In the first lessons we developed character and storylines. We created another a-map with showing the themes coming off of immigration so were, generational gaps, love, conflict, cultural joining/mixing. We planned to do a scene each week and set the first deadline for the venue to be booked for the 8th of October. We decided on the use of costume, the most striking was Augustus’ traditional African Abadda. We decided that he should wear this traditional dress because as soon as he steps on stage he is questioning whether the audience have any preconceptions of him already. The play was developing into a humorous piece and the use of costume enhanced this. The characters of Adeola and Ruby were humorous firstly because they were an unlikely couple. They are like caricatures of the stereotype of their culture.
Whilst writing and researching for the piece we came up with lots of information and rather than just shown them we wanted to tell the audience these facts so we added a narrator to the piece who would multi-role into every scene and educate the audience for instance:
“Did you know that the UK is the biggest immigration country with approximately a quarter of its 60 million people being born outside of the UK?”
This was effective as direct address because it made the audience reflect and made them questions their own knowledge and awareness. Also because it is facts and statistics it is believable but sombre. Another time we made the audience question their own values was the final line:
Narrator: “if there is anyone knows of any reason why these two should not wed..
Cast: “..Speak now of forever hold your peace...”{cast facing the audience out of role}
This was the final question and was supposed to make the audience wonder whether what we had shown them had changed their opinions at all.
Brecht believes that the actors should distance their audience from the piece to help them think not simply feel. We used Brecht distancing effect by making the characters step out of role, for example, when playing the character of Ruby I stepped out of role and talked about Ruby in the third person:
“Ruby {pointing to self} delivered the baby that day”
This helped to remove any emotion that the audience had towards the character and remind them that it was simply theatre. The structure of the piece was non-chronological using flashbacks and dreams; this was to keep the audience on edge because every minute needed to be recognized. To show this, to remove any confusion and to distance the audience, captions written on placards which where used and shown to the audience.
HEATHROW AIRPORT 1970
This was a device originally used by Erwin Piscator and then subsequently by Brecht.
We found it particularly challenging to incorporate the three art forms.
For inspiration we watched Lea Andersons’ Cross channel. We liked the way she stylised everyday movements, for example, there were 4 dancers who mimed picking up grass and rolling it in their hands it was very obvious what they were doing. It was effective in that the moves did not create any feeling because there was no doubt as to what the dancers where doing as they were familiar, everyday movements. This would hence reinforce and compliment Brecht’s distancing technique. It was crude yet effective. We decided at this point to choreograph the dances for the piece in this manner. We took this idea and integrated literal, stylistic and abstract everyday movements. In the dinner scene where 3 everyday movements which were stylised into phrases of movement. The first motif's was the picking up of the menus which were done in canon with a full extension of the right arm going back and over the shoulder to the table. The next two were done in unison as synchronised movement looking through the menu. We also synchronised and putting hand to chin in an undecided manner these motifs were repeated alternately.
The next scene was the airport scene and within it we had monologues from the three immigrants: Maria, Ruby and Augustus. We had found out that immigrants coming into England often very high expectations of the work opportunities that England would give. “Streets paved with gold”. Both Augustus and Ruby said this phrase except that Augustus said it with hindsight that, that was not the way it was and Ruby represented the naivety and hope When putting together the ‘African Broom dance’ the everyday movement of sweeping evolved to an abstract dance incorporating traditional African dance moves. We had researched African dance and were inspired by the African dance workshop our teacher gave. It was abstract because one of the motifs was on his knees he moved across the floor with hands on hips leading the way with each shoulder by contracting the spine and raising the chest. In one session the dance was started and then following this the beats were made on a computer system. The music was of a thin texture using mainly a base beat to keep the rhythm, the music built to a climax of a loud hard beat of a drum. We wanted our music to {“provoke thought, dispel illusion and drive out emotion”} so we used a range of different styles of music. The art of drama was used in this scene as well and all three interlinked in pace. Dean’s character walked forward during this dance repeatedly saying:
“Ladies and gentlemen can I have your attention please”
This seemed at first ordinary because Dean had said it before as the tayoy system in the airport but as a contrast the volume of his voice rose each time. This made the dance a bit uncomfortable for the audience as they we unable to simply sit back and enjoy it. We wanted for the audience to give the piece their whole attention and leave with a thought.
Additionally, we made use of literal everyday movements when the character of John is watching football and his team scores he jumps and waves his arms and yells:
“Goal”.
The opening dance was a duo dance of love; it was inspired by salsa with lots of hip gyration in each others personal space.
The wedding scene was a dream and, the aim of the dances in this scene was to show the relationships between the characters, and the relationships between the cultures. We had the traditional dance of the waltz The first dance was the waltz; the action of this dance was quite restricted. The relationship between the characters of Ruby and Augustus had to adapt to this type of dance here the link between drama and dance was convenient the characters had to show their lack of familiarity with this dance and then show how they become more comfortable with the music and the dance itself. For this we used a lot of gesture and facial to show that it was difficult. The characters of Maria and John did it the traditional way with a little bit of space between each of them. Ruby and A
Also in the wedding scene before the dance there is the use of harmony which created the mood for the wedding.
Both Farriea and T sang the first line of ‘Always and Forever’ in different chords, although it is a secular song it made it sound very church-like.
The style was quite expressionistic as the scenes where structured in a specific way to highlight what has just happened in the previous scene. For example the “airport delivery” scene where Ruby gives birth to a baby who is known to the audience to be Roberto {dramatic irony} and when Ruby meets Augustus follows the scene where both couples have just announced their disgust for the child’s choice of partner:
Bissie “He’s White”
Maria: “She’s black”
John: “She’s black”
It was significant to go there because it shows how close their lives were and how far apart they have come.
By the fourth lesson a date deadline had been set for the booking of the venue. As it was a political piece with the theme of immigration it was an idea to use Horniman museum, they had an exhibition on at the time about immigration amongst the Amazon to Caribbean and the founder of the museum himself wanted to bring the world to Forest Hill. The only problem with this was that there was not a guaranteed audience. We visited it and it was very quiet. The other option was Goldsmiths University. This site was relevant because the founder of this university wanted to have lots of different people from different places come together to learn it was also the situated in the centre of our area and the surrounding areas are politically significant. It was in this area that there was the ‘Black people’s day of action’ which consisted of marches and followed the New Cross fire in which 13 young black people died. It was retaliation to the treatment of the case by the met.
We had a lesson for each strand of performing arts a week and we also incorporated an hour of rehearsal on Mondays after school and a 45 minute slot on Wednesday in the middle of the day. The structure of the rehearsals was that during the outside of lessons rehearsals we came up with ideas and motifs and then the teachers gave workshops in the lessons. In our own time we went and did our research. We planned the beginning and ending of the scene so that it would end up where we wanted it to and then improvised it. This made it look spontaneous on stage. After the first improvisation we would reflect on what we had come up with and then decide on if we would cut anything out or add any bits.
We also used a rehearsal technique of forum theatre where another actor steps into someone else’s character to show their idea, we also often did rehearsals in the third person to distance ourselves from the character and to ultimately understand the character more as when just being the actor it is easy to just think of yourself as the character. As the process progressed the statement of intent of the piece changed. We found that it was almost impossible to show just the positives of something. It becomes sweetened truth. So it changed that we wanted to show the harder side of being an immigrant and the controversy that it brings. This was better anyway because it meant that the audience would understand how far society has come but then also how far we have to go.
The performance space was alien to us as we had never been there before let alone performed there. It was a long and thin room with high ceilings so the acoustics where not very good, the backdrop was a multicoloured sheet with lighting behind coming through which was very ethnic and effective.
We put up posters in the university and the surrounding areas of New Cross but it just so our audience was a mixture of people.
Taken from a Brecht Dictionary found on the internet
