GIFT: AND NOW WHAT? THE PLAY

'Gift: and now what?' is a stage play concerning a single-parent family during the lockdown; it devises the consequences of the pandemic and lockdown on the family's relationship and how they influenced and changed their behaviour. Heavily biographical, looking to lengthen to a general setting where the audience can identify with the characters and events happening on the stage. As Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw state, 'biographical sourcing is not just a personal truth, (but) a creative truth: one in which the real, the fantasy, the fictional get mixed up together’ (Aston and Harris, 2008).

The play aims to make the audience contemplate the switch of the interpersonal relationships within the family and take action, what the roles of the lockdown and the prolonged use of screens play in the change. A typical Brechtian Epic theatre characteristic is to make the audience think. It follows a theatrical approach, applying multi-rolling and implementing digital media in the performance, not pursuing a reflection of the reality on stage but masking the plot in three different stories and using the influence of poetry, Epic theatre and underground theatre.

By using projections, approaching the influence of the Brechtian Epic theatre, I resolve the difficulty muti-rolling posed. Elizabeth Jones states, 'Brecht used only the necessary objects on stage for enforcing a clear distance between the spectator and the set; (...) the audience (was) no longer encouraged to view the stage as a separate world into which the spectator must be transported. To enforce this idea, projections were an important device of Epic theatre that Brecht employed in his 1931 staging of 'Man Equals Man' (Jones, 2009). In the play, the narrator's character appears as an image projected on the stage (on a computer). This resolution solves, in part, the difficulty of playing three characters on stage by the same actor.

Bertolt Brecht was a German playwright who wanted the audience to think while still acknowledging they were watching a play (Brechtian staging - Epic theatre and Brecht - GCSE Drama Revision - BBC Bitesize, 2022).

'Epic Theatre is a concept brought first by Bertolt Brecht at the beginning of the XX Century in his book Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic' (Brecht and Willett, 1965).

'His theatre has dramatically influenced modern theatre. He believed in Historicism as a convention of verfremdungseffekt or distant theatre' (Distancing effect, Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt, 2022). 'In distant theatre, the audience is a conscious critic, not allowing the audience to get lost in the play. Actors achieve this by addressing directly to the public or anticipating what is about to happen using, for instance, boards '(Hamlet Unplugged, 2022). The narrator anticipates the action.

Michael Patterson writes, 'Brecht (...) sought to examine the individual's relationship to his environment to change both. (...) His characters had to be (occasionally unnamed) representative types, representative of no universal Man but men in a specific social situation. From man the psychological animal and man the spiritual animal, Brecht turned to man the social and political animal' (Patterson, 1981)

The element of multi-rolling is present in this play: only one actor plays all three main characters. The Brechtian Epic theatre influence is present in this play by using projections to resolve the difficulty muti-rolling posed. Jones states, 'Brecht used only the necessary objects on stage for enforcing a clear distance between the spectator and the set; (...) the audience (was) not longer encouraged to view the stage as a separate world into which the spectator must be transported. To enforce this idea, projections were an important device of Epic theatre that Brecht employed in his 1931 staging of Man Equals Man' (Jones, 2009). The narrator's character appears as a projection on the stage (projected on a wall or a screen of any electronic device). This resolution solves, in part, the difficulty of playing three characters on stage by the same actor.

According to Elizabeth Jones, 'Brecht intended to heighten the spectator's participation, not by testing the audience's knowledge of a subject, by instead by inviting the audience to develop their own thoughts criticism about the events on the stage, with clarity of mind' (Jones, 2009).

On the other hand, the child's character is an actual size puppet. The puppet incorporates digital media by using one device depicting his eyes. 'Puppetry has been around for hundreds of years, from the Japanese Bunraku to the Turkish shadow puppets and Vietnamese water puppets to the British Punch and Judy or trick marionettes' (Theatre-Rites - Puppetry, 2022).

Behind the idea of the creation of the child's character is to shock the audience, as Artaud advocated with his experimental theatre, the theatre of cruelty. His theatre appealed to release the audience's emotions arriving at a point of catharsis. 'In the Theatre of Cruelty, the audience is affected by the use of masks, oversize puppets, and harsh lighting and sound' (The Abstractness and Beauty of Lament | The Nordic Page, 2017).

The child's character (as the narrator's character) both have masks. However, is this character is the one trying to surprise the audience. Aesthetically the child's character is influenced by the art piece 'Charlie don't surf' by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan and his idea of 'borrowing'. (Please see more about this topic in this link).

The mother's character represents the tradition of Realism in the theatre. The adult audience can relate to this character. It depicts a mother because, according to a study done in 2019, the vast majority of single-parent families in The United Kingdom are headed by women (Single Parent Statistics 2019 UK, 2019). The mother is the figure that shows the internal struggle between responsibilities and a sense of disconnection and loss. The mother carries the worries the lockdown and the pandemic carried over many households worldwide. In the creation of this character, language plays a primordial role. Rebecca Prichard suggests, 'tune into how others speak as a way of skilling-up for dialogue writing (...) to note down verbatim snatches of conversation to develop an awareness of how people converse' (Aston and Harris, 2008). The language used by this character is the language used by mothers I spoke with during the pandemic.

In the play 'Gift: and now what?', characters choose monologues to tell their stories to the audience. Elaine Aston and Geraldine Harris remark, 'monologues can be an excellent means of creating the voice of self-delusion'. (...) Monologues can operate, not just as a conduit for inner thoughts, but for a character to tell us what has been happening to them and others in a way that advances the storyline' (Aston and Harris, 2008).

Epic theatre is not a linear theatre with a plot that unfolds in front of the audience. On the contrary, epic theatre leaves many issues unsolved and confronts the audience to think about them. In epic theatre, we find episodic scenes, short scenes that are independent with a fractured narrative, jumping from one thing to another.

The play follows a similar structure to Epic theatre, jumping from one story to another without a linear narrative and representing glimpses of each character's life (the mother and the child).

There are three stories in this play, each of them without a precise end. The characters: The narrator, the child and the mother. Each monologue brings a glimpse of moments of every individual story. Each character represents a specific character in the social situation of a lockdown during the pandemic, making the audience think about how that situation affected them.

Brecht would also use music and lyrics that do not go together to remind the audience that they were watching a play. A great example is the song 'Mack the knife' from The Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Kurt Weil (2022). In this song, the lyrics create a colourful contrast with the music. As Brecht did of music and lyrics in his plays, the child's character communicates with the music and lyrics not going together.

The only character not following the Brechtian influence is the narrator, who does not represent any specific man/woman in that particular social situation, but instead introduces us to what we are about to see as the figure of the narrator of the traditional theatre from the Greek theatre to Shakespeare.

As professor Ronald Santora states, 'narrators, actors who interpret the action, may seem strange to modern audiences, but this device was commonplace in classical Greek theatre. Greek playwrights employed a chorus, actors who would not take part in the action but who stood on the edges of the acting space and addressed the audience directly between scenes' (Santora, 2004).

In the play, the narrator's character uses a mask as used in Ancient Greek and Japanese theatre: Helping the narrator to explain the situation, exaggerating his movements and allowing the multi-role in the play. The child's character uses a mask combined with a multimedia display (the recording of a set of eyes looking in different directions played on a phone lying over the eyes of the mask), linking the use of a mask with digital media. The narrator is projected on a screen, making the mask to be alive within a multimedia device, creating a different way to link the use of the mask and digital media in the performance.

Artaud created the so-called Theatre of Cruelty, a theatre movement based (the stylised movement used by the characters was known as visual poetry), aiming to shock the audience's sense and experiment with the relationship between the audience and performers. His theatre had a slight emphasis on the text and more on improvisation. His theatre appealed to release the audience's emotions arriving at a point of catharsis.

In the Theatre of Cruelty, the audience is affected by the use of masks, oversize puppets, and harsh lighting and sound (The Abstractness and Beauty of Lament | The Nordic Page, 2017).

'Puppetry has been around for hundreds of years, from the Japanese Bunraku to the Turkish shadow puppets and Vietnamese water puppets to the British Punch and Judy or trick marionettes' (Theatre-Rites - Puppetry, 2022). In 'Gift, and now what?', an actual size puppet represents the child, defined by his rhythmic movement based on the modern type of music, Rap, and the use of a mask and a multimedia display in his mask (a phone instead of his eyes). Rap is the style of music many youngsters or much of the younger generation listen to and use for communicating with the world.

According to Justin Cash, Artaud advocated an experimental theatre focusing on movement, gesture, dance, and signals instead of relying primarily on text as a means of communication. (63 Frightening Theatre of Cruelty Techniques | The Drama Teacher, 2022).

The narrator and the child are the characters characterised by their movement. Both characters have a characteristic flow: the narrator has a classical theatrical motion with a slow elongation of the arms as if the move comes from the fingers, resembling the movements of classical dance. On the contrary, the child's flow is driven by the head, with quick movements changing pace. These two characters and their characteristic mobility are inspired by The Eight Efforts of Laban and The Seven States of tension of Lecoq, defining both characters by one form of tension (tragic for the narrator and alert for the child), not fluctuating between states as the mother does.

The play was showcased live on Tiktok (and prerecorded on Instagram), linking the relationship between new social media platforms and theatre/performances (please see more about this topic in this link).

* Find the play here. 

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GIFT: AND NOW WHAT? MONOLOGUES

NARRATOR

This is a story about love, struggle, guilt and patience.

When we are challenged by extraordinary circumstances, how do we behave?

This story is about a mother and her son and their ups and downs when they found themselves isolated from the world.

Love turns into hate and guilt, which appears from nowhere and eats our souls.

This is a story about learning and understanding, patience and true love.

When nobody is around, who is there to support us? "Mum, mummy", he calls, "mum, mother", she reaches.

Alone in this tiny house, they are surrounded by people they do not see or know. Alone in a big city of a thousand souls.

NARRATOR

The mother is already up.

'Sssh, silence

Sssh, the child sleeps

Sssh.

In stillness at night, she lays

her heart on sugar and wine,

The fear of emotions around

breaking her frozen soul.

Weeping tears

that silence the wind

Sssh, the child stares

Sssh

Let's just all play!

NARRATOR

Worries surrounded by insecurities

Breaths, afraid to exhale.

When the world disappears, and you don't know what to expect.

The routine turns tedious

And the patience starts to decrease.

Children not knowing what is happening,

Without friends around to play with,

Lonely and bored at home.

From one day to another,

Nobody explains, nobody tells.

He hears stories from here and there.

What is invisible is dangerous,

Death is everywhere.

Nobody explains anything. It seems they don't care.

FIGURE OF THE NARRATOR. NOTES

Mask

Speaks in verse

Introduces the actions

Addresses the audience

Asks questions to the audience

Inspired by:

Classical Theatre like Shakespeare

Films:

Romeo + Juliet by Baz Luhrmann

What's eating Gilbert Grape? By Peter Hedges

Physicality. Inspired by:

David Bowie's character Goblin King Jareth in Neverending Story by Wolfgang Petersen

C-3PO in Star Wars by George Lucas

Hands movement: Japanese Theatre and Indian dance

Verse. Influenced by the poetry of the Spanish Poet and Author Federico Garcia Lorca.

MOTHER

I shouted at him. I was out of myself. I do not know where that shout came from. Somewhere inside of me… I was not expecting it!

And he looked at me in terror and hid from me, covering his face with his hands, and cried so much, so desperately!

I felt so bad! So bad. I feel so bad! I shouted at him, and I lost it. I told him many times to listen to me and to leave the phone, and he ignored me. I was just trying to help him with his homework. I told him I was tired. I told him to pay attention, that doing that was not pleasant. He ignored me, and I lost it! I don't know why I lost it. I feel so shit. He already has enough. I'm supposed to look after him, and I do. What type of mother am I? I feel so terribly wrong, mum. So bad. I'm so sorry I lost it. So sorry. So sorry.

MOTHER

I remember once we were camping with your grandparents and some of their friends. I was with your grandad and other kids catching river crabs. They are slightly different, like a giant prawn but with big red clamps. You must hold them carefully from both sides of the torso so the clamps cannot reach your fingers. Grandma told me a trick to make them sleep: Holding them like that, with your index or middle finger of your other hand, you caress the top of their body, and they magically, after a few strokes, go to sleep.

We have not gone camping much with your grandparents. During that trip, we had all types of adventures: We were swimming in the river, and next to us was a very poisonous snake that sneakily floated by our side. That was scary!! I did not know what it was, I saw it was a snake, but I didn't think it was that dangerous!!

But the best was when we set the tents somewhere else, and all adults were like 'Oh!! It is so nice here!!! And there is almost nobody around!! We found a very nice spot!!" and all kids went to the river to play, the usual things, getting each other under the water, swimming, diving with open eyes!! We were having a great time until I noticed my mother shouting at us to get out of there immediately!! I didn't understand what the problem was, you know, what else could have happened to us after the snake? The adults didn't see a sign by the river that said, "Sewage, do not swim".

MOTHER

I always loved seeing you sleeping; you looked so peaceful! At those moments I talk to you, I tell you how much I love you and how sorry I am for always being busy working and feeling tired. I tell you how intelligent you are and funny, and I praise your good heart. You make me feel so proud to be your mother! You have no idea. I know we clash and argue, but I wouldn't change any moment of my life since I had you. You are the best thing that has ever happened in my life. You are a little gift full of surprises. I wish our lives would be better, and I work hard to make them improve, but sometimes it is hard to carry everything over my shoulders alone. I am sorry for constantly being tired and for sometimes not answering you back nicely. I sometimes only need a minute of silence, one or two minutes where I don't talk, I don't think, I don't have to do anything. I'm sorry if I made you feel bad today. I am so sorry. You are the best thing in my life, and hurting you breaks my heart. It's difficult, you know? And I know it is difficult for you too. I'll try to be much better tomorrow. I love you so much, my sunshine.

Sleep and rest, my little boy, sleep and rest. You are doing so great! I love you. Good night.

FIGURE OF THE MOTHER. NOTES

Realistic theatre

Wears invisible masks

The duality between love and rage

Lost in the stage

Inspired by:

Physicality. Inspired by:

Carmen Maura

Elena Anaya

Ariadna Gil

CHILD

Yo, yo

Life, oh yeah!

What the f*

Yo, yo

Battling high, high

Yo

Got my bandanna 'round my head

Ready to shake

My hand like a pudding

The tension burning hot

And the

Oh yeah!

Aaha

My eyes fire red.

I scream fuck you!

Fuck the world, man!

I hate you!

What the fuck?

Yo

What do you know about the world?

You know nothing

You are blindly worried only about your own shit

Leave me breath

I'm a big man now

Don't you see?

Let's get you all

motherfuckers

Look, I don't curse,

But

Yo, yo

I feel like

Yo

Like everybody against me

Sometimes I just wish I could be away

I can handle all of my business

Leave me alone.

CHILD

My tooth got stuck

How am I gonna

chat?

My tooth was stiff.

How am I gonna

Breath?

Please help me

I am only a child

It is an emergency

Let me go

And take my tooth out

How am I gonna live like this?

My tooth got stuck

How am I gonna

chat?

My tooth was stiff.

How am I gonna

Breath?

Outside is full of poison

I go out, and I'll die

Why mamma wanna go out?

Don't you see, it is dangerous!

I don't wanna die!!

Please mamma,

Please

Let's just be here

But, please, mamma, help me

My tooth got stuck

How am I gonna chat?

My tooth was stiff

How am I gonna breathe?

Why don't you help me, mamma?

Don't you see me crying?

I cannot eat with this tooth

If you don't do something

I am gonna die

Mamma, I'm tired

Please, mamma, help me

Why don't you do anything?

I love you, mamma

Bye.

CHILD

I am your friend

We are mates

You are great, and so I am!

Playing together gives me life

I miss seeing you guys outside!

We bit the bitches

We have fun

We are a great squat

We are a team

We are great!

Why are you mean?

When I only want to play?

Why are you mean?

When am I your friend?

Mamma and not feeling ok

Letting me on the side

Makes a pain in my chest

Why are you mean

When I only want to play?

Mamma, come and hug me

I don't know why people are nasty to me

I only want to be their friend

Why are people mean to me?

Mamma, come and hug me

I feel pain in my chest.

FIGURE OF THE CHILD. NOTES

Musical theatre. Influenced by Hip Hop and Rappers

Puppet

Pure love and Unknown

Head bubbling with thoughts

Inspired by: Eminem, Lil Wayne, Maurizio Cattelan, Stromae

Physicality. Inspired by:

Rappers. Puppetry

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*This is a project for my MA Acting for Stage and Screen at UEL, London (2022)