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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My small human existence in 270 words

I am Daisy and well I was here to wreck and mend the world . I love, hated, talked, fought, reason, and irritated people while I maintained a relationship with them. I was here to follow my dreams but to also fail them as well. I had come over loss and grief and learn't from my mistakes. I valued friends and family over money and had a fear of being alone. I expressed my creativity not through being academic but through creativity. I persevere when trying to help and I felt guilt on an absolutely large scale. I have had 7 different partners most of which have been dickheads and broken my heart, well mainly the other way round. I breathed, I ate, I pissed, I pooped, I drank, I was lactose intolerant and I never believed in the idea of marriage - and never really understood what the point of it was and never really thought it mattered too much to make an affect on my human existence. I was here to make change politically and socially and I hoped that the change I would make would last. I was born in Kingston Hospital and grew up in Elm road until I witnessed the birth of my brother. After three years I moved to St Leonards Road and decorated my room terribly. Years passed and I'd left primary school and 2 years into secondary school my parents finally got married after 14 years of being together! After that I finished GCSEs, did a BBC 2 documentary and wasted the rest of my summer getting drunk and dancing around with all my friends.

The Success of the Protest

Free The Period

So break time, canteen, blood covered tracksuit bottoms and a lot of tampons what could possibly go wrong? 

The amount of people that felt uncomfortable with the notion of ttampons was rather amusing an made the protest all the more entertaining. We started off just standing in the places we agreed in the canteen but decided this wasn't productive enough so we ended up walking around intervening with everyone and discussing the topic of tampon tax with them. I think we successfully made people both men and women aware of the issues concerning tampon tax. The graphically designed cupcakes were a winner with everyone, no one particularly wanted to buy one and for some odd reason people started to give money as a "donation" which was rather interesting..... 

By having conversations with people of a variety of genders and ages it was fascinating to see their response - when I approached people their first response was "yeah she looks normal", they looked down to the tampons in my jewellery case and went "oh my goodness this girl is mental" - for some they walked away from one look at me and for others people just were like "yeah...this girl has some good points and now I am going to walk away slowly and continue on with my day". 

By doing this protest I have been enlightened about protests and what I could do for next time, probably make the protest more interactive and and to have more of a slap and tickle - just to make sure that it sticks. 

The political protest was one that we did in depth research about 

MPs reject "tampon tax"

This article was something that took my eye - 'MPs reject "tampon tax" in commons vote' and it made our group just so enraged to do something! And we did! 

When I was going round to people selling the luxurious items of tampons I used a couple of references from Russell Howard's Good News - by using some comedy element to the protest it created this funny illusion that some people already had heard and could relate back to again. 

Tampon Cakes ... wanna try? Such a simple recipe.

All in all I think that the protest was a successful one - our research was done well and we put it into practice and I hope that people are going home to their families and friends discussing Tampons over the dinner table. 

Tampon Tax

Political Protest - Tampon Tax

Our group brainstormed different ideas to make a protest - a lot about the NHS being cut and gun crime in the US arose but the one thing that all us women thought would be good to protest about was the Tampon Tax. Any sanitary product is seen to be a "luxury" item and therefore has a 5% tax on all sanitary product products. If you watch the video below: Russell Howard sums up Tampon Tax in a rather amusing way.

So we chose our location to do the protest:

The canteen. 

What we would wear:

Over exaggerated blood stained white leggings.

Activities we are going to do:

Having an auction selling Tampons as if they were Diamond Earrings. 

"and here we have a smashing pair of earrings with 5% extra tax on - - such a luxury ladies you might want to treat your selves to some of them and gentlemen it's a good idea to get the mrs some as they are priceless gorgeous item that will just be spoiling them! Go on treat your self!"

And since cake decorations are seen as a necessity we are going to decorate and sell cakes with bloody tampons on them - just for affect. Usually in the canteen cakes are sold for £1 so we worked out what they would be 5% extra taxed and so we added 5p to the price. 

BBC News Beat Article - Why Tampons are Taxed

This news article above explains why Tampons are taxed and what shocked me was the fact they used to have a tax of 17.5% and now they have resorted it down to 5%? Why not 0%? And this article then clarifies why.

You can't just change the tax rates in the EU, even if that's what every single person in the UK wanted (which it isn't).

"The make-up of the EU Commission means that all 28 countries involved must agree on any changes.

In other areas of the EU there's something called quality majority voting, which means it only takes a few core member states to agree on an idea to push it through.

But this isn't true for taxation.

And in fact the UK government doesn't want it to be either. They would prefer the voting process to stay as it is."

I can understand that the taxation cuts on certain items must have a majority but why don't we try to get the majority? By protesting! Come on let's do it! 

Let's just hope that this Protest get's the message across - tampons are not a luxury item....end of. 

Epic Theatre

Bertolt Brecht

Epic Theatre 

What is so Epic about Epic Theatre?

In the lesson we did several discoveries about Epic theatre:

Gestus is a defining part of Brecht's work, Gestus can be defined as gestures with emotion and or intention. There is no subtle thing about gestus, it's not about naturalism anymore (bye bye Stanislavski) but about the obviousness of the movement and imaginative uses of gesture. We experimented with this idea of gestus by doing different tasks. 
Statues 
So what would change if we were given these different stimuli?

Romeo and Juliet?                                    Hero? 

We were given several stimuli to adopt a pose and to observe how our physicality changed.The image of the hero shows a man, with a high chest, hands on hips and a chin facing upwards. Almost everyone in the company adopted this pose or something similar. This allowed us to experiment with gestus first and got us to understand the theory before executing it within performance. Romeo and Juliet with a partner again had Romeo on his Knees and Juliet almost fainting at the sight of him. This other example let us explore how gestus can be used through two people and is wildly interesting to watch and observe. 

Another example that we explored was the Nursery rhyme task. You guess the other person's nursery rhyme while they are trying to guess yours at the same time. Mine was "Wind the bobbin up" and my partner's was - well I couldn't guess it....? So when we did it the second time she and I both exaggerated our moves in order for us to both get each other's. And the second time it worked and I got her's which was "Mary had a little lamb". By doing this task it allowed my to understand how exaggerated you have to be in order for people to understand what you are trying to portray. 

Stanislavski is this man that is all about naturalism and finding the inner character. Bretch is like "no thanks let's challenge that!" He wants to make you think about what you are watching. 

The V Effect! 

Bretch wants you to question what you are watching! He wants you to think and judge what you are watching, Political theatre is all about debate and controversy. The V effect separates you from the performance, rather than watching the play you are involved with in it and leave with a debate or message. In one of Brecht's Essays he wrote this 

"playing in such a way that the audience was hindered from simply identifying itself with the characters in the play. Acceptance or rejection of their actions and utterances was meant to take place on a conscious plane, instead of, as hitherto, in the audience's subconscious"

Brecht really wants the audience to not just watch but to think. The power of theatre is so strong why not use it? A normal play doesn't challenge it hides you away from the true message it is trying to portray. 

Different forms of the V effect are: Placards, narration (breaking the forth wall), song, snapping out of character and gestus. Each one of these will allow you to be different and in our Performance Workshop it will be interesting to see how we can use these to portray our message.

To take this idea of the V effect into practice we did the contrast of two people who are politicians. One was a believable politician and the a fake politician - it was hard to show the huge difference in both of them without being too sarcastic. Getting the two mixed up is actually quite easy...surprisingly! To be obviously distrusting I put a very creepy fake smile on and said one sentence saying "I will defiantly not keep to my policies" and had several people applauding and fainting around me. The other had just one person shaking the other's hand; this to me wasn't obvious enough that they were trustful enough, if they had maybe had a placard saying the truth it would mean a lot more and be obvious to the audience and given a bigger statement. 

Slap and tickle is used to shock the audience. For example you could humour the audience and make the performance very amusing however you can then change the tone of the performance to be really serious. So you tickle the audience with some humour or a light topic and then you slap them right in the face with a dark and horrifying topic - this huge juxtaposition makes you think and hits you right in the face and makes you see the topic almost more serious than you would usually would see it. 

Over the lesson by looking at these different task you can understand the different ways in order to shock the audience. Bretch as a practitioner is trying to make you discuss the performance and make you question what you are watching.

Yet another example In another task there was an element of song involved - we used the classic Brittany Spears, a dash of Abba and to top it all off we added the Rolling Stones. It was rather effective using these songs, people were more interested because they recognised the songs and watched the performance and listened to what was being said more, this I found was very effective - note to self! Song is very useful!

What is Political Theatre?

Political Theatre

Political Theatre is something that is meant to challenge you, as an audience member, to make you think and get involved. It can be thought provoking, or to challenge your ideas or even help strengthen your ideas. Political theatre can be there to shock - Bretch's advise to "slap and tickle" comes into play here, the idea to make light out of a serious situation but then smack the audience in the face (not literally, well maybe...) with a really hard hitting message. Political theatre can educate you into current or previous issues and takes your on a journey of discovery. 

Some examples of Political Plays:

The Crucible - Arthur Miller. During the 1950s/60s there was a persecution against pretty much anyone who had artistic value in America - McCarthyism reined over America - The Fear Of Communism. Arthur Miller wrote a play about the Salem Witch Trials which expressed the political idea that if you do not confess to being a witch (communist) then you must be one for denying it!

Conversations Not Suitable For The American Dinner Table - Tongue Tied Theatre - Sol Max - This was a production that used just masks and puppetry, really effective. It covered the issue of guns being legal in America - it was played by one person and there was no really protagonist of the play just a commotion of different stereotyping personalities with, in depth, funny or upsetting monologues. The use of the masks and puppets gave this V Effect to the performance. 

These are some example of Political theatre that raise awareness about contemporary issues. They prove that Political theatre is there to challenge you and to show politics from different perspectives - and insightful and clever way to be active about current issues.