Lesson 11 - PoD in Practice! - Far Away

Big Brother - 1984

Far Away

Read Script
We began our journey into self discovery and creating our installation piece by reading the script twice.
Analysis
After our initial script readings we all had some early thoughts on the themes and ideas of the play. However, we were mostly just dumbfounded and didn't know which way was up. To tackle our joint confusion we went through the first two acts together and then went away to independently study the final one.
Act 1
Joan - Confused, stilted conversation. Frightened.
Harper - Authoritative figure, Directs conversation, very much in the position of power
Act 2
Deeply ironic - conversation about abuses of power and standing up to The Man while still very much a a part of the system. Indoctrination.
Heightened tension with each time jump as hats grow in size and prominence.
Act 3
We see just how wrong the world is. Are they talking in metaphors? Through propaganda and indoctrination has the government managed to convince the populace that all this is true? Is all the chaos real? No questions are answered and the carol once again uses confusion and disorder to show the state of the world and keep the audience on the left foot. Regardless of what is correct we do know that humanity has become incredibly brutal and animalistic with no regard for human life. I can find direct quotes if you guys want
Joan is beginning to act as a more independent character that appears to question the rules that make up her society. This is suggested by the complete abandonment of her post. However, still shown to be very much part of the world as suggested by her casual mention of the murder of a little girl.

Glenn Grohe

Research

Gordan K Odell

Propaganda posters used in World War II.
Death marches - Bataan Death March
1984
Carol Churchil 1939, Lake District, born just before WWII so spent the early years of her life surrounded by much propoganda and fear.
Indoctrination - "the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically." - Web Definition

World War 2
The 'He's watching you,' poster may be my favourite piece of propaganda because of its intended meaning and how it was interpreted by the American public. It was supposed to show the "menacing, shadowy figure of a German soldier peering directly at the viewer," and was intended to remind the public of the importance of secrecy within the industrial sector. Instead, many Americans saw the shadowy figure as a symbol of 'The Boss,' which I think fits in well with the context of the play. I found it eerily similar to Orwell's depiction of 'Big Brother' in '1984.' 
The second poster depicts a woman and child being grasped at by sinister claw-like hands. Its purpose was to make the public "feel responsible for the well-being of women and children," leading to them supporting the war effort by buying victory bonds. In regards to the play, I like this image because of its dehumanisation of the Axis Powers reflects the very animalistic language of the play, particularly in the third act. 
I looked at the Bataan Death march where 60-80 thousand American and Filipino troops were forced to march across the country to different camps. Around 6000 Filipino troops and about 800 American troops died on the march. The American government dehumanised the Japanese for this act, which is hypocritical because of how they were treating black Americans at the time and for a good many years afterwards. This is similar to how Joan and Todd only focus on the abuses of power when it can be used in their favour.
Incubation
How can we best encapsulate the main themes and ideas of the play?
I was particularly taken with the idea creating propaganda posters to represent each act of the play. An early idea was to do something similar to the projection Jamie and I made during the reaction to Epic Theatre. This would also incorporate lighting and art and, which would make good use of both Rhodri's technical skill and Beth artistic talent. It would also have been work they would be able to do while I was away.
Another possible avenue would have been to create a series of hats that would either reflect a single character or could possibly encapsulate the essence of an entire act.
Three rooms - we would use dividers found in the design room to create three independent spaces. Each room would reflect a different scene within the play and tackle a separate issue. There would be a central light shining only on one segment to emphasize a particular segment and draw attention away from the others. Each room would draw inspiration from  However, this proved too complex in the implementation phase so we cut it down to its key elements, which we attempted to capture with the final propaganda posters.
Selection
Having our list of ideas written down, we immediately discarded the hat idea because it would have been too difficult to obtain all of the materials necessary to construct them, as well as the fact that none of us knew precisely how to construct a hat. The segmented room was ruled out in similar fashion when we were worried it would be too time consuming to produce and had the risk of being chaotic and confused.
Implementation
Unfortunately I was AWL (away with leave) so I was unable to contribute a lot to this stage. However, I think that even with the crushing blow of my absence, my group was able to create a strong installation that reflected they key themes of governmental power abuse and propaganda that are present within the play.
Beth and Rhodri obtained trestles from the workshop before Beth created three posters in a similar vein to the ones I presented up there. Rhodri collected a light from the tech store, which shined through the posters to give a dark, shadowy silhouette.

Evaluation
It is important to stress that Rhodri and Beth were the primary members of this team while I was away and could not contribute as much as I should have.
Overall, I am more than happy with the final outcome but have the opinion that we could have done better to create a bigger, more immersive piece had we all been able to work together more often. I primarily place the blame on myself as I only had a few days to fully immerse myself in the project and it was somewhat difficult to find a day where we all had the afternoon off and could meet up to discuss the project.
One thing I found particularly interesting was how the research period affected my interpretation of the play; as I found out more about Carol Churchill's upbringing and background my understanding of the characters changed. This is most evident with Joan who initially confused me but became an almost anti establishment figure as I found out about Churchill's history of writing about abuses of power.
For this task we were only told to do a single thorough solo read before we moved on to group work and analysis. I found that my initial script reading wasn't nearly enough for me to get to grips with the obscure subject matter, which highlighted the importance of multiple script readings.
Looking back over this project after completing the second one and almost finishing the third, I am able to more clearly see the downfalls of this project and am disappointed most with my research because I feel like I could have gone so much more in-depth with it. It was an incredibly interesting subject and I regret not going down more avenues. On the other hand, I am being slightly forgiving to myself because I had work experience, which meant that I did not have as long on this project as I did for the other ones. It was also the first project and I know I have definitely improved since then.

References

Olive-Drab (1998) WW II poster: He’s watching you. Available at: http://olive-drab.com/gallery/description_0173.php (Accessed: 6 March 2017).

H, A. (2015) ‘Keep these hands off’ by Gordon K. Odell. Available at: http://ahabbestad.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/keep-these-hands-off-by-gordon-k-odell_11.html (Accessed: 6 March 2017).