Our performance as a group and as a class was, overall, excellent. We competed what we set out do do, presenting a range of political issues using Brechtian Technique and creating original responses to the text. The audience were encouraged at the end to write down something that they would do after being inspired by our piece, and the board was filled with some fantastic points. Overall, we set out to make the audience reconsider these things, and therefore we were successful.
One reason we were successful was because we kept in mind that this was political term. Our pieces did not necessarily align with our personal views, but we used our passion and commitment to our own political views; our own political awareness; to influence how we presented our pieces. This meant that all the pieces felt important, as if they were were issues that needed speaking about and could not be left ignored by those presenting it. This was vital as there were topics that of not handled correctly could have lost the audience's focus, leaving the next group to pick up the slack, which would not have been good ensemble work.
Another thing that led to success was the teamwork and ensemble ability form the he entire cast. This was very much an ensemble show, for most of the performance the performers are sitting and spectating. However, this did not mean hat we switched off, as this would have led to a lack of energy that would have sapped the life from the central performances. Instead, there was continued commitment and enjoyment of each other's work, leading to the audience feeling more open and relaxed, and ready to receive new information.
A third thing we did excellently was be open. This term, both in performance and in rehearsal, there was an atmosphere that felt as if we were far more comfortable sharing our personal views and accepting other's disagreements without disregarding their opinion. This led to an attitude in performance that it was far easier to take risks and experiment, be free to explore slightly different aspects of politics and character, as there would not be any judgement - we had a significant amount of trust in each other.
A final thing we did well that led to our success was using Brechtian techniques. All of our performances included Brechtian techniques of some sort: some were more obvious than others, but it was evident that everyone had made an effort to distance themselves from the naturalistic style we had studied last term in order to fully engage with this new style, adjusting accordingly and adding elements to this performance that would have been impossible in naturalism term.
One thing we could have improved on is the audience engagement. It became obvious at the start of our show that we all found t difficult to speak to the audience as if we were not here to entertain them, and this meant that some of the original energy was lost form our opening as there was not as stark a contrast between ourselves and our characters. It is vital to have this in a Brechtian show, as distancing is what transforms dramatic theatre into epic theatre, transforming the audience form just observers to spectators who can make their own decisions and become angry or enthused by what we are prestentinrbgg. If the audience sees the actor through the guise of the character, that connection is lost to a certain degree.
Another thing we could improve on is presenting a more objective point of view on our political subject. One of the important points that I grasped form our workshop lessons is that the audience should be the ones making up their mind this term, we should not be doing that for them. That is what makes them emotionally connected, havoc the chance to decide for themselves what is right or wrong, and if we interfere with that, we stand the risk of breaking that emotional connection that the audience has, so that they feel as if they are just being patronised with information they assume they already know.
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