The price - Performance Evaluation

Our final performance wasn't successful. In our first full run through in front of the other classes it went better then it did for the final performance. The first problem with our piece I think was the length. It was only 25 minutes long, and though it isn't always good to compare the other classes work was much longer. I think this meant we did not allow ourselves enough time to get a strong political message across. We could have devised more work based on the ideas from the script, to add more depth to the original script. I don't think adding in one scene at the beginning and the songs into it was enough work to have devised.

The songs are what were at fault on our final performance. There was too big a gap in between the cue for the songs and the songs being played. This meant that the energy of our piece dropped completely. I think it was clear to the audience that this was not our way of alienating the audience but a technical fault. The biggest issue we faced was when we were supposed to do the reprise of money money money with the checkout girls and have the whole cast join in with the second verse. What happened was that instead of the song starting from the beginning again, it started from where it finished on the first performance of money money money. This meant the timings were all off when the checkout girls went to pop their balloon bellies and that the music had finished by the time we went to take our bows. I think this threw us as we were performing making it really difficult for us to commit fully to the last song. It meant that the checkout girls belly popping was out of time to the music. When speaking to audience members afterwards they said they didn't notice but as performers we all felt the energy drop.

Despite the technical malfunction the checkout girls section was definitely the best part of our play. They really created ugly Brecht style characters and fully committed to their song, costume and movements. When watching them work in performance and in rehearsal, they all seemed to be pushing themselves more and more and they worked well of each other as a group. Their use of voice combined with movement was really effective. They all changed their voices and accents to fit in with their character type. There was a clear checkout girl stereotype that they all created and all portrayed in a similar way which worked as a Brechtian technique. It meant the audience wasn't going to build up any kind of emotional connection with the individual checkout girls, but that they were going to question the stereotype being shown to them.

Personally, I felt like my rehearsal process was stunted by the fact that my scene partner was only present at one rehearsal before the final day of performance. Although I am aware that my scene is my responsibility with this type of play where is completely dialogue based it was very difficult to develop on my own. For it to have been more successful I would have needed more time to work through with my partner developing a conversation style and working on the relationship between our characters.

I don't think the man and women character gave us much of an opportunity, like the checkout girls or the babies did, to create really over the top stereotypes of characters. Of course you can create stereotypes of men and women easily. For example, women wear lots of make-up, spend ages getting ready, are needy and emotional and men are dirty, lazy, watch football, only use women for one thing. However, none of these stereotyped had any relevance to the play itself or the political message we were putting across and the issues we were trying to discuss. This made me feel like my performance wasn't truly Brechtian and I felt limited in terms of what I could do to extend my character.

Alienation was achieved when we spoke about the dead babies. The response from the audience was clear that they were appalled at this concept and immediately questioned it as it was so abnormal. However, they did not emotionally connect with it as we did not have real babies for sale but teenage boys dressed as babies, which was both funny, strange, and it allowed the audience to detach themselves from them as characters.

What could have made our piece more politically relevant was if we created more pieces based on other economic disasters throughout history. This could have given the audience more to think about as opposed to just this distorted world we created in our supermarket scene. If we were to do this again I think exploring the political issues more would have been helpful. I don't feel like we spent much time in class discussing the issues we were dealing with, this meant the intention of our piece could be lost on some people both performers and audience.

Approaching the Script - Annotated Script

Marxism

Brecht was a life long committed Marxist. This means that because he was a political theatre maker the political viewpoint he would be trying to get across to the audience through his work would be that of Marxism. Marxism is based on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. They wrote the communist manifesto. Many countries have had communist governments such as China (currently) and Russia (1900s). The mainstream view on communism today is that it is too idealistic, corrupt and an impossible system to run successfully. However, the communism in Russia and in China today isn't the communism written about it the communist manifesto. Yes, it was based on the same ideologies, but the corruption was linked to the individual leaders and countries not to the ideology itself.

The interesting thing about Karl Marx himself was that he never spent his time trying to push forward his ideas. He also spent most of his life in complete poverty along with his wife, most of his children died before he did. Engels however, came from a wealthy family, the sort of family who profited well from the capitalist society Engels and Marx were so critical of. However, Engels funded much of Marx's life expenses throughout their friendship.

Marxist ideals are what make-up the origins of left wing and socialist politics. The British Labour party in its roots was a socialist party. Although in modern day politics it has changed and evolved far from this, some of the same values are still held. Marxists are very critical of capitalist society. They see the gap between the rich and poor as a great inequality in society. They argue that nobody should own their own property. They think everyone should pay into the government and that the government and the state should be able to fund people's living expenses. This would mean no divide between the rich and the poor and that everyone is equal.

Marxists would look at people's social class and see it as a major inequality. The lack of social mobility in some societies, especially in most European societies in 1848 when the manifesto was published, was an issue. If you were born into poverty, you would stay in poverty. If you were born into a family where your father was a blacksmith, you would become a blacksmith. With the rise of Marxism, and in Britain more socialism this has changed. With the welfare state and free education for children, people have more individualism and can choose what they want to do much more then they could in Marx's time.

Karl Marx was kicked out of most countries in Europe for the ideas he wrote about, he ended up in England. This is where he died and is now buried in High gate cemetery, where the British Communist party requested him to be re buried from his original plot, to a plot on the main walkway for people to see.

Playwright Research - Lena Kitsopoulou

She was born in Athens, Greece in 1971. She studied at the Karlous Koun Technis Theatre drama school. She is a writer, director and actor. She has worked with the Greek National Theatre and other greek theatres as well as in film. 

In 2007 she was awarded the new writer prize from a literary magazine called Diavazo for a collection of short stories she wrote called 'bats'. She was selected as a part of theatre uncut, and this is why she wrote 'the price'.

Play Research - The Price

The Price was written by Lena Kitsopulou as a part of Theatre Uncut.  Theatre Uncut was created as a response to the cuts made in UK spending in 2011.  They chose 16 playwrights from Greece, Syria, Spain, US and Iceland.  They wrote short plays in response to the issues they countries were facing such as the Eurozone crisis, global capitalism and the economic downturn.

Theater uncut was born at the young vic theater.The aim was to create a forum where people can create theater which addresses politics and issues to do with the economy and within countries. Theater uncut makes the plays it uses available for anybody to use copyright free. 

The Price was written originally in Greek then translated into English. Kitsopoulou wrote it in response the the debt crisis in Greece, which had great effects on the entire euro zone. 

This video was helpful in simplifying the issues regarding the debt crisis in Greece. It highlights some of the key issues involved in our play and how it is history being recycled. It can feed into my character work when trying to think about what my character type would be thinking about.

Rehearsal Notes

We have tried to use the ideas of epic theatre in our play. We have done this with the use of our songs and the strange events that happen in our piece. In rehearsals it feels like our piece hasn't got enough energy and pace. The use of the trolley with a person pretending to be a baby makes it difficult to move around the space quickly and easily. This slower pace works in some sections, where we need to look like we are trying to pick things out, but at some points the pace needs to be able to lift up in order to keep the audience interested.

The songs overall work well. I think the one that is best right now is the checkout girls 'money'. This is because they have committed to one stereotype character that they are all potraying and they sing the song as this character would. The women's song 'bills' got much  better today as we took some time to work through it and to bring out more negative attitudes towards our husbands. I think we have gained more confidence in the song this lesson, although there is still work to be done.

The man and women scenes are ok, they still need to be worked on for the performance. Some people need to go back to their scripts and learn the lines again so they really remember them. I think some people could do with thinking about what objective they are trying to communicate with the audience and about this idea of gestus and what they can do to make their attitudes clear. This is so when the audience come to see our piece they understand the message behind it.

The transitions between the pairs towards the ending of the play are part of what is slowing down our piece. We need to work through our scenes with the tranistions making them slicker, so they do not take way from the overall success of our piece. We could maybe do this by having people say a line at the same time, this would work in the beginning of my scene because the man asks women if she weighed the baby twice.

I think once we do a straight run through with everyone having learnt their lines, the songs being confident and the transitions being smoother the piece will feel a lot closer to being ready to perform. In our play because we are doing it in a Brechtian/ epic theatre stytle it doesn't matter if some things on stage looking messy or difficult because that will just add to them being reminded that they are watching a play, so long as we know what we are doing and why, the play should be successful.