So this is somewhat of a personal story...
I am a theater and peace and conflict studies double major. Two summers ago I met my friend Marie, with the same two majors working for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
The Mime Troupe is a theater troupe that performs political-comedy-musical theater for free in parks.
Their plays explore current issues, and they make them accessible by only accepting donations and not charging admission.
This year, Marie and I decided to put on our own play in the co-op that I live in. We took what we learned from the mime troupe and applied it to something that was our own.
Our troupe is called Change Theater Collective and the show we are putting on is called Brecht Now: three short plays.
Like the mime troupe, we are not charging admission, and are only accepting donations as to refund our own money we've had to put into the show.
The first of the three plays by Bertolt Brecht is The Beggar or the Dead Dog. In this piece, I play the Emperor, and my friend plays the Beggar. The premise is that the Emperor has just defeated his greatest enemy, and now he is off to celebrate, when he is confronted with a beggar stationed in front of his house. The Emperor is annoyed to say the least with the beggar's presence, and through the 20 minute play, we see him change because of this interaction. The play is not about idealism, so it's not a great change, just so much to make us question why these interactions proceed as such.
In our contemporary rendition of these 50+ year old plays, we've decided to share quotations before each piece. The two for The Beggar or the Dead Dog are...
"Why the heart of our city has to be overrun by homeless, drug dealers, dropouts and trash, I have no idea"--Greg Gopman
and
"Poverty is not natural, it is man-made"--Nelson Mandela
I think that when we typically think of art and its ability for social change, it's all about personal expression and personal reformation through an artistic process. If we have more art programs for children, they'll be more creative and do better all around. If we give inmates an artistic outlet, they'll become productive and have increase their self-worth. I do believe all of this is true, but I think the potential for art goes far beyond that.
In theater, we study performance and performativity. Art is always a performative, because provokes people to think--and that may be in a new way which causes them to change.
Our play may not be revolutionary, but putting characters on stage, that conflict common perceptions of poverty and authority have the power to change the way we think about power and authority in our day to day lives.
If you're free tonight, you can come see the closing show of Brecht Now: three short plays it's at Lothlorien co-op 2405 Prospect st. at 8pm!
I am a theater and peace and conflict studies double major. Two summers ago I met my friend Marie, with the same two majors working for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
The Mime Troupe is a theater troupe that performs political-comedy-musical theater for free in parks.
Their plays explore current issues, and they make them accessible by only accepting donations and not charging admission.
This year, Marie and I decided to put on our own play in the co-op that I live in. We took what we learned from the mime troupe and applied it to something that was our own.
Our troupe is called Change Theater Collective and the show we are putting on is called Brecht Now: three short plays.
Like the mime troupe, we are not charging admission, and are only accepting donations as to refund our own money we've had to put into the show.
The first of the three plays by Bertolt Brecht is The Beggar or the Dead Dog. In this piece, I play the Emperor, and my friend plays the Beggar. The premise is that the Emperor has just defeated his greatest enemy, and now he is off to celebrate, when he is confronted with a beggar stationed in front of his house. The Emperor is annoyed to say the least with the beggar's presence, and through the 20 minute play, we see him change because of this interaction. The play is not about idealism, so it's not a great change, just so much to make us question why these interactions proceed as such.
In our contemporary rendition of these 50+ year old plays, we've decided to share quotations before each piece. The two for The Beggar or the Dead Dog are...
"Why the heart of our city has to be overrun by homeless, drug dealers, dropouts and trash, I have no idea"--Greg Gopman
and
"Poverty is not natural, it is man-made"--Nelson Mandela
I think that when we typically think of art and its ability for social change, it's all about personal expression and personal reformation through an artistic process. If we have more art programs for children, they'll be more creative and do better all around. If we give inmates an artistic outlet, they'll become productive and have increase their self-worth. I do believe all of this is true, but I think the potential for art goes far beyond that.
In theater, we study performance and performativity. Art is always a performative, because provokes people to think--and that may be in a new way which causes them to change.
Our play may not be revolutionary, but putting characters on stage, that conflict common perceptions of poverty and authority have the power to change the way we think about power and authority in our day to day lives.
If you're free tonight, you can come see the closing show of Brecht Now: three short plays it's at Lothlorien co-op 2405 Prospect st. at 8pm!
Danielle,
ReplyDeleteI greatly appreciate your inclusion of the arts as a form of political commentary on issues such as poverty. As a dancer, I feel like the arts are a very powerful form of expression, and can be very influential as commentary, but nowadays is overlooked as more focus is put on more scientific, technical and "intellectual" forms of poverty alleviation and economic or political changes.
Way back when, political satire by comedians, poets, and theatres had great influence on the public opinion in Athenian democracy. I think that arts - whether it be theatre, dance, graffiti, songs, poems, etc. - are means to delivering dense information and opinions on subjects like politics and economics to the public who don't necessarily have the privilege to study the subjects and understand the "scholarly" language of them. Arts have the power to make heavy and complicated topics accessible and understandable to the common person. Often, arts are much more personable and able to be received by many peoples because it incorporates a lot more emotions. It humanizes these topics.
One downfall is that it can arguably only subjectively deliver one person's opinion on the issues, and not many perspectives for the public to take into consideration to make their own conclusions. However, there is a lot of political art out there to provide differing perspectives, it's just underground. I feel if the arts were more recognized as legitimate, it wouldn't have to be underground, and public political theatres could be more available and popular. So thank you for making a poltical theatre more accessible to Berkeley students this semester!
Just my opinion though, potentially as a biased artist myself.