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Scenes- Theatre workshop II - First group

Title: "The Meyerhoff Family at Home"

Characters
The Meyerhoffs, a German family:
Hannelore, the Mother, aged 40: performed by a Turkish woman.
Manfred, the Father, aged 43, works at the inland revenue: performed by a young German man.
The twins: Maria, the Daughter, aged 15: performed by a German woman
and Martin, the Son, aged 15: performed by a young Turkish man.

Hassan, a young Turk, friend of Maria and school-buddy: performed by a young Turkish woman.

Mrs Berg, neighbour of the Meyerhoff family, aged 60: performed by a German woman.

Storyboard

Scene 1:
Hassan visits the twins, Maria and Martin, at home. They are sitting in their room. Martin performances breakdance for the two of them. He wants to take part in a contest "Germany's Next Superstar". The young lovers, Maria and Hassan, are not very excited about his performance. Martin offers cigarettes and a bottle of beer, this is much appreciated by both.

Scene 2:
The three notice the noise of the key in the door of the flat. Hurriedly they hide the cigarettes and the beer bottle. The parents, loaded with shopping bags, come into the flat and bring the groceries into the kitchen. Then, they both go into the children's room, sniff around and demand, if somebody has smoked. The kids deny it and Martin introduces Hassan, his friend and classmate, who, he claims, has come to help him with his homework.

Scene 3:
The parents do not really believe him. They go into the kitchen. The father sits down and reads the newspaper, the mother unpacks the shopping bags and asks her husband several times to fetch the crates with water, beer and juices out of the car. The father, annoyed at being interrupted, calls his son to do this task. Martin is angry because he feels he is the one who always has to do all the chores, replies that his sister could do this. Finally Maria and Hassan go and fetch the crates. The mother reproaches her husband for his behaviour, for constantly scolding the kids and for being too strict.

Scene 4:
Maria and Hassan come back with the crates and hide two bottles of beer. Later on, the mother notices the missing bottles. She goes into the children's room and takes them to task. They deny. The door bell rings. The mother goes to the door, Mrs Berg, the neighbour asks her for a short talk. The both women sit down on the couch. Mrs Berg complains that the twins often make very noisy music. The mother assures her that this will not happen again. On her way out Mrs Berg reports that she noticed her daughter Maria hugging and kissing with the Turkish boy in the staircase a little while ago. The neighbour leaves and the mother stays behind, confused and angry.

Scene 5:
The mother immediately tells her husband what she has learned. The parents are outraged and go into the twins' room, to take Maria to task. A severe dispute unfolds between the daughter, the parents and Hassan. Phrases with xenophobic content are said: "My daughter and a Turk! That's unbelievable! Go back where you came from!" etc. The twins stand up for Hassan, but he leaves the room, angrily swearing and returning insults. Maria follows him: "I come with you, I cannot stay here any longer!" The parents try to hold her back. The brother, Martin, stays, saying: "And again I am alone and caught between two stools!"

Scene 6:
The facilitator carries out a dialogue with the audience (children in an after school day care center).
She asks them what they noticed and to state their opinions about the feelings of the characters in the performed conflict situation. The children respond in an enthusiastic and emotional way. The facilitator asks them also to suggest how the conflicts might be dissolved. The solutions the children offer are often seen from the parents' perspective, for example: one year confinement to her room for the girl, supervision by video camera etc. Later on these solutions are called into question and the main topic became "Can penalties solve conflicts or might there be other ways?"

Props: 5 chairs, small table, shopping bags, 2 crates with bottles, newspaper, furnishing fabric for decoration.

The concept and goal of the workshop was to have the participants take on as much responsibility as possible and to develop their own initiative. Their motivation and courage to perform was enhanced by different warm up exercises, frozen image techniques and other exercises regarding body language and facial expression known from the theatre. From the 3rd day on the participants worked in two teams, developing the themes, scenes and characters by themselves. The task of the facilitators was to assist, to help and to encourage.
In this workshop the one group ("Football with Friends") developed a precise storyboard before the rehearsal and performance, the other group ("The Meyerhoff Family at Home") first developed the characters and the main conflicts. The scenes arose by improvisation, recurrence, analysis and improvement.

The interactive performance in front of the audience: The performances of both teams became very lively with the enthusiastic audience which was thrilled from the beginning by different kinds of guessing games (such as frozen images), which triggered the vivid dialogue between actors and audience.