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Final post in my blog :)

Love costs nothing

Evaluation:

I think that the performance went well, there wasn't a moment of "uh oh that went really wrong" however I think the flow to the piece was really stagnated. But first let's talk about the positives.

The opening - the audience coming in and being placed as Plebs or bosses was fab! The audience's faces were shocked, I remember one woman who look surprised she was being applauded by the chorus when she hadn't even done anything!Calling people Plebs and moving them into their seats just filled the room with laughter and was a great opening to the play. The music the audience entered to was "Money (that's what I want)" The buzzy music and the happy feel in the air made a great start. That was the first good thing! 

As the game show continued - dressing up the audience and the cards was a huge success and I think because they weren't expecting to be part of it, it was so much more fun for them and something a little different. 

The strongest devised pieces were the Police *sponsored by Durex*, Britain's Got Benefits and finally The Apprentice. They just owned the stage - I think what was so good about them was the consistency of the choices they made. The Focus Group devised piece I did, didn't really make clear choices in what we were trying to portray but the Apprentice was short and sweet. The whole ensemble of everyone laughing created this mocking tone which worked so well! 

The Police repeating certain lines and the slick exchange of sentences just made the relationship between the two coppers bouncy and flamboyant and there was never a dull moment! 

Britain's Got Benefits was a great way to end the whole performance! I can't even explain why!

The ending was strong and purposeful and was perfect! 

Note to self: The groups that were the best made clear strong choices about what their message was and how they were going to show it.

My scene for indulge could of gone worse - it wasn't terrible. I made sure my character was a "bossy" woman and I gave it my all! I remembered my lines and thoroughly enjoyed playing her - the scene flowed well and it did not mess up. 

I would however made the transition into that scene much better in fact most of the transitions from scene to scene were a little slow and let the piece down a little but nothing major.

The character's for focus group could of been much bigger and even more over the top! It needed more energy and more pace and we didn't use the Placards in the end because they kept falling off. Stronger tape next time. 

I think that the whole performance was incredible it just needed to be cleaner and more decisive in devised sections. The Price and Indulge were really good and there was never a dull moment with them. The characters stayed strongly in Indulge and in the Price.

I have immensely enjoyed doing this Political Performance! I really have! I have felt so creative and excited and I was so proud of what we created! We did a topic that has always triggered something in me and now I feel even stronger about expressing my opinion about these issues but also it has spurred me onto write more things to do with current Politics! I love Brecht and his way of theatre! 

The End. 

Final Rehearsals!

And so finally...the day of the show had arrived. All my props were packed, lines were learnt, music ready and the day was about to begin. 

Game show 

The Game show really moulded everything together - without it, the performance would of been dull and bland. By bringing in the audience straight into the show and getting them to roll the dice was really effective, straight away the V effect was in use! 

The cards for the Plebs and Rich men are hilarious and have this, ironic sad but funny element to it - the fake audience (performers) can really over exaggerate the sounds they make as they come in to make it even more effective! Just to have this build up of noise and commotion and to keep the atmosphere high. Such a good section! Everyone in that scene when rehearsing is just so committed to their characters - really over plays them! 

and the Price
The price is a difficult but interesting play - everyone becomes the isle is a good use for the whole cast and fits well with the changing from the end of Indulge, when everyone is marching, to the opening of the Price. The cashier's monotone voice builds this suspension and I believe this will irritate both the audience and characters. The play is very shocking and I think, because the way it is written and the fact that the characters are very casual about buying a dead baby it really works. I think this is a good use of "slap and tickle". 

Indulge

Indulge
by Andri Snær Magnason and Thorleifu Örn Arnarsson

The whole short play explores the different ideas to do with Capitalism and focus groups. It also shows the idea of how image is important in order to be successful in the business world. In the History A level I am taking, we are discussing the idea of Capitalism and Communism and how they changed through the British Empire and how it has affected the economy to date. We also looked at China which is politically Communist however economically Capitalist and since China is meant to take over America's Capitalist rein it's interesting to see how the country completely contradicts is "communist" rule for Capitalism. The idea of Marxism and equality is something that comes a long with capitalism as it is the left wing of the situation. Socialism and fascism and all that politics in between all add up to some sort of power hungry leader and results down to labour, resources and selling. The play indulge shows the Capitalist Right Wing view and the understanding how this capitalist society works. 

This article that I found online shows the negative sides to Capitalism and how it makes the Rich get Richer and the poor get poorer. How is this fair? It gives statistics and evidence to support this theory. Although communism looks good on paper the reality doesn't always turn out to be as simple. 

The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin's Speech 

This isn't entirely to do with Capitalism but it was something I researched because along with Marxism (communism) and Leninism there comes dictatorship. So if capitalism isn't working will we go with Communism? And if we do go with communism then will we have a dictator? Will this make everything better? Is it really worth having an equal society with little inequalities? Is capitalism such a bad thing? All these questions need to be answered. Charlie Chaplin's speech has a quote that really stuck out to me which was "While a dictator free's himself he enslaves everyone else" This is an incredible outstanding speech that captured my imagination. 

REHEARSING PROCESS

Agnes is this sassy boss bitch and I cannot wait to perform her. While rehearsing, I realised I need to add that Brecht Technique with being completely over the top. During the rehearsals I admit I am only really giving 55% when I should be giving at least 35% more than that! Just own the stage with her boss like nature. The gestus of putting the lipstick on really represents the violent and red nature of the piece. The scene I explore talks about focus groups and how they might help the company in changing their image. Each character has a personality that shows very strongly. Ingvar an egotistical idiot and Geir a hater of everyone. The contrast of those characters there is bound to be tension and there is defiantly a change in atmosphere. 
When we transition through different characters there is always a constant emotion or action that never changes. Costume is important to identify each character and for each Character there is something fitting for all of them - Agnes, Red Lip Stick, Ingvar, Suit Jacket and Geir, Glasses. 
All in all the first short play of our piece is very intriguing and has really developed over the weeks.

Adverts!
The seven deadly sins! What are they? Part of Indulge explored all the different deadly sins - claiming the negative for the company's image. Each group is given a sin and Wrath goes from anger to passion....lust goes from lust to sexy....creatively cunning! Each advert that people did really explored the sin. Greed and Pride were two adverts which were really strong. Greed, desire for material wealth or self gain. Wondering around the stage looking for money over and over again repeating the word money was incredibly effective! Worked so well! Short, fast and consistent. Pride's approach was really good! One girl just being bombarded by everyone to buy all these followers and filters and selfie sticks and ending up having the peer pressure to buy all of them! Love it.The compelation of them all together really gave a rushed atmosphere and you didn't know when to look where or when! The show girls announcing the adverts as well really gave this smooth transition for each one. 
Pride - also known as Vanity.

Envy - desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.

Gluttony - desire to consume more than that which one requires.

Lust - craving for the pleasures of the body.

Anger - Also known as Wrath.

Greed - desire for material wealth or gain     

Sloth - avoidance of physical or spiritual work.

Devising the piece: Focus Group

FOCUS GROUPS 

Definition: a group of people assembled to participate in a discussion about a product before it is launched, or to provide feedback on a political campaign, television series, etc.

IDEAS

As a group we developed several different ideas to do with focus groups. We looked at adverts that Lidl and Dove have previously done where they compare products to each other or do a survey to do with certain products and we thought of doing something similar. Having a would you rather game where you compare two different extremes and see which one people would like best. This was our original idea that we came up with and we started to build it up as the thought process went on. We wanted to use a couple of Bretch techniques to create the V effect: We established different techniques such as song, placards and narration. We were also pretty avid on having different stereotyping characters that would have placards on saying their inner and outer meanings.

We first established the two Essex Girls - one who is very sexual in her voice and body language and on her front placard it says that she is an extroverted sexually aware young woman and on the back of her the placard will say "virgin". The second Essex girl had her placard named "Joey Essex Dumb" and make her so oblivious to all that is going on around her - she will believe anything you say! And on the back of her placard we were going write "scared of rejection". She is dumb but kind and never wants to be alone, she makes her self dumb so that people will like her. We wanted to show that the target audience of the product is not like everyone else.

We we wanted to then juxtapose the two Essex girls with two "nerdy girls". We wanted one of the Nerdy girls to be extremely rude and on her placard it would say "if no one is as clever as me then they are not worth speaking to". And on the back placard we wanted it to say "really insecure". The other nerd was a star trek, star wars, doctor who, science loving girl who is an avid member of green peace and she is kind and lovely but also incredibly annoying with her dorky side - she likes to correct everyone, on the placard on her back will be "never want to be seen as a failure". By developing these characters more we could establish the V effect when coming to performing. The placards would explain the character's inner and outer self and would intrigue the audience more.

The final character we had to come up with ideas for the only male character - the man selling the stuff. We wanted him to be cocky and self aware and just a right old dic....degrading masoginistic bum. We would open the scene with him talking about selling the products and really expressing the need and want he has for selling the products and the fact he only wants to make money and to exploit the girls. On his front placard it said "an egotistical man" and on the back "a man who needs money for his sick mum".

The next step in this process was to establish the to extreme comparisons we were going to ask the focus group - they started off being:

Katy Prices Boobs  or Anorexic chest

Umpa Lumpa or Irish Albino

Pig fat poison injected face or 90 year old crackling cooger

Brazilian wax or Caveman mayhem 

The Essex girls obviously answer all the ones on the left and the nerdy girls first of all question what he is asking and go against the status quo. 

At first we thought this was a good idea but after performing we understood that it was just becoming dull and not giving the performance that much interest. So we then went on to develop it further with the feedback given. 
Breaking the forth wall and pausing the performance were two things that were suggested and we will defiantly make those more aware in the performance. We also advised to make the items the company are selling less repulsive and more appealing so instead of Katy Price's boobs we could go for "succulent bouncy balloons" Instead of Umpa Lumpa you could say "gorgeous Brazilian tan". By making the products sound more attractive you can establish this sense of positivity and fakeness. To make the products more visible to the audience we were going to show them around, having people standing on the table advertising how wonderful the products are. 

PAUSING - We thought that every time that someone says anything negative about the product they are trying to sell that Vlad pauses the scene and changes their words around to make them like the project and if they still refuse to like it he then twists their words even more so and poses them to be negative people. 

This is the starter for our piece and with further development and rehearsing I think it could be really successful. 

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