On Tuesday 13th December, was our show the debating chamber. I believe that this show turned out quite successful due to the audience’s responses and their written commitments they handed in afterwards. But also, with the quality of work the performers came out with in such short time and the progress we made from the start of the day until that point. The objectives of the piece were extremely clear and very factual that the audience both got to receive and enjoy, even though some elements of the performances had uncomfortable parts that wouldn’t be displayed by young students to that extent. Nevertheless, the audience from all age groups were very positive with the topics and responded with perspectives that they never really fully considered at first.
A lady was considering the fact that she would of at first (referring back to the race scene) thought that it would of been logical to tick herself on the box that said white because that was her ethnic, however, after taking what that scene stated under consideration she realised that there sometimes that it is unnecessary to tick a box that groups the race you are when you could be all seen as the same- as human. Furthermore, racist people tend to cause problems because they are only used to being restricted to being the colour of their skin. This makes them not really accepting to other people’s ethics and shows how the system can easily segregate people just by the colour of their skin, which she realised was extremely wrong. I understood her point completely, however, I do understand that sometimes it's necessary to check into the group of your ethnic background for information to help and support. But overall she was completely right that problems like that do start in ways that we are not aware of. Judging from her response I am sure that she really enjoyed the race piece and learnt a lot about the world in the past and present and if we are not aware of our actions, what we can result to in the future.
Another person seemed to really like the LGBT scene. This was because there have been many stories told but never really had the chance to communicate something really important. He said that he is not a gay man but now he understands that people seem to forget constantly that whatever/ whoever they choose to love it's up to them and no one can judge them because love will always be love no matter what. I am pretty sure that point stood out to him the most because it was repeated many times at the start of the piece that love is love and the strong image they showed was of two boys holding hands, two girls holding hands and one boy and one girl holding hands. It showed that no one was ashamed of being in a relationship that was the opposite from being heterosexual or seemed unnatural from the normal behaviour a person should have from the perspective of a religion or an opinion. It was refreshing to see someone who was not that supportive for the LGBT community to change his opinions and become more open and positive towards that topic. And it just goes to show that, again, another part of our show impacted someone and made a change within them for the better.
I realised from talking with some other people that they were more affected by the more social- political topics such as:
- LGBT
- Race
- Treatment of Women
However, not many people were talking about the other political topics we spoke about such as:
- The cost of justice
- Tax evasion
- Leaders of the right wing
- Capital punishment
I asked about them to some people and I pretty much got a few responses that were similar. That it was unbelievable that these sorts of issues happen on a daily basis right in front of us and displayed all over the media, but it’s really difficult to make a change to these things when some of us are not allowed to vote yet, people with money seem to be able to pay their way out of everything no matter what. And when people seem to get the choice of punishment or change they always go for the option that affects the younger generation more than themselves. Theses things seem to happen without people (from all age groups) never having an opinion, and never letting others have time to think of the possibilities. Trades and deals are made just under our noses and we are so oblivious, only because secrets and important bits of information are kept off the media and away from the public. I agreed it’s all really unfair that we have such little we can do to make a change, but with that little opportunity what were they planning to do about it to help? And that question got them every time, because they knew there were limitations so it stopped them from actually thinking that far ahead. But after sometime they did think of simple things they can choose to do to make a change. One person said that that they will try to avoid going starbucks and go to other coffee shops that actually fulfil all their payment duties and are fair with the laws as well as the customer services. Others said that they will be more cautious with the clothes they buy. Because knowing that poor child labour occurs behind the scenes of common clothes retail stores is something that shouldn’t be happening in the first place and we pay for clothes that are more expensive than what they actually cost.
Overall, the performance feedback was all mostly positive and peoples perspectives have changed from the start of the play to the end by Brechtian style- 8 minute scenes. This was very successful as it shows that our opinions were factual, interesting, harsh but truthful, which allowed the audience to take away from and think about in depth. This term’s work taught me so much in how I can have a view and use the power of theatre to express it with entertainment as well as just being informative. I have enjoyed it alot and hope to expand on this in future projects.
Sherene Jordan
