FINAL PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

I am very happy with how our performance went. I think all the research I did about the BNP and like-minded people really helped affect the piece positively. It had a lot of contribution towards my characterisation as I understood the kinds of people who take part in these parties. I played the role a BNP supporter. We didn't stick to the character names on the script as we did a lot of editing of the script. I also played the guitar and lead the song that we performed. For me, I achieved a lot artistically. Firstly, playing the song live and it being a part of the scene was very different to anything I've done before, as I did have to interact with the audience during it. Additionally, performing a piece where I had to react with delight when a whole load of crude, racist jokes are said which was also a first, and quite difficult because it's not something that I personally agree with at all so the fact that I had to react in that way proved to be quite a difficult task, however, I think I did a good job of it. As an actor, this is the furthest out of my comfort zone I have ever been and I think that was a very big artistic achievement.

I think our piece definitely made an impact on our audience. We achieved this by using the racist jokes in the script to start off the entire piece. This inflicted shock onto the audience straight away. It was also a good example of Brecht's vefremdungseffekt. We distance the audience by using dialogue that is taboo and it would make them feel uncomfortable. At the same time as distancing them from the world of the play, in the same way we brought them closer to it by involving them as an observer, and making them be part of the scene by interacting with them. It also would have made an impact as people who do not know much about the BNP would have gained knowledge about the party and their beliefs.

Overall, a strength of our piece would be how engraining it was for an audience. I spoke to audience members afterwards and many of them expressed how shocked they were to be hearing such awful things and they have never experienced that before. That really shows that our piece was thought-provoking. Although our piece was not supposed to be too entertaining, we added some comic moments in which I hope the audience interacted with well.
To make our piece better, we could have spent more time on the last part of the scene where there is more dialogue and we use more of the script we got given. I feel like some of it was quite slow especially as some lines were dropped by a couple of people. I don't think the audience picked up on that however.

After all our pieces were shared. We then asked the audience what issue they felt stood out to them and whether they would be willing to do something about it, and if so, what they would do. Here are some of their responses:

Ones that particularly stand out to me is the one that talks about incorporating these issues into a theatre piece of their own. This is particularly inspiring as being able to inspire someone else to go and create a piece that is similar to ours is really rewarding. Another particularly powerful one was in response to the final piece of work that was shared: "To make my dark friends feel beautiful." It was precisely what the piece was trying to provoke and did so perfectly.