For this unit we studied about a German playwright named Bertolt Brecht. Most of this ideas and concept come from the Karl Marx, as he loved Karl Marx's idea about "communism". We started our unit off with a research task based on Brecht where we had to find out where he lived, How he influenced the world of theater during that time period and such. After our research task we had read through the play and then we were told to chose a theme that we would work on and make a mind map and present it to our class. My chosen theme was Capitalism Vs. Communism and basically we had highlight the aspects that were interconnected with our theme and the script "The Caucasian Chalk Circle" . Eventually we were divided into groups where we had to work with what theme we had chosen, what major event, and what brechtian elements we decided to work with. I was in a group with five people including me, Hamza, Mushanna, Ulughbek and Armin.
Our theme was different from one another but also somewhat similar as well which we were able to mix in and work with. The same can be said about our chosen major event and also brechtian element that we decided to work with. As a group we worked on Act 2: The Noble Child Pages 145-146 for our rough draft as well as our final draft performance and we did. I played Grusha, Hamza played the Fat Prince, Mushanna played Micheal, Armin played the Governor's wife and Ulugbek played the soldier. But since we made it shorter I had to play The beggars and petitioners and Mushanna was the Singer while rest of them remained the same (Ulughbek and I were also the doctors of the scene. Ulugbek was the first doctor and I was the second doctor for our Final Performance)
Getting our rough draft was by far the hardest that I had to overcome because I had people goofing off and talking and taking pictures and not listening so basically it was chaotic. From the time when we were assigned group till the day of our rough draft performance the only thing I was able to do with the group was assign them their roles ( I had to take the initiative and direct since no one would) and thats what the outcome of our entire class time was, which was reflected on the day of our rough draft performance. There isn't much I can write regarding this issue since there isn't much that we did such as use our time wisely and sort things out for our rough draft performance but from what I've seen while talking and discussing ideas with the group the most difficult person to handle was Armin and Ulughbek as they would drift off quite often and if I were to give them a grade for personal engagement then Armin would get a 4 and Ulughbek would get 3. But there were selected few who were cooperative and they were engaged with everyone such as Hamza and Mushanna. I would give Hamza a 7 and Mushanna a 7 as well.
Armin 4/8: She did make an effort and did give us suggestions and ideas for our performance but she wouldn't pay attention from time to time as she was distracted by her surrounding ( Her phone, Laptop and such) while all of us would discuss how we would stage our performance but she did offer everyone to come over to her house one day and rehearse our performance ( Never happened) There were times when she would shout at us and tell us to work which was helpful because everyone including myself would get distracted and talk about things that had no connection with our final performance. She also listened to our instructions and applied it to her role. For our rough draft she tried to memorize her lines in the last 15 minutes before our performance and wasn't able to to do. For our final performance she managed to memorize her lines.
Ulughbek 4/8: He did not make an effort or give us suggestion but he did listen to what I had to say and managed to stay with us during our small discussions. Even though he is not the type of person who can sit quietly and listen to what others have to say he did work and did memorize his lines when needed and try his best to be serious as well. He is easily distracted which makes it harder for me to give him a mark because there isn't much contribution that is made by him. He had to make a montage for the rough draft performance that not only he had forgotten about but all of us as well but we did make a montage for our final performance that hamza and I made and All he did was memorize his lines and listened to what we instructed him to do for the performance. For our rough draft performance he did memorize his lines but he stuttered which looked as though he had not memorized his lines. For the final performance he didn't stutter and was able to be very dramatic.
Hamza 7/8: He helped out a lot, he would listen to all of our ideas and suggestions and he would be actively engaged with us as well. He would also give us ideas as to how we would stage our performance, He also help me control everyone and make sure they were also engaged. Sometimes there would be people who wouldn't listen at all so he would come in and help me out so that we were talking about relevant things instead of irrelevant things that had nothing to do with any of our performance.During our rough draft performance he memorized his lines and delivered his lines with a loud voice but he would stutter and start thinking about what the next line would be. Hamza was able to interpreted the Fat Prince extremely well. During our Final performance Hamza did not stutter and did what he is good at which is being loud and dramatic and was dominating and stood out very well. He also made the Montage for our final performance which shows that he is committed and would like to achieve a higher grade.
Mushanna 7/8: She was also actively engaged with the entire group, she helped with a lot with the staging and gave me ideas and suggestions and we were also able to carry out her idea as well as some of ours as a whole. We assigned Mushanna as our singer which meant she had most of the lines that she had to remember and memorize. For our rough draft performance she tried to memorize her lines in the last 15 minutes but was unable to do so and had to read it off the script but for our Final performance she was able to memorize her lines and deliver it nicely.
Ayat 7/8: I would give myself 7 out of 8 because I did everything that has been asked for. I had to initiative and direct our performance. I had to push people and tell them to work and listen to what I had to say. Its hard to control a group that doesn't cooperate with you but I'm grateful to have Hamza and Mushanna who helped me out a lot. During our rough draft performance I had to stage the entire scene in the last 15 minutes before our performance and this was difficult because more than half the group did not memorize so they tried to learn it in the last 15 minutes so everything for our rough draft performance was extremely chaotic and jumbled up as well as stuffed together. Basically we were not at all ready to perform but we performed because of the sake of performing. When we did get our feedback for this performance it helped us a lot and we were able to to improve because of me and also the help of certain people I think we did do a good job on our final performance.
Ayat 7/8: I would give myself 7 out of 8 because I did everything that has been asked for. I had to initiative and direct our performance. I had to push people and tell them to work and listen to what I had to say. Its hard to control a group that doesn't cooperate with you but I'm grateful to have Hamza and Mushanna who helped me out a lot. During our rough draft performance I had to stage the entire scene in the last 15 minutes before our performance and this was difficult because more than half the group did not memorize so they tried to learn it in the last 15 minutes so everything for our rough draft performance was extremely chaotic and jumbled up as well as stuffed together. Basically we were not at all ready to perform but we performed because of the sake of performing. When we did get our feedback for this performance it helped us a lot and we were able to to improve because of me and also the help of certain people I think we did do a good job on our final performance.
There were many thing that weren't right with our rough draft performance so when we were given feedback regarding what needs attention and improvements we did take all of our feedback and applied it to our final performance. When we did the rough draft performance we had a key component that was missing which was our Montage and there were small little details as well such as our energy level and getting into characters as such which we improved on for our final performance. Hamza and I made the montage for our groups performance, We infused our chosen theme and our major event with our live performance which was nice and this also reflects that Hamza committed since he was able to take the imitative and make the montage. For our groups final performance I would grade ourselves (7/10) for Application mainly because of the montage we made that reflected the women in society and also the classes and status of the poor and the rich. The women in society reflected the beggar and the petitioners in the performance since it was about abuse and such. The classes and status of the poor and the rich reflected how Fat Prince talked to the Governor's Wife and neglected the poor. This was the message that our montage tried to convey. We also used Alienation effect on the audience (The script was written this way) and also we stood in positions so that we do not block any of the characters on stage and also made sure that everyone saw our front and not our back.
We watched Shubham,Noshin and Mifrah perform and personally I liked their performance, I liked the fact how the montage and also the live acting went well together and also the pictures they used in the montage and the situation they had in hand went extremely well with one another. Their Montage were just pictures of animal abuse and torture but their performance was about a girl getting Raped and then her family "disowning" her as she is impure according to the mother and the society. They used to idea of alienation effect really well and also they did break the fourth wall. Shubham for instance played a double role, He was the one who played the father in the scene and was also the one who broke the fourth wall by talking to us audience. If I were to grade them for their application then I would give them a (9 /10). During the performance there were a few things that was difficult for me to capture which was their voice levels I wasn't able to hear them clearly and also Mifrah was talking fast so I completely missed out what she had said. But Everyone knew what they were doing and knew how epic theater worked. They used everything we learnt in class and something that Brecht himself would have done. Brecht would have used a major issue and Shubham's group did use a major issue which was "Rape". If a woman does get raped (Even till this day) There are many family member would disown their own daughter because of how the society would think about them and also because of many religious reasons. They were able to convey this extremely nicely. Brecht would have used a Montage that would make his audience think as well as know the reality and shubham's group were able to do that as well, They used animal abuse and torture to convey their messages. Overall They did a really good job on their performance.
We watched Shubham,Noshin and Mifrah perform and personally I liked their performance, I liked the fact how the montage and also the live acting went well together and also the pictures they used in the montage and the situation they had in hand went extremely well with one another. Their Montage were just pictures of animal abuse and torture but their performance was about a girl getting Raped and then her family "disowning" her as she is impure according to the mother and the society. They used to idea of alienation effect really well and also they did break the fourth wall. Shubham for instance played a double role, He was the one who played the father in the scene and was also the one who broke the fourth wall by talking to us audience. If I were to grade them for their application then I would give them a (9 /10). During the performance there were a few things that was difficult for me to capture which was their voice levels I wasn't able to hear them clearly and also Mifrah was talking fast so I completely missed out what she had said. But Everyone knew what they were doing and knew how epic theater worked. They used everything we learnt in class and something that Brecht himself would have done. Brecht would have used a major issue and Shubham's group did use a major issue which was "Rape". If a woman does get raped (Even till this day) There are many family member would disown their own daughter because of how the society would think about them and also because of many religious reasons. They were able to convey this extremely nicely. Brecht would have used a Montage that would make his audience think as well as know the reality and shubham's group were able to do that as well, They used animal abuse and torture to convey their messages. Overall They did a really good job on their performance.
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