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.
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