Lesson 6: The Debating Chamber Final Rehearsal

We began the lesson by choreographing an opening to our show. This was set to the song "Standing in the way of Contol" by Gossip and involved our class dressed as politicians and performing a high energy routine that demonstrated our approach to the topics being covered in the show. This was followed by a mock parliament scene on which we explained the course of events for the evening as well as mentioning some of the recent events that require pieces like this to be put on. It was interesting to analyse the opening as there were a number of Brechtian techniques used here that made this very different to our first term performance. We mixed with the audience at the beginning and chatted, making a clear difference between the character and the actor. We also went through little to no character development for the opening, instead using power and energy to convey emotion. Finally, our costume contrasted with our actions, further disassociating is from the characters and their political opinions, allowing the audience a more subjective view as to what it meant.

After staging the opening, we had a final chance to run through our pieces and gain some feedback from our peers and tutor. We added two new scenes, including a scene where the group offer me water repeatedly to show how there is a lack of respect for the victim in the text and and another where they hand be pieces of paper with information on capital punishment written on which I proceed to screw up and throw away to represent the grotesque nature of the people asking the victim to sign someone's life away. These went down well and were understood by our peers, who enjoyed taking the facts as they were thrown as it was an interactive way to give information without bombarding the audience. We learnt hat our piece was short enough for us to add some extra pieces, including a scene where we paraded the cast around tied to a rope as if they are being shown off before the slaughter. We also learnt that we needed to change the end slightly as t was not safe to tip a table on the surface we were performing on. We instead used a chair as it was easier to maneuvre.