11th December rehearsal 6 (final rehearsal)

Today was focusing on our responses from our previous rehearsal and doing individual section run throughs I felt I had improved from my last rehearsal as I found that analysing the script had helped me understand my character and the scene meaning the conversation structure was improved, thus meaning it prompted me to interact more with my surroundings on stage thus making the area look more believable and alienating the audience and reminding them they are watching a piece of theatre. Also my knowledge of the script prompted me to make my character more grotesque as in response to our character development exercise in previous classes.

We then looked at our interaction during songs mainly on "money, money money" we did this by using "camp" and stereotypical dance movements this therefor played with Brecht's alienation technique due to its obvious grotesque outset, this then led to us to develop or ending of the performance as we felt the script ended abruptly so we repeated "money, money, money" and gave the checkout girls balloons which looked like pregnancy bumps with money in them for them to burst and pick up the change to identify there wages and child costs. We then went into two lines facing the audience in traverse to do our bows, we then suddenly go into a freeze frame, the supermarket manager then does a final customer announcement and we then continue to leave singing. This ending I felt made the audience feel apart of the supermarket setting and as the cast leave them there it therefore again alienates them reminding the audience that they are watching a performance and prompting them to think about the political meanings behind the performance.

We then had to do a mock performance in front of the strand, this was the first time we had tried picking up the audience and taking them to the performance space. For this a group of us from the cast greeted the audience and handed out leaflets informing them about the price of raising a child, also groups of the cashier girls came outside and billed the audience for petty things like breathing indicating the cost of living. I felt this was successful as it was a unique way of introducing the audience to the performance, I also found the audience where responding positively to this making it easier to interact in character.

We then continued to our performance I felt afterwards that i was reacting and acting as I was inside a supermarket was easier as I felt out of place and also out of character if I just stood and watched the performance. Thus again alienating the audience as they feel out of place within the performance space.

In my own personal evaluation for tonight's performance I feel I can be more confident with my surrounding reactions to people within the shop and the audience, also when I'm not speaking i can pretend to compare prices and have arguments with other characters like I'm within the store.