Easy Taboo (Kane) - Final Performance

In the lesson last Thursday, we watched the Easy Taboo performances. They all certainly broke a social taboo - with variations of suicide and selling organs thrown in - but most didn't cause shock to me. Maybe this was because I was expecting a taboo to be broken and thus didn't feel as shocked as I would have done if this was part of a full show. Moreover, if the taboo was in the context of a play, then it may have been more shocking based on the overall storyline.

There were two taboos however that were visibly shocking. The first was the taboo done by Hannah1, Bella, and Lauren; they showed someone being drowned. Not only did they 'properly' drown someone (the person who was being 'drowned' had complete control over the actions), they used racist language which put it in context and made it a social taboo as well as a visible one. The second and definitely most shocking was done by Leah who was sick (by pouring a liquid banana on the floor) with audible retching sounds, and then picked it up and ate the 'sick' again off the floor. This was pretty shocking because not only was she turning round to eat it, she was eating it off the floor which is not completely clean.

The performance that was not visibly shocking more audibly shocking was Kathryn's due to her choice of language. She talked about how her character was brutally raped and how she wanted to get revenge. The fact that she had her back to the audience gives the impression that rape victims are often left invisible and people don't know who they were. I think it enhanced the storytelling massively.

Unfortunately, there wasn't time in the lesson to perform our piece so we performed it on Monday instead. This allowed me to create the following monologue over the weekend which enhanced the piece greatly:

"I remember the first time I ate. It was Easter and Father Thomas had asked me - me  - to help him with something rather important. Of course, I followed. He sat me down, told me I was going to close my eyes, and then he was going to introduce me to the Flesh of Christ. Of course, when he said this, I thought he was going to offer me some special kind of bread but what he placed in my mouth... well, I think you understand exactly what I ate. 

The first time I killed was a much more torrid affair. I'd found some Islamic bastard on the side of a road. Pissed. Which, for an Islamic bastard, is basically treason or some shit. Anyway, he stumbled into the car thinking it was a fucking taxi or something. He'd sobered up by the time I'd got him set up. Then he began to shout for his God - can you imagine? Calling out to something that doesn't actually exist. He kept screaming about Allah and it was driving me fucking insane. 
I chopped his dick off first and oh how he begged for mercy with his bollocks dripping red. The cock still trembled in my hand as I traced it along his jaw. Of course, he began to scream curses at me then: 

Fuck you! Fucking what kind of sadistic fucking monster are you?

That was when I was chopping the sad, limp prick into pieces. I did many things to him - with his corpse - but his taste was exquisite. I'm sure I will never taste another like him, but I suppose you will have to do."

In this monologue, I was trying to get Kane's style of writing down. I feel that I did achieve this somewhat especially as I did accompany the vile language at the end with the somewhat tender language at the start as my character talks about religion. I also feel that I managed to channel the character of Ian (a character in Blasted) through the racial slurs that I use because Ian is racist within the play. The language also goes hand in hand with violent movement such as myself sharpening a knife and eventually stabbing Izzy. I do feel, however, that I could have added more graphic language into the monologue, either through the use of better description and adjectives or through the use of more slurs.

Overall, I think that the performance on Monday was average at best and could have been improved greatly. A major positive that we did have from the performance was that there were multiple taboos broken onstage - such as the stabbing, the racial slurs, and the use of religion. This, I think, encompasses Kane's style as she would attempt to cram as many taboos into a scene as possible which I tried to do with the use of the monologue. However, the monologue was not properly learnt by myself due to the lack of time I had to write it and thus all the graphicness was not included as I had not remembered it which I think affected my performance as I felt that I was too panicked and not reserved enough for the characterisation that I was attempting to achieve. There was a technical issue with the water balloon prop as it became unstuck from Izzy halfway through and thus the effect of the stabbing portion of the scene was lost because Izzy had to burst the balloon. Myself and Izzy had different meanings for what the scene meant which impacted on the overall perception of the piece in the discussion at the end of the piece. It would be beneficial that in future, the meanings behind something are properly discussed with the other members within my cast.