We rehearsed our protest in the few hours before we had to publically present them. We had decided after our initial run through that our piece would be most effective in the canteen, so we practiced setting it up in a similar space with similar environmental qualities, including a tables and benches. We then ran through each of our "moments", as this is what we had decided to do after our test run last week. My moment stayed the same as it had worked well in the test, but we came up with more distinct ones for others, including a moment that demonstrated the effects of autism and a moment where a prisoner passes on information via drawings. This was effective in the protest as the multimedia meant that the audience continued to be engaged.
We also worked with our props and costume for the first time. We all had white overalls on to symbolise prison jumpsuits, and we wrote information about our illnesses on them to passively convey more statistics to the audience. If we did this again, I would have waited to put the overalls on as they got slightly damaged before the beginning of the protest.
Our protest went well because we engaged the audience constantly, both shocking them with bold spots that left them wanting to continue watching as well as giving them information meaning they had learnt something. This relates back to our first lesson when we discussed what theatre's purpose was, so because we were successful in doing this we can be sure that we created an innovative, exciting and important performance. We were well rehearsed, so everything ran smoothly, allowing us to play and bring some of the original plan to improvise back on the day. We also were well prepared in terms of knowledge, which is vital when touching on subjects such as this as it is easy to offend people without proper knowledge.
If I was to redo this protest, I would not change much, but one thing that I would change was the involvement with other prisoners, as often it felt quite isolated, that we were not engaged with each other so the group aspect did not seem as important. I would also make an effort to make time for audience interaction, as the brief spells that there were during the piece were some of the most truthful acting moments, as well as the most harrowing for the audience
We also worked with our props and costume for the first time. We all had white overalls on to symbolise prison jumpsuits, and we wrote information about our illnesses on them to passively convey more statistics to the audience. If we did this again, I would have waited to put the overalls on as they got slightly damaged before the beginning of the protest.
Our protest went well because we engaged the audience constantly, both shocking them with bold spots that left them wanting to continue watching as well as giving them information meaning they had learnt something. This relates back to our first lesson when we discussed what theatre's purpose was, so because we were successful in doing this we can be sure that we created an innovative, exciting and important performance. We were well rehearsed, so everything ran smoothly, allowing us to play and bring some of the original plan to improvise back on the day. We also were well prepared in terms of knowledge, which is vital when touching on subjects such as this as it is easy to offend people without proper knowledge.
If I was to redo this protest, I would not change much, but one thing that I would change was the involvement with other prisoners, as often it felt quite isolated, that we were not engaged with each other so the group aspect did not seem as important. I would also make an effort to make time for audience interaction, as the brief spells that there were during the piece were some of the most truthful acting moments, as well as the most harrowing for the audience
No comments:
Post a Comment