Serina Bernstein—TEN LENSES: WHAT A RIOT!

 

"What a Riot!" 10 Lenses

 

1.     This project provides an opportunity to explore and essentially educate the youth of Plaza de la Raza (and audience) on violence, racism and resistance in the US. It aims to empower the youth as well because the play gives the protagonist position to the disenfranchised with which the youth may identify (or are led to identify with). It also proved an opportunity for empathy and understanding of difference by being able to play different roles. The project addresses the need for children to be engaged in productive expression and engagement with issues that are or should be important to them.

2.     The Joker and Chorus were used to pose questions/commentary in or outside of the narrative. The Joker seemed farther removed, more like a traditional narrator, and the chorus held a similar function though less removed from the narrator, closer to the actual narrative. The chorus was the intermediary between the joker and the individual characters.

3.     The context is the city of Los Angeles. The children come from low-income households most likely.

4.     The students affect the playwright. The playwright affects the students, both affect the audience. The audience, as far as I can tell, is more limited in their capacity affect beyond just their presence, but they are affected.

5.     The audience is Plaza de la Raza family, social justice theater practitioners, friends of the students. The community engaged is low-income mostly Hispanic youth.

6.     The playwright was engaged by listening to the youth's questions, the youth were engaged by being heard, seen, and given an opportunity to invest expressively in a form, the audience was engaged by being addressed with questions and stimulated by the performance. The goals of the project were advanced by listening to others, through communication (except, it seems, in the case of the audience), and possibly through theatrical methods of Brechtian distance, so that people could remain inquisitive rather than surrendering.

7.     The site of the school, theatrical TO works, knowledge of history, money, a stage manager, and staff were all resources for this project.

8.     The goals of the project seem to be to educate, initiate questions, engage, communicate, and stimulate

9.     These goals are met because the work was actualized with these intentions. However, there is no explicit talk of this in the text.

10. The project had humanitarian, leftist, fringe values and the core beliefs pertaining to what is right and wrong, artistic creation, community engagement, making active choices, and educating.