Director's Concept

This Unit, Enrage to Engage, requires us to write a script, of 2-3 minutes on a topic that will engage the audience. The performance of this script will take theatrical elements from Grotowski, Brecht and Artaud. The performance is quite exaggerated - in people's expressions - but also has elements where we take from Theatre of Cruelty (Artaud), as well as Brechtian elements of symbolism.  The performance and script is about the police brutality and shootings in Ferguson, Missouri.

The scene begins with Dorian, one of the key characters in the performance, going to the audience and shaking the hands of some of the audience members, asking them if they are sorry, multiple times, becoming more and more aggressive. Dorian then sits down. A police officer then enters, and aggressively tells the audience to hold their guns up, and begins to tell the audience that 'criminals' are tricksters and will trick them into putting their guns down. The police officer then exits, running up the stairs next to where the audience is sitting.

Script for performance

Three 'citizens' - they are the hypocritical, opinion-changing characters - enter. They begin to chant, which is interrupted with the police officer saying "Get the fuck on the sidewalk." and the entry of Michael, the second 'key' character in the performance. Michael enters by running down the amphitheater steps before entering the stage and standing with his hands up, saying "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" - one of the main phrases of the protests in Ferguson after Michael was shot, as well as what Michael Brown actually said before he was shot. The police officer then shoots Michael. The people playing 'citizens' stand behind the last row of the audience and flick water at them, which is meant to symbolise Michael's blood, and play with the audience's senses. Then the police officer walks in from the back of the stage, holding up a cigarette packet and says "And to think he almost got away with them too!" He indicates toward the cigarettes. The citizens then run down onto the stage and down, screaming to the body.

There is a voice over saying "Black man dead, black man dead, this is not the america we worked for." which then influences the behaviour of the citizens. They are now exclaiming about a black man being dead - the tragedy, the loss, the lack of justice. When the lights then come up, Dorian gets up, and is then immediately grabbed by the citizens, as they are saying that they are sorry for his loss, that it was a tragedy. Fighting the citizen's grasp, he says that he was there, that he saw it all, that Michael was shot. Dorian is wearing a black tie, and he is at a funeral. Dorian gets up from the grasp of the citizens and then he exclaims "They had guns! Hands up, don't shoot!" The citizens then exclaim criminal! and the lights then black out.

When the lights come back up, there are 3 police officers on the stage, laughing and joking about Michael's death and how only 8 of 11 bullets that were fired hit Michael - "Eight? Eight?! You had 11 bullets and you only hit that sucker eight times?" After each of the 3 phrases talking about the lack of shots hitting Michael, Dorian, who is standing on stage says "Hands up, don't shoot!" The original police officer then holds a gun to Dorian's head and says: "I was saving the last three bullets for his friend!" and then he proceeds to shoot Dorian three times, saying BANG each time, in place of sound effects.

At the end, the police officer goes up to audience and tells them to hold up their guns, and to 'protect their country'. Then he proceeds to shoot the audience, saying 'BANG'. The exaggerated 'BANG' is meant to highlight that the police officers are in control of their guns, and it is symbolic, which is Brechtian.