Some feedback from this was how the audience enjoyed hearing about the surroundings and how descriptive it was, they could imagine themselves there. I used this in the stand-up section especially, like the conservatory and the train stories, and again with the assembly/Paris stories. I want the audience to imagine they are there with me. I have also tried to keep the comedy elements from the photograph exercise.
From this list I have highlighted the types of solo performance that are present in my piece, for example, stand-up/comedy routine, monologue, music (in the dance), poetry/rap (10 things I hate poem), Dance and physical theatre, autobiographical writing (the whole piece is based on this), storytelling, multiple characters/persona (Hyde, the children and parents at the assembly, the Scotsman, the Londoner, the snob family) and interview (police interview).
O’Donnell - A Suicide Site Guide To The City.
I have used, like O’Donnell, simple props and costume, set, sound and lights, direct address to the audience in acknowledging their presence, multiple characters, dark and controversial alongside light hearted comedy
Birbiglia, M. (2010). Sleepwalk with Me: and Other Painfully True Stories
Like Birbiglia’s piece, mine has an autobiographical account of childhood and adolescence, but looks at the inner person we all have waiting and wanting to come out. I have also used, like Birbiglia, circumstances we have all found ourselves in, like on trains, cliffs and cold callers. Like Birbiglia my story is highly personal to me and deals with dark material that is potentially depressing and controversial.
From the feedback from this I have developed it for my final performance, I will not use a stool for the stand-up, I will keep the cynical sarcasm and expand on the private jokes, and pause more between jokes.
Anna Deavere Smith
Like Smith’s use of verbatim/documentary style of performance I have talked to people about living with disabiities to develop my work.
Danny Hoch
Hoch’s plays deal with the repressed peoplewho live with discrimination. This is where I got my first ideas for my piece and it too deals with people, specifically my brother, who is repressed and disabled.
Eric Bogosian
Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll deals with someone in a dark place, and also questions what is right and wrong with society. These elements are included within my performance, a time when I was in a dark place when I got into a fight over my disabled brother, as well as my piece questioning the casual use of ‘retard’ and ‘spastic’ in society.
Kalb says that Solo Performance has a tendency to be self-indulgent. This is something I know my piece could easily become, which is why it is a series of short scenes interspersed with comedy because I don’t want it to become a lecture on disability. I try to make the audience question their role in society with regards to disability and to create empathy too. Kalb says that you have to play all characters, even the bad ones, and this is what I do by playing the Hyde character who is racist, violent and aggressive.
Dolan discusses performance as having the potential to change people’s attitudes and behaviour, and this is what I look to achieve. If I can make just one person in the audience stop using ‘retard’ or ‘spastic’ as a derogatory term then I will have started at least the ‘utopia’ that Dolan strives for. However, I compare disabled insults to racist insults to give it some perspective and to show that neither is better or worse, both are equally as hurtful.
Spalding Gray
Gray works by regurgitating notes and he admits the slightly taboo habits like drugs. I use a few more props than Gray but it is to the same effect, to tell the audience a story from my life. Like Gray’s brutal honesty, I too reveal that I have used racist words even though it is controversial. However, I undermine the use of racist comments by the context, I called somebody this to get a reaction similar to my own reaction to ‘retard’. The recipient also happens to be a child rapist, therefore the use of racial slurring is undermined by a worse offense. Racism in this case is the lesser of two evils.
Andy Kaufman
Kaufman’s alter-ego Tony Clifton gave me the idea to involve an alter-ego or the repressed gremlin who lives inside my head that rarely pops up, but when he does I have to fight him so that I don’t shout rude words or do bad things.
Lenny Bruce
Bruce’s How To Talk Dirty and Influence People uses stereotypical characters, something I have tried to replicate in the stand-up sections, all the different characters are stereotypes. Bruce’s Off Broadway controversially looks at the word ‘nigger’ and why it is racist. Like Bruce, I ask this question but alongside the use of ‘retard’ and ‘spastic’ to show that it is unacceptable and hypocritical to use one but be offended by the other.
I have been very careful during the devising process to stay away from the ‘me-machine’ type of solo autobiographical performance that Heddon discusses. I got rid of some of my initial ideas because I realised they were too close to the egotistical performances Heddon despises. For example, an initial idea for my piece was to base it on a recent relationship break up, but this would be too sefl-indulgent, so was scrapped. I also scrapped the slideshow at the end of my performance because it seemed too ‘soppy’, emotional and self-indulgent.
Brenda Wong Aoki
Like in Aoki’s Random Acts- To Fa, Lia my piece deals with the emotions that we leave hidden and under the surface. Aoki’s piece is about how these emotions arise at a funeral, whereas mine is about how the repressed come out when I am pushed over the line, when I snap and cannot hold it in any longer.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Like Gomez-Pena, I tried to play on the audience’s preconceptions and assumptions. I do this in two ways, by juxtaposing comedy with rape and sexual abuse, and by seeming like I am a racist and therefore immoral person, but turn it around by justifying my comment s and behaviour in order to defend myself against a man who raped and sexually abuse my disabled brother. Like Gomez-Pena, I am not trying to be overtly controversial but aiming to create a potential ‘utopia’ by raising awareness of political issues within society.
Kuhnheim, Economy of performance: Gomez-Pena’s New World Border
Kuhnheim recognises Gomez-Pena’s use of non-chronological narrative as central to his work. In reaction to this, I changed my piece from chronological to non-chronological. I want to have the effect of making the audience question what was going on, for them to stay alert and shock them, and for the proverbial penny to drop and it make sense but right at the end.
Miller’s work is about discrimination and mis-treatment of gay people, my piece is similar but I discuss the discrimination and mistreatment of disabled people, more specifically I question and challenge how somebody can get away with raping and sexually abusing a disabled boy because of lack of evidence.
Like Calle’s work, my own is autobiographical and raises issues around ethics and morals, not in the comedy/stand-up routine but in the fight scene, and the uses of ‘nigger’ and ‘retard’. Calle’s work has made me question whether to include full names of the people in my story. I’ve decided not to include full names because the subject matter is so controversial and disturbing
Documentary/Verbatim Theatre
Adverse Weather Protectors - I enjoyed writing this piece based on lyrics from Snow Patrol, however it does not add anything to my solo performance subject so have not taken this any further. However, it did give me the idea of interviewing people who live with disabilities to hear the insiders story.
2-5 minute developed piece
Originally I had around nine stories included in this comedy routine, but only said 4 of them which came to 8 minutes, so I have cut half of the jokes and stories. It seems a shame to cut work I have developed but my solo performance is not just about comedy, the comedy is used as an introduction. I also had to cut the comedy section down to have time to juxtapose it with serious content.
Feedback from visiting practitioner Gemskii Rudd-Orthner
Spasticus Autisticus –By Ian Dury (and interview).
I found the interview very insightful and it explains Dury’s reasons for the song, however, the song was cut from the final script because I do not have time to explain why it is not, though it sounds, offensive. I would have like to have kept this song in, but I do not wish to ruin the last 9 minutes of performance about my sensitivity towards disabled discrimination by including this song, it seems contradictory to my performance.
This is a play I saw several years ago but has remained in my memory for the physicality and violence it portrays, especially in the cubicle section (pictured), and I have adapted some of the movements for my own performance.
Tim Minchin – Taboo Song
I have tried to copy Minchin’s work on preconceptions and preconceived views, which are then shown to be wrong. I have tried to do this by making myself seem to be violent, abusive and racist, but then justifying my actions to be the lesser of two evils.
Evans is one of my favourite comedians for his use of multiple characters and accents. I have tried to incorporate this in the comedy sections, such as the voice of Hyde, the posh Tarquin, the angry Scotsman, the wimpy Londoner who can’t manage snow, as well as the school children and their overemotional parents.
Bo Burnham
Although I would love to have created a funny song in the style of Burnham, it would not fit in with the story of my performance, perhaps it might for the snow/train sketch, but it would take up too much time and detract from the serious political point of my performance.
I have tried to use Verbatim/Documentary theatre in my piece that DV8 have used to create To Be Straight With You, and interviewing my mother about disabled discrimination, and included some of her words/sentences in the script, e.g. ‘it would make going on the underground easier.’
I was aware of this piece of theatre before Gem pointed it out to me and have tried to follow along similar lines to DV8 and dispel some of the myths about disability, to show what it is like to live with, and to include the offensive and abusive slang terms that discriminate against disabled people.
I decide to write my own version of the poem because my piece has a lot of violence and aggression, and this piece offers an emotional side to disabled discrimination that is also present. This poem shows the affection as well as the frustration of living with someone who is disabled.
Gomez-Pena drinks hot sauce
Gomez-Pena shows his cultural identity by drinking hot sauce, and is something I am doing but with beer to show my own English culture. It also fits in with Gem’s feedback regarding drinking and seeming like I am drunk, but actually I am disabled.
If I had one wish/earliest memory
Written in response to Gem’s feedback, I have included this is my piece and added extra comedy to it. This short story offers a different side to disability than just discrimination.
I’m tired of...monologue/stimulus
Although I have not directly included this monologue, I have used parts of it in the poem and the dance/movement section. ‘I wish my brother could walk and was normal, it would make going to the toilet easier for him, I wouldn’t have to translate for him, and people wouldn’t stare so much...’
Frantic Assembly – Beautiful Burnout
I was using Moaner but it was too monotonous, Beautiful Burnout was scrapped because it detracted from the dance, and Between Stars is used instead.
Hyde/Gremlin
The gremlin character was changed to Hyde from the book The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and the television series Jekyll because he is a universal character known by a lot of societies. Plus, he is more relevant as a repressed voice to escape, it also explain the violence and aggression because Hyde is evil.
Slideshow/Pictures
As I have mentioned, I have cut this down to just the video of my brother because the music is too offensive without being explained and seems to contradict my piece, and the pictures by themselves are too self-indulgent.
No comments:
Post a Comment