Theatre Log Book Term 2 - November 19th 2013

Today my group and I decided to change the structure of our short Brechtian style theme, as before there wouldn't have been much variety to our performance. Therefore, we came up with the idea of keeping the speed dating but basing on the famous TV show 'Take Me Out'.

We were told that we need to include a piece of music in our performance and also include the idea of a silent scream. Therefore, we decided that we could combine these two ideas together and when 'Adolf' (Danny) comes into the scene, 'The Imperial March' theme tune would play, and at that point 'Anne Frank' (me), 'Gay' (played by Esme) and 'Black' (Eleanor) would all scream silently as if we look up to 'Hitler' (which we do in the performance as we all want to date him).

In addition, we had to include spoken sentences or phrases in our performance, 3 of which are: 'Let the sausage see the roll', 'No likey, no lightey!' and 'I'm Anne Frank'. It is important that the audience understand what we are trying to get across or trying to make them think.

The 10 main points that take place in our performance is:

• The presenter (Maya) introduces 'Adolf Hitler'.
• The other girls (played by Maya) turn off their lights, connoting they are not interested in 'Hitler'.
• One of the girls say why they chose to turn their light off and 'Anne Frank' says why she kept her light on.
•  Round two of the dating show, the remaining three girls get to ask 'Adolf' a question each.
• 'Hitler' then gets all the power in his hands and gets to turn off one of the girls lights.
• 'Black' then gets eliminated from the show and a cue lady (Esme) holds up a sign saying 'Clap now'.
• The two remaining girls of the show 'Anne Frank' and 'Gay' get to say something about themselves and the presenter says that one of the remaining girls are in fact Jewish.
• 'Anne Frank' says that she believes that Jewish people should also have equal rights, and the cue lady (now played by Eleanor) holds up a cue card saying 'Boo Now'.
• 'Hitler' then gets to eliminate one of the girls. He chooses to eliminate 'Gay', and leaves 'Anne Frank' as his final choice.
• It is then revealed by the presenter that 'Anne Frank' was the Jewish female out of the two, and then 'Adolf Hitler' and 'Anne Frank' leave the show happily to go on a date to the Island of Fernandez.

To portray the Brechtian style of acting to our performance, it is important that there are significant props and costume in our performance. At this stage we haven't decided on any specific props that we want to use in our piece, however we have acknowledged that we will be using props, in order to make our performance more complete. Additionally, there has to be direct address to the audience. This way, the audience will be reminded that they aren't just viewers of the show but will be shocked to know that they may be taking part. This is the idea that reminds the audience that there is no fourth wall between the actors and the audience, allowing them to remember that what we are doing is not reality, and we are trying to get a certain message across. We have to be able to show the audience that we are just actors, and this can be done by strange making, which may include speaking stage directions, demonstrating characters, changing costume on stage and multi-rolling during the performance. These Brechtian style techniques will break the barrier between the audience, and will also show them that there aren't limits as to how Theater can be shown, as it doesn't always have to be done the traditional way.

As a group we spoke about different ways that we could create the 'Verfremdungseffekt' in our performance. Some ideas we discussed were, having physical contact with the audience, taking their belongings, leaving the audience alone in the room in darkness, or including an actor in the audience.
One idea that we came to the conclusion of is adding a song to our performance at the end. This probably would confuse the audience as they wouldn't usually expect us to randomly start singing at the end of our performance. We then decided that during the song, we would gradually walk out, and include the idea of leaving the audience alone in the room with only the three actors on stage. These ideas combined is a great way of showing the Brechtian technique, which should have a 'Verfremdungseffekt' on the audience.