work, in a way that I didn’t have the freedom to do using Stanislavskian technique. I feel I can approach a text with lots of ideas on costume, and how to stage the story, which I think comes from the surreal and free way that Brecht wanted his pieces to be done, and this will really benefit me during directing work in the oncoming year.
Brechtian technique also greatly influenced ‘The Debating Chamber’ on the whole as we all multi roled by simply being politicians in the opening, then ourselves as we discussed the effects of the Eu on our generation, and finally, whatever combination of characters we played in our separate pieces. The setup of the opening, which was very physical and included song, was extremely Brechtian as it was subversive and broke the 4th wall multiple times during our address to the audience. The opening also acted as the ‘title sequence’ for the rest of the play in its episodic form - as each separate piece came together like small snippets to create a bigger picture, although completely unrelated in themes, but tied together in their effort to bring to light social issues.
 |
| Our commitment wall |
The whole show left the audience with a lot of opinions and questions, and on the whole inspired the beginnings of the change that we wanted to ignite. It was easy to measure this because we asked all audience members to commit to doing one thing on post it note, to improve one of the things discussed during the show. We finished with a whole wall of post it notes, with really relevant but achievable commitments from each audience member, like ‘I will challenge homophobia in my social circle’, or ‘I will embrace my curly hair’ in response to the piece on racism (which commented on eurocentric beauty), as well as ‘I will avoid Starbucks’ after the piece of tax havens.
 |
| A few of the commitments |
There were not, sadly, many commitments that could have been influenced by ‘The Visit’, and in retrospect this was due to the fact that we didn’t show the audience an obvious way to change the issue. We discussed sweatshops, and how students in private schools get better opportunities than those with less money, but the audience were not given a way to challenge these issues. I admire the group that made a piece inspired by ‘The Laramie Project’ about a young man killed because of his homosexuality for this reason. This group showed a real life story to highlight the seriousness of the issue, and wrote a spoken word piece beginning with the important question ‘What difference does it make to your day, If I am straight, trans, lesbian or gay?’ . In this they directly asked the audience to reflect on their feelings towards the question, and then they were able to easily decide if they needed to change their own perception of the issue, leading to the formulation of a very easy commitment such as ‘I will respect the sexual orientation of others.’
Although I think the group made the a Brechtian piece in terms of it being political, they could have made use of more of the practitioner's technique, such as the use of ‘Not… But…’, which could have been very interesting in highlighting the thoughts and fears of homophobes, so that even people who ardently believe in gay rights can take away an idea about how hate comes from ignorance, and the key to a better future is education instead of shunning. From this group, as a result of their pinning the issue to a person (Matthew Shepard, who was the murdered young man at the centre of the play), the audience were able to understand entirely the effects of the issue. Whereas our group made a whole piece about the issue, with no real stories attached to it that the audience could seek truth from, and so I think we could have greatly improved the piece by choosing a real life situation to parallel the plight of Claire instead of all the little stories we provided at the very end.
 |
| My favourite commitment! |
During this project, I have learned that political theatre will always be an important and relevant genre, as there will always be the need to improve society as it evolves and takes on new ideas. It is the most ‘sociable’ of the theatre sub-genres, as it relies directly on a dialogue with the audience in order to further spread the message, and we did this by having an actual conversation with the viewers to discuss their commitments. Political theatre can also be the easiest to create and be passionate about, as it takes inspiration from real life situations, and proves that once we understand the plights of each other, the world becomes smaller and smaller, as we become one body instead of separate countries, faiths, and languages. Through Brecht’s techniques, it can be surreal in form, but I realise now that it cannot be surreal in story. The audience must be able to locate their place in the issue, and the world that they see on stage, otherwise the passion for change that we aim to instill in them won’t be planted, because they must care. The most important thing is to make the audience care, perhaps not by relating to characters as Brecht believed, but by understanding that although the people they see on stage may be hard to relate to, the characters are merely representations of themselves, and they must strive to make the reality on stage different to their own, before it ends in fire and brimstone.
I have really enjoyed this term, because of the freedom I have been given to discuss issues important to me, as well as learning about the world through the discoveries of the others working on different pieces. I also know that what I have learnt is important in the next part of my training, because, in the words of Kate Tempest, ‘We live in times that are so mental, we can’t tell a story without it feeling political.’
