Solo Protester - Applying Gestus

Outside of lesson we all looked at real interviews with people who were a part of the Occupy movement and wrote our own transcripts of them.

MEDEA BENJAMIN:

My name is Medea Benjamin; I am here today because I am excited about a growing movement that... includes young people, older people, all kinds of, uh, people from all walks of life, who want to get together and think about a new way to recreate society. And it’s exciting to see people transform in themselves by being in the space and talking and learning, and feeling they’re not alone and... if you can’t find a job it’s not for your own faults it’s the system. If you’ve lost your home, it might not be your own fault, it might be the system. And together we’re trying to find solutions.

INTERVIEWER:

Great. Now, is there a particular reason why, why you’re down here?

MEDEA BENJAMIN:

I’m here because I’ve been trying to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for the last ten years, and suddenly people are connecting the dots that if we’re spending trillions of dollars on war, we are not investing those trillions of dollars here in the United States on education for young people, or healthcare for elders or, uh, creating jobs that people need. And people are understanding now that we’ve got to stop spending so much money on the military and invest it in rebuilding America.

*

Barack Obama has been a tremendous disappointment for people who thought he really represented hope and change. We see that in the case of the economy, he put the very barons of Wall Street in charge of, uh, the US economy from Tim Geithner and Larry Summers and, uh, he really, uh, put the, what we call “the Banksters” in charge of the US... bank. And in terms of the wars, he has escalated the war in Afghanistan. There are more troops than when he started, there are more soldiers killed in Afghanistan than when he started and there’s more civilians being killed in drone attacks than when he started. In the case of Iraq, he’s promised us to get all the troops out by the end of the year and that we could take that to the bank, but... I wouldn’t take it to the bank.

Using these transcripts we began to get in to the mind of some of the protesters in the real Occupy movement that In the Beginning is based on. We had to ask ourselves the following questions:

1.       What are they protesting about?

Medea Benjamin is protesting about the cost and morality of ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the lack of jobs for not only young people but the whole of society.

2.       What type of person are they?

She is a peaceful yet active protester with a passion for the subjects she cares about. Willing to take part in the interview, she cares about the world understanding why she and everyone else is protesting in the space.

3.       What gestus fits your character?

Large hand gestures to add to and articulate speech as well as frequent nodding of the head to show a positive, can-do attitude.

In a later lesson we used extracts of these verbatim transcripts  combined with various Occupy protest systems to devise short pieces of theatre based around each character in the play - the children and the parents. Our devised piece included a human microphone and hand signals as well as showing the differences between young people in the political protesting world. Some students show a great care and passion for whatever it is they are protesting for, and others seem to view it as a festival-type camping session where they are free to have a good time for as long as they like because they are 'making a difference'. Using this, we can create a greater range of character types within the role of CHILD as all children protesting have different attitudes.
The parental protest was more difficult as it was about how the parents would protest
Some of the pieces inspired parts of the finished play and it was a useful exercise for better understanding the truth and the people within the protests, not just the biased articles and reports.