Our final performance of In the Beginning by Neil Labute went, in my opinion, really well considering the sudden unexpected change of venues and the panic we all felt just minutes before we went on. We had originally planned to perform our piece outside, despite factors that went against this idea like the weather, and proceeded to spend hours rehearsing and devising outside using a range of props like tents and signs and even a car. We all began to look really forward to our performance; having it being outside and an unusual choice built more to the excitement. However, 20 minutes before our performance, we were told that we were unable to perform outside due to an absent risk assessment and the frosty ground. We were told that we had to move back inside and into a normal classroom like the other two groups - a classroom that was only a fraction of the size we had gotten so use to performing in outside. We had to drag the entire stage back upstairs, ditch most of the exciting props we chose to include and redirect our performance slightly so everyone was clear on what to do in the change of environment.
Yeah, at first I was pissed, I'm not going to lie but it wasn't hard to push away this feeling and just crack on. As an actor, we were told these things happen on a regular and who does it help if you get annoyed, have a strop and refuse to help? No one. Just causes an even bigger inconvenience than the one that put you in that position! It was important to work as an ensemble and do whatever you could to ensure that nothing is lost from the play purely because of a minor change. It was actually quite exciting to be honest!
Our performance went well! We all knew our lines, our cues and had a great time performing it. Our play included many of the famous Brechtian techniques.
My part in particular worked well to alienate the audience which is something Brecht felt strongly about. We as a cast and Brecht never wanted the audience to get too emotionally attached to the ongoings on stage so it was imperative we made the audience remember they were merely watching a play. During my lines where I screamed continuously at my "son," I broke out of character halfway between it and stepped out and addressed the audience, talking in my typical British accent and repeating the lines I had previously garbled just seconds before. This gave the audience a better sense of what was going on stage whilst thoroughly reminding them that they are on stage.
Another method we chose with the alienation technique was to use signs during our piece. We chose to have certain cast members hold up signs claiming: "STOP BEING EMOTIONAL" as to remind the audience also to chill out... it was just a play! We wanted the audience to analyse what was going instead of who was feeling what.
We also used the Brechtian technique of speaking in unison. Due to lack of characters our director was able to cast to each member in our class, the speaking in unison both worked in the sense of fairness that everybody received a line to say and yet also it supported Brecht and his theories. Our play was based on two sets of completely different people arguing and fighting for what they believed in, so speaking all together with the parents as parents and the children as children was effective because it created more of a unison feeling. Also, Brecht believed heavily on ensemble and as we performed in unison for some of the most crucial lines in thre play really demonstrated the importance of working as an ensemble. Each line was then more powerful and easier to comprehend from an audiences' perspective because all of the voices made it louder and bolder.
Our piece was exciting and effective and completely relevent to the idea of Brecht.
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