Political Protest Performance - Tuesday 22nd November 2016

The day of ‘The Protest’ finally arrived, sadly Leane was still ill and Angelica failed to turn up so we were two women down.  Needless to say, this didn’t stop us from rearranging ourselves and continuing as normal. Despite our positive attitude to continue, our group was faced with some difficult decisions to make due to weather conditions. For example, it was such a windy day that all of the posters that we pegged to the washing line kept flying away. This meant that we were unable to display the letters that spelt out ‘CHEMICAL WARFARE’ and so instead before we performed each section, I stood in neutral and delivered the words (we did however manage to attach bloodied rags to the washing line which was ‘symbolic’ and represented the pain and death that had occurred during the use of chemical weapons). This didn’t prove less effective but obviously didn’t allow us to display the performance that we had in mind. This also meant that we were unable to display the facts that we printed off which in our opinion was the most important part of the protest. To counteract for this, we instead used ‘direct address’ by handing out gloves and face masks to our audience for protection and explained the effects of the chemicals. This would happen in between performances and I feel as though it really benefitted the performance because we were able to include audience participation. Although this also meant that our performance lacked the Brechtian technique of using ‘playing cards’. This worked both against and for the piece because the use of playing cards went more with the Brechtian technique because it meant that there was a ‘minimal use of set and props’ but it also meant that our wide range of facts that would be deliver was decreased.

Overall, I think the performance was a success. Handing out gloves and masks was actually extremely effective because it meant that the passers-by engaged with what was going on and wanted to know why they were being given gloves and a mask. As well as the use of paint which showed the chemicals spreading across the body -highlighting the harm caused by chemical warfare. This was interesting to the audience because most people were unsure of what chemical warfare was and were amazed that something that wasn’t a literal weapon could cause so much harm (sometimes without leaving behind any visible signs).  Also the ripping of bloodied sheets which was mainly done to symbolise death also allowed the scene to gradually build up. I really like this because it meant that as the repetition of the protest went on over time, the better the scene looked. And despite our initial panic, our piece flowed well and delivered a message to its audience in an interesting way. The only thing that I would change would have to be