Research

The core evidence of our protest, being political, of course came from media and newspapers. A story we kept coming across was the subject of Aylan, the boy who drowned trying to escape war-torn Syria. So we went back to the news articles and kept the subject as a theme for our performance. Our actual point of protest was to allow more migrants into our country. The image went viral on social media and piled pressure on European leaders.

'The world has been captivated by images of Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler who drowned this week while fleeing war-torn Syria. The 3 year old died during the dangerous boat journey from Turkey to Greece, as did his 5 year old brother, Galip, and his mother. Nine others on the boat also perished. 

Justin Forsyth, CEO of Save the Children, said: “This tragic image of a little boy who’s lost his life fleeing Syria is shocking and is a reminder of the dangers children and families are taking in search of a better life. This child’s plight should concentrate minds and force the EU to come together and agree to a plan to tackle the refugee crisis.” ^We took this quote as proof of our views and made my character from it- A woman desiring a better life for her child and in need of food, water and stable shelter.

The UK isn’t the largest EU port of call for migrants.

And despite all the talk about “Polish plumbers” and Ukip leader Nigel Farage’s call to leave the EU to “regain control” over the country’s borders, most people vying to settle in Britain come from outside the trading bloc. The top two arriving nationalities are in fact Chinese and Indian.

Plan for Political Protest

^Our Desk Sign

The theme of our protest is immigration. It’s revolved around the idea of a strict boarder control and harsh policies which play to an advantage of the UK however doesn’t help other people from outside of it. We want it to be located at the top of the stairs before the main doors, that way we’ll grab a lot of people’s attention going to and from the building. The barriers are used as a property to create the barriers of the border control next to the patrol officers. We also want to use it as a display for posters signs and facts to help back up our piece. The montage/ poster collage is in black and white with a striking red sprayed sign-‘let more in’. This refers to our principal point of allowing more people beyond the border into the UK as life is a bigger challenge is some areas and doesn’t provide as many facilities or development. The very centre on either side of the fencing is where the table/desk stands for border patrol. This is the space where Delainey and Gabriel stand to decide whether a person should or shouldn’t be allowed to move on. In a way and to some extent they are allowed to pick out racial stereotypes and question people’s nationality to play with the idea of restricted placement within Britain. I’ve made a poster which is a key of symbols to indicate the authority of different people. As actors we get to choose and judge people or randomly pick out one of the three. Obviously anyone labelled with the red cross ( an unwanted outsider  ) will get a harsher reaction and impertinent approach to them. This way we get to cause a bit of trouble and chaos which will help the audience question the matter. They get to interrogate the audience and ask about their background, surnames and any sort of reason to degrade them as a minority. As a way for the message to stick with the audience members we've decided to stamp them with those symbols ; either a green dash, red cross or blue circle, to make them feel more immersed and involved in the piece.

We will hang these posters up on bins and barriers for the audience to find an easy way of understanding why we've categorised them with symbols.

Costume: 

Myself: I've layered up with blankets and long baggy clothing on a cold day as a struggling immigrant. In addition I used the affect of makeup to build up a battered ,dirty and bruised face. We've developed a character for myself as a single mother with a child/baby doll to her chest ,to beg the audience around me for essential items. I'll stick to speaking in polish so that people understand i'm not from this country and link to the theme of migration. From now and again i'll use single english words such as 'food' or 'water' to clarify and hint my needs.
I'm going to keep to the script of 'please sir/miss i'm very hungry. do you have any water/food you'd offer me? Please I have a young child...'

Delainey and Gabriel: As evident in the picture both of them dressed up as boarder control. However we decided to add a twist with Gabriel and make it a bit more meaningful as the same role. Delainey stuck to the more recognisable costume as an interrogating security guard/ boarder patrol. Her attire consisted of dark colours, a puffy jacket, a megaphone with which facts and insults could be addressed and a security badge. Gabriel got hold of a yellow jumpsuit and blue gloves to cover the idea of someone who is in a place of infection. The infection being those with red crosses or my character: the immigrants.

We used illustrated some of our research into the posters. We were already aware of the story of the drowned boy who was washed up on a beach. Even though it was very disturbing we decided to include the explicit image around the school of the migrant crisis.

Nazi Book Burning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHzM1gXaiVo  :I watched a documentary on youtube 'Nazi Book Burning' which was published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

 "Where books are burned, in the end people will be burned" -Heinrich Heine, 1821, German poet

-Books represent humanity at its best and its worst. To burn books is simply a fundamental repression of ideas.

I've been taught in many different history lessons by passionate teachers, both from english and polish school that the main aim and reason to why knowledge was abolished for people other than Germans was it was a threat to their system. Educated people and those with professions such as doctors, lawyers, businessmen, politicians were murdered for being a possibility to build defence against the Nazis and form any sort of way that would clash with Hitler's ideologies. We know knowledge is a power and those with the most have a chance of change for the better. Hitler would prioritise his own aryan race, mind wash them into thinking and believing anything he wanted. The opposite of this of course was to annihilate businesses and educated forces from the enemy, a majority of people and minorities. There was a focus of targeting the Jewish and others such as the black, disabled, homosexual etc.. A major strike that took place on behalf of the Nazis was on 1st April 1933 where one of the first boycotts took place on Jewish Businesses. Books that were considered dangerous by the Nazis were burnt. For example:

This book written by the German author Erich Maria Remarque was burnt as it was deemed dangerous to the German Party.

80/90 thousand volumes were burnt. For week afterwards books were confiscated from libraries, bookshops and from private collections.

 “Reading is not an end to itself, but a means to an end.” - Adolf Hitler, from Mein Kampf

The Nazi Book Burnings were a campaign conducted by the German Student Union to ceremonially burn books in Nazi Germany and Austria in the 1930s. The books targeted for burning were those viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. These included books written by Jewish, pacifist, classical liberal, anarchist, socialist, and communist authors, among others.

Transcripts

Transcript from Oscar- 17 year old Student
Discussing the subject of closing libraries:

Me: How do you feel about the fact that libraries are closing down?
O: Libraries are and were an instrumental institution for my families. My parents are quick readers , my dad sometimes manages to read four of five books in a day and my grandparents were teachers who saw it as a fundamental resource. I feel sad that with libraries closing down, future generations will not have the same access as us or our parents to such wealths of knowledge.
Me: Do you feel it's an essential or communities to have a library near by?
O: Libraries now more than before allow us to access different cultures, even with the internet age, the content of books is much more trusted and for some it is a necessary place in their community. i find it hard to imagine a community without such direct access to reference materials, be it Shakespeare or a Travel Guide, both of which are necessary to understand a culture and the likes of which are rarely on the internet with such a high level of quality.
Me: Did libraries play a major part in your education and childhood?
O: Over the last 17 years I have been a weekly member of our local library-taking out a book every week. My parents even attempted to use eBooks, but were disgusted by the flimsy screens and limited practicality.Our library remains to have a huge range of books in many languages and it seems hard to imagine swapping to anything else.

A short conversation from my 5 year old sister Nicola, also on the same topic.

Me: Hey Nicki. I'm going to ask you some questions on the topic of libraries. Are you ready?
N: I know libraries.
Me:That's great!
N:They do lots of books.
Me: Where do you get the books you bring home to read from?
N: From School.
Me: Do you go to the library as a school to get those books?
N:Yes
me: All the together?
N:Yes. And we all read in the library
Me: alright. What's your reaction to libraries closing down? (rephrase) How do you feel about libraries closing?
N: Sad.
Me: Why are you sad?
N:Because...because, when they're closing- I think I feel really sad because then I will not read and then I will not have books to read.
Me: Where do you think we will get those books from if we can't get them from a library?
N: A different place.
Me: What place?
N: Mexico
*Olivia's laughing*
Me: Do you prefer to read books or read through the phone?
N: Books.
Me: What are your favourite types of books?
N: Princess books!
...

Conversation with my Mum, Agnieszka, aged 33
Born and raised in the country side in Southern Poland.

Me: Try your best to answer the questions in english please.
A: I'm not answering your questions in english!
Me: But then it'll take me longer to translate. Okay, carrying on.
What are your views on our local library?
A:The one's close to us are terrible. It depends where, in what region you live in. There are definitely higher quality books in better areas; you have a greater selection..
Me: What's your opinion on the shutting down of libraries?
A:I'd be extremely dissatisfied ..because I believe a book is a book! It's nice to go to a library, take your child to view the different books and choose something their selves.
Me: How will different generations cope in a few years time without the access of libraries?
A: I suppose they're already all use to technology and a different kind of world that it won't make much of a difference to them.
Me: Love it. What memories do you have from your childhood with libraries or the internet?
A:*laughing*-
    We had no libraries or internet! ... There were none, i'm telling you the truth. In my time we had none.
Me: So how did you access information?
A: We could borrow books from our school.
Me: Did you go often?
A: Do you want me to tell you the truth? You went often to the library due to the fact if you borrowed a certain amount of books in a month you'd get points in a particular subject.
Me:-So you were a 'nerd'?
A: Yeah, well the teacher then realised students were only taking out books for that reason.
Me:Did you read a lot?
A: No, not much.
Me: Well thank you

The Practitioner

About Bertolt Brecht
The playwright, poet and theatre director was born in 1898 in the German town of Augsburg. 



 After serving as a medical orderly in the First World War and appalled by the effects of the war, he went first to Munich and then to Berlin in pursuit of a career in the theatre. That period of his life came to an end in 1933 when the Nazis came to power in Germany. Brecht fled and during this period the Nazis formally removed his citizenship, so he was a stateless citizen.
In either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Carl Valentin Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform.Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology".He learnt most from Valentin, who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice.

Brecht on the flute; Valentin on the tuba and Liesl Karlstadt on the left.

By the time of his death in 1956, Brecht had established the Berliner Ensemble and was regarded as one of the greatest theatrical practitioners.
As an artist, Brecht was influenced by a diverse range of writers and practitioners including Chinese theatre and Karl Marx.

His most acclaimed work is 'Mother Courage and Her Children'. Although it’s set in the 1600s, the play is relevant to contemporary society and is often regarded as one of the finest anti-war plays. Fear and Misery of the Third Reich is Brecht’s most overtly anti-fascist play. This work analyses the insidious way the Nazis came to power.

Watching this clip, produced by the National Theatre, definitely enlightened me and helped me to understand the discipline and elements of what make theatre Brechtian. The video gave clear examples from on stage of how some techniques were applied. For example, alienation came through when one of the actors used his own mouth to produce the sound effects of a bomb going off whilst being on stage for the audience to see. In some pieces of naturalistic theatre the fourth wall is gradually taken down ; i feel like in Brechtian theatre the fourth wall is completely demolished. What I mean by this is that no director choose to subtly introduce the idea during their play that it is indeed a performance and is there to be examined but automatically throw it in your face without warning that it should be analysed seriously. It's like trying to familiarise yourself with something you'd have no reason to and are meant to find the weird, the norm. I agree that for some members of the audience before understanding Brechtian techniques it can be quite disconcerting yet visually thrilling to watch. I'd say most Brechtian technique isn't applied in the acting but the blocking, staging, lights and installations. 

Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children at the Olivier Theatre

This particular video focused on the emotional  aspect the audience connects with the play of 'Mother Courage and Her Child'. As we know, Brecht moves away from the idea of letting the audience feel comfortable enough to watch a piece of theatre and challenges them to reanalyse the situation with how and why something is occurring. One person mentioned how Brecht wants us to be 'affected by what's happening but in many different ways'. Honestly i'm left a bit confused because I thought the idea of emotional connection between character and audience was stripped away yet the woman states how important it is to leave enough space in a political piece where the audience can enter themselves. Although I understand the end product is for the individual to enjoy what's going on but be allowed and persuaded to view it as an examiner of why something may be. Having never watched a piece of Brechtian theatre, i'd established this quite mundane, educational history lesson in my head of what it would look like but i realised the practitioner wasn't crazy enough to filter all the elements that makes a piece of theatre so intriguing. In the end theatre should prioritise entertainment rather than it being polemical.