Theatre Workshop 3

We started the lesson with some group story improvisations. Sections of a made up story were read to us and as a group we had to come up with a still image for each section. This was a very useful exercise as it made us work as a team, it helped us to concentrate more on a picture and how we can convey the message. It also prepared us for the Social Scenes in our play.

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To start off our play we have a song called "Vote Me". Using this song and dance helps to alienate the audience in a Brechtian way, as it distracts them from feeling an emotion for a character and it also creates humour. We go on to 3 Narrators, of which I am Narrator 1, who explain to the audience what voting consists of and what it means. This, again, helps to create a sense of alienation as it is helping the audience establish where they are and what is going on and it also brings them out of the situation. We went on to staging the Social Scenes. We bought these scenes to life by using the ensemble to create the settings. For example, in the first scene they create a house. This creates the Verfremdungseffekt as the audience are distracted by all the different components of the setting that are being made and so they find it harder to concentrate on the message and what is being said.

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In this text we want to show the audience how this women has made the different social groups vote for her. Some, the two boys in the pub, talk about her beauty or her body and some, the city office workers, talk about her policies. These social scenes also emphasises how her policies please everyone from single mothers to students to office workers. It shows how people can be 'bought' easily just from promises or beauty. These social scenes are interesting as they clearly show how the different social groups react to politicians and beauty. They are intriguing to watch as everyone has a part in making the social scenes and there is always something to look at in the scene other than the actors talking.

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Blocking the 5 sections of the Blondie Script was fun as it was interesting to see the play come to life as you get to understand the different characters more and seeing Brechtian Theatre in action was helpful. I am playing B, or Blondie, in Scene 13. Reading through the scene was helpful as I got to know her and how she would react to the different things. Blocking the scene helped me to create my Gestus for B and it also gave me lots of ideas of how I can use Brechtian Theatre. The play so far is very intriguing as I can already see the different Brechtian components and they work.

The song "Vote Me" is based on