Exploring Political Plays

In today's lesson we looked at exploring various political plays by Brecht. The first was Mother Courage, from which we got a scene to devise a piece out of. The first brechtian devise we used was placards, these were different for each other us but said things like 'I may be a solider but I can still have compassion'. This structure of 'I may be..but I can still' was present in each placard. We also decided to incorporate the two songs from the scene, the first was to be said normally by Emily and then the second one we turned into a small tune that was to be sung in the background. Our piece started off with the daughter banging on 'pots' and things to alert the town as she then precedes to get shot down by two guards, all the while the tune of the song we devised is being sung underneath without the words. The guards voice the fact that they are actually quite distraught about having shot a child and so freeze in the corner as the sing their song quietly until the end of the piece. As they sing the next part of the scene is played. I thought the use of singing and music would have been very effective if it wasn't for the fact that we lost the melody at the start and so therefore it didn't quite work. What I liked about this little piece was that we tried to show the different sides to the characters in the play, this was done both with the placards and also the verbal dialogue. For example the solider placard was trying to demonstrate that even though they are 'soldiers' they don't have to always live up to that stereotype and maybe they do feel remorse and compassion for the acts they commit just as the two soldiers did in our piece.

Next we looked at The Caucasian Chalk Circle and the gestus of the characters in that scene. The two main stereotypical characters were the characters of the high status, powerful governess and the low status, poor servants in the palace. Gestus is where you build your character from the inside out, starting with the physical aspects and finishing with the emotional ones. The gestus of the poorer servants had lower levels and their physicality caved in more so they looked weaker and more frail, where as the governess's physicality went out demonstrating a power over the others, she took large strides that were strong and firm as she had the upper hand. The servants, however moved slowly as if they were in fear of the governess and of putting a foot out of line. As well as gestus we also looked at 'not...but'. Not but is a similar device to a freeze frame, its used to tell the audience what the character is not, before preceding to expand on what they are instead. For example, the governess is NOT a bad mother, BUT she did put her wealth and money before the care of her child. Its a good device to use in order to allow the audience a deeper insight into that character and the conflicts within their character.