Amy Bianchi

How is the initial material being researched and developed at

significant stages during the process of creating drama?
The stimulus upon which our devised piece is based is the issue
(and those surrounding) of the 2011 London Riots. Having been
presented with a poem Londons Burning by prisoner of the riots
N Angel, we jotted down words which we, as a group, initially
associated with our memories of the London riots. Amongst others, the
words greed, break down (of society) and solidarity were ones
which particularly stood out as those which could be further explored
and portrayed theatrically. Contemplating the issue of greed, we
discussed the concept of selfishness; not only did looters want to steal
for their own gain, but journalists appeared to be trying to greedily
shape a 'juicy story for the benefit of their own careers rather than in
order to accurately and sensitively present the facts of the events.
Whilst considering the breakdown of society, we discussed whether or
not common belief was that there is a sort of person who would loot.
This made us keen to explore the issue of prejudice between social
groups. Although break down of society seemed to be a very prevalent
issue, we considered how solidarity could be a relevant factor to
discuss within the issue of the riots. At various points within the
occurrence of the riots, unity was evidenced: we had read articles
about community clear-ups, witnessed the common goal of looters
through video footage of large crowds/hoards, and seen the BBC news
channels reporting the uniting of various big cities in the UK- linked
through the horrid events which took place. The idea that people can
be brought together through both good and bad events fascinated us,
so we decided solidarity would be an appropriate theme to explore
further.
The London riots of 2011 greatly affected the whole nation, in
both reputation and economical standing. As a hotly debated issue
which received much press coverage, the London riots provoked much
questioning. Issues such as the reasons for the rioting are largely
uncertain, causing conflict in the ideas of many. Due to the
uncertainties which arise when discussing the issue, we felt it was
important to challenge the common consensus that looting is always
wrong (particularly in the case of the London riots), questioning
whether or not there could be a case in which this is untrue. As a
group, we believe it is important that our devised piece is thought
provoking and challenging, and so we want our audience to think
carefully about their currently held views. Our three central aims are;
firstly, to address the issue of social and class divide. Secondly, we aim
to force our audience to consider whether or not the motives of all
those involved in the riots were pure by presenting them with a
number of conflicting and contradictory examples; we will do this by
presenting looters as those who are worthy of empathy and reporters

Amy Bianchi
as those who are insensitive. Thirdly, we aim to emphasise the
importance of formulating opinions based on fact rather than
speculation. As part of my research, I asked a group of approximately
25 teenagers what they knew and remembered about the London
Riots. The response showed that people are not really sure what
happened and why this suggests that their opinions are not based on
solid fact. By addressing the social upheaval that can occur due to the
factual ambiguity of events such as the rioting, we aim to make an
audience aware of how important it is to search for factual evidence.
Considering that the riots caused havoc and chaos, we want to
make our audience feel uncomfortable about the seriousness of rioting.
I feel we can do this by considering Artauds Theatre of Cruelty, using
his idea of Visual Poetry to create frightening, nightmare-ish scenes.
This will help us to create a political and engaging piece of theatre.

How effectively are you personally exploring and developing your

roles?
Within the piece, the four of us multi-role to a fairly equal extent.
None of my characters have a name, but rather are identified through
their different characteristics: as a reporter, I am bloodthirsty like an
animal; as a puppet I am feeble and subject to manipulation. At one
point within the piece, I perform the monologue of a young, sociable
mother who has heard of the riots through a chain of friends. Being
performed in an over the top and stereotypical style, I felt it necessary
to explore my character from the viewpoint of Brecht. I considered
Brechts use of stereotyping characters, devoid of inner emotional
meaning/deepness. To effectively become this character, I speak
loudly with a common, exaggerated accent, using colloquialisms such
as You what? and referring to friends with ridiculously modern names
like Kalisha. Speaking like this reflects her social situation. The heart
of the riots took place in Tottenham; a part of London characterised by
its close-knit society of council flats and housing estates, in which the
rise of gangs and drug wars is prevalent. Having considered this kind of
social context and its implications, it seemed appropriate for my
character to be concerned with and fearful of issues such as crime and
rioting (despite probably living within such issues herself) and to show
this in a dramatic, extravagant way. I use my hands flamboyantly as I
talk and rest my hand upon my hip with attitude to convey my
characters heightened (and overblown) sense of annoyance. The
character is over-the-top and so audience members should find
humour in the exclamation of her stress; but the blatancy of her
exaggeration should make them aware of the likelihood that these

Amy Bianchi
concerns were shared by many under the same stereotype this
character does not have a name because she is representative of
many. This is important as it expresses that there were many young
mothers who would have been similarly fearful.
At another point in our piece, I portray a figure within a
nightmare. Whilst repeatedly saying Now repeating, (a phrase within
the poem being read) I look intently at my hands as I turn them over
and over, as though inspecting them for blood. This idea is a concept I
took from Lady Macbeths inspection of her blood-stained hands in Act
5 scene 2. By looking creepily at my hands, I intend to make the
audience feel uncomfortable. The motion (along with its vocal
backdrop, Now repeating) reflects a deeper meaning: the riots
evoked terrible crimes which cannot just be washed away and are in
danger of being repeated by others to come.
Having chosen to perform a piece of theatre with both physical
and abstract inflictions, development of relationship and work within
the ensemble has been vital. In its original state, there was a scene in
which George, Anya and I (as reporters) asked Katie questions
independently and in a naturalistic way. However, we felt as though
this gave us little opportunity to show the personality and intent of the
reporters. Therefore, we have changed the scene to make it more
abstract, alienating the audience from a possible emotional link with
the reporters. We do this by moving our heads and hands as one,
(regardless of which single reporter is talking) to show a unity of the
attack and greed of the reporters. As we move as one, our facial
expressions show exaggerated feelings as they change abruptly from a
cheesy grin (to imply false interest) to a stern, angry face (to
demonstrate lack of care). By having all three of us perform the same
actions, the characters we represent are made to appear more
intimidating.
How did you and your group explore the possibilities of form, structure
and performance style?
Our piece can be broadly defined as episodic. Each of our 16
scenes is stand-alone in its nature, because individually they
contribute to the overall theme: challenging the social and cultural
stereotypes associated with the 2011 Riots. In this sense, almost any
order could be applied to the scenes. The random placement of each
scene only mimics and emphasises that society itself is scattered and
enormously varied. This is not to suggest that our piece is completely
devoid of a narrative element. For our beginning scene, I had the idea
to introduce the happenings of the play as the result of a Pandoras
box-type mishap. By opening the box in the first scene, Georges
character unleashes the corruption explored in the scenes to follow.
The piece ends in irony, suggesting that all the bad things can be put

Amy Bianchi
back into the box and forgotten about. These two scenes are vitally
placed, confining the other scenes, which, are in themselves of random
order. In this way, we are able to vaguely convey a story, albeit one
which is not recognised as such until its conclusion. We felt it was
important to include the repetition of one concept in particular to
enforce some sort of unity between scenes; each monologue is
performed in front of the scenario of items being hung up on a washing
line. These monologues are linked symbolically, as their backdrop
implies that all the badness of the riots can simply be hung up out of
the way.
Although the repeated returning to our washing line does
promote some sense of unity within scenes, the essentially random
order is crucial to the message we aim to convey; by throwing a
random succession of ideas at the audience, we can forcefully
challenge them. Even though we do wish to evoke emotion in our
audience through our piece of theatre, we want to present lots of
stories/issues/events (which, in themselves, stir emotion) so that the
audience have lots of factors to inform their judgements. By presenting
the audience with many varied scenes, we can challenge them
politically.
Our piece is largely abstract: with the singing of out of tune/out
of time, symbolic song (Londons Burning); embodying and producing
the sounds of inanimate objects (Anya plays a police engine and whirls
a vocal siren); and puppetry (Katie acts as my puppeteer to suggest
the manipulating power of journalists over their interviewees).
Much of our content is directly influenced by practitioners.
Influenced by Brecht, we hang placards around Georges neck,
signifying that which he has lost: dignity, pride, etc. By doing this we
aim to provoke the social implication that lower class citizens are not
well cared for/treated. Poetry is used as a reflection of our appreciation
of Berkoffs use of verse to alienate and surprise the audience. Further
still, we want to shock our audience and make them feel
uncomfortable. Considering this, Artauds concept of the theatre of
cruelty inspired us to violently and aggressively portray bloodthirsty
animals that are in the faces of the audience. The message of our play
is a bold one, so it is appropriate for us to adopt this style in order to
make the audience pay attention. Even so, our piece does include
some naturalism, in the style of Stanislavski. We have highlighted the
great variety within society and so it is important that the theatrical
styles we incorporate are, too, varied. In order to evoke sympathy,
Katies monologue is naturalistic, so that the audience can really
empathise with the fact that she is missing her brother, Dan.
How did the work of established and recognised theatre practitioners,
and/or the work of live theatre, influence the way in which your
devised response developed?

Amy Bianchi

Steven Berkoffs adaptation of Kaftas novel The Trial is a piece

of theatre by which our devised piece has been greatly influenced.
Within the performance, actors used their voices to convey the sounds
and noises of inanimate objects, for example the ticking of a clock or
the beep of an alarm. Considering this to be an effective way of
personifying inhuman objects, we were influenced to create the sounds
of a fire with our voices whilst waving our arms like flames. By
producing not just the appearance of a fire, but also the sound of one,
we aimed to reinforce and emphasise the menacing and devouring
nature of a fire. Obviously by creating the sounds with our mouths, we
make it clear to the audience that we are simply symbolic of a fire,
rather than aiming to become one. This technique used in Berkoffs
play allows us to incorporate Brechts concept of alienation within our
piece it allows us to distance ourselves from the audience,
challenging them to consider the characteristic and emotion of a fire,
which could only be conveyed by humans. Also within Berkoffs The
Trial was the fascinating and masterful use of a basic set of blocks and
frames which could easily become other objects of set. The versatility
of staging such as this is not only practical but highly inventive.
Drawing inspiration from this, we decided that a sleek and polished
style is maintained if actors do not need to go off stage to bring on set.
Moreover, in a piece designed to provoke the contemplative thought of
our audience, using minimal set allows us to challenge the audience to
use their imagination encouraging them to focus on content rather
than decoration. One direct influence we chose to take from the play is
the use of frames. At times, characters in our play fight over a frame
and speak through it to the audience. This means that attention can be
brought successfully to one single point of focus, highlighting that
particular speech as important. A number of the characters within our
play are drawn from the influence of such as those in Berkoffs plays.
Drama critic Aleks Sierz points out that the characters of Berkoffs
plays experience unpleasant emotions and become suddenly
violent. He describes Berkoffs style as that which forces audiences
to react. We, too, want to be forceful in presenting our audience with
brash characters and uncomfortable suggestions (eg. that perhaps
rioters had reasonable premise to loot, as was the case with our
portrayal of Jonathan Mason).
Bertolt Brecht used placards within his pieces of theatre in order
to make bold statements about what was happening. We were inspired,
by this concept of Brechts, to use one-word signs around Georges
neck. The poignant words such as hope and dignity were clearly
associated with the character George was playing (Jonathan Mason)
but allowed him to remain independent and not emotionally involved
with the character. These signs were in turn snatched from George in
order to convey his character as one who is being stripped of all the

Amy Bianchi
stability he has: both materially and emotionally. The bleak message of
this scene is typical of Brechts style, and incorporates his intention to
alienate the audience by exposing the unjust social relationship
between those who inflict punishment and those who are subject to it
and challenging the audience to assess the relationship in a new way.
How successfully did your final performance communicate your aims
and intentions for the piece to your audience?
Our audience feedback would suggest that we were mostly
successful in communicating our aims and intentions. By; talking with
audience members after the performance, having a question and
answer session, and observing the physical and verbal reaction of the
audience during the performance, we can have a good understanding
of how the piece made the audience feel.
Firstly, we had the aim to address the issue of social and class
divide. I feel as though we highlighted this at points throughout the
play, the most obvious being the scientists observation of the Posh
totty, City Scum, Grumpy Grandma and Highflying Businessman.
We each used placard type headbands in a Brechtian style to make
clear which member of society we represented and used repeated
actions as a type of gestus to reinforce the stereotype. We could see
the audience smiling and laughing at these characters that were
tremendously over-the-top, but this would suggest that they
understood that we believed the events of the play were those which
would affect all people: the extravagant and not, alike. In our question
and answer session, we were asked about our use of multirole; the
group concluded that by playing many different characters, we, as
actors, could show something of the extent of the broad and varied
society we aimed to present. Another example of the interaction
between characters of conflicting statuses was in the scene between
the reporter (Anya) and the youth (George). The reporter used a higher
level to enforce her position of status and used exaggerated sarcasm
and a patronising tone, whereas the youth appeared subject to the
manipulative reporter, questioning: can I have my money now?
Secondly, we aimed to force our audience to consider whether or
not the motives of all those involved in the riots were pure by
presenting them with a number of conflicting and contradictory
examples; doing this by presenting some of our characters as
unpredictable or contrary (for example, a school teacher who seems to

Amy Bianchi
commend the actions of a looter, or an immoral teacher), and others
as exaggerated stereotypes (for example, an extravagant mother
worried about her children, or a looter who thought it was ok to follow
the crowd and steal trainers). After a practice run in front of a trial
audience, we had the audience answer a questionnaire. The responses
we received suggested people found it fascinating to think about why it
was people got involved with the riots and so we knew to emphasise
and exaggerate the importance of each characters alibi through
intonation and body language. The idea was that they would question
their original assumptions and questionnaire feedback implied this was
the case. Varied intentions were depicted in the following scenes. In
the story time scene, Jonathan Mason was depicted as a poor man
who stole so that he could afford yummy meals, warm clothes and a
cosy home. One audience member commented on the effectiveness
of telling a serious story in an ironic manner in order that we might feel
sorry for him. At the other end of the spectrum, we see a heightened,
immoral policeman (in Georges monologue) who happily declares I
locked them all up without any sense of him caring or showing
remorse. This instance was designed to make the audience aware of a
number of motivations. Georges exaggerated character made our
audience laugh, but one audience member mentioned that the humour
made him think poignantly about what he was laughing about,
admitting that he was actually made to feel bad for laughing.
Our third aim was to emphasise the importance of formulating
opinions based on fact rather than speculation. I think this was a more
difficult point of view to enforce, but there were ways in which I feel we
did this effectively. The policemans monologue again ties in nicely with
this concept. By allowing the audience to have insight into the mind of
the legal force behind the issue, we could suggest the possibility of
corruption some audience feedback suggested that this monologue
made them carefully question how loving and caring policing really
was. Furthermore is the example of my monologue as the pregnant
mother, in which reference was made to the long list of friends through
which news of rioting had been gathered. My character made a huge
fuss over events that she could not verify this subtle scene aimed to
send the message that with so many people offering individual input, it
is difficult to know anything as fact.

Amy Bianchi
How effectively did the social, cultural, historical/political context of
the piece communicate to your audience?
It was important for us to find out from the audience themselves
just what they thought of the messages within the play, and so we
were able to conduct a trial performance with a questionnaire which
included optional sections for general comments.
Our play explores a theme which was very much in the public
eye. The accounts of the 2011 London Riots were told through all forms
of social media, and therefore we knew the issue would be at least
somewhat relatable to our audience. However, we knew that many
misconceptions would be held by our audience, and so it was
important to create a political piece of theatre which made them
challenge their thinking. By presenting rioters in both good and bad
lights, and by depicting the exaggerations of reporters we were able to
make an audience (who believed they knew a lot about the riots) think
more carefully about the events that took place. One audience
member remarked on how interesting it was to present events from a
thugs point of view; another said it provoked them to think of the
damage caused as more than just the actions and results, but also to
dwell on the array of motivations some did not really want to be
involved, others wanted to cause as much chaos as possible.
Despite the events of our play being centered on a recent series
of events, I believe our play is relatable now and will continue to be in
the future. Having seen Roy Williams Advice for the Young at Heart
whilst devising our piece proved to be very influential. The piece is set
during both the 1958 Notting Hill riots and the 2011 riots and, as its
advertisement says, asks how a new generation of teenagers can
learn from the mistakes made by a previous generation. Watching this
piece made me realise how naturally evil people of any time or
generation can be; and so a part of our piece (which I have previously
referred to) reflects this well. The repetitious chanting of now
repeating I voiced within our poem scene, paired with the staring and
scrubbing at my hands as if they were stained with blood helps to
communicate the unfortunate repeating nature of violence, corruption
and rioting. We wanted to invoke the harsh realisation that continued
havoc is a reality, and it is this that makes our play relevant at any
period of time. Feedback from one questionnaire suggested that the
events of the riots need attention and response if they are not to be
repeated.
Another important aim was to show how the riots affected all
aspects of society and therefore all different types of people within it.
One of our earlier scenes represents a scientists observation of the
behavioural differences between class statuses. Using signs on our
foreheads, we exploded the stereotypes of the following characters:
Posh Totty, Grumpy Grandma, City Scum and Highflying

Amy Bianchi
Businessman. This allowed us to draw attention to extremely different
people who would be similarly connected through the same series of
events, albeit affected in different ways a number of completed
questionnaires made reference to the surprisingly large amount/varied
types of people depicted as being affected by the riots, making them
reconsider its effect on the nation as a whole. Not only did we depict
breadth within society, but we did this more convincingly by
incorporating the detail of colloquialisms and mannerisms of a specific
culture. So, for example, as the primary school teacher I spoke clearly
and slowly, with formal, simple English whereas George as a common
policeman used informal language, with a purposeful lack of
grammatical sense, using swearwords and slang.
Costumes were also used to emphasise cultural background, and
so hoodies were worn by all actors at the beginning to represent the
youth/street culture of today. One audience member commented on
the great variety within the piece, which broadened their
understanding of the full scope of the events.

Whilst devising our piece, we learned that the 2011 London Riots were
a series of events that caused huge uproar and continue to be
important and influential today. We could see how important it was to
make factual opinions about the events which took place in order that
we might learn from the mistakes made and be sensitive in how we act
towards and treat one another. Our play showed that many different
types of people co-exist but demonstrated that despite our differences,
the unity of our human nature means we are affected by the same
things. The political message of our play educated both our audience
and ourselves.