Circus Street Freaks

A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, that are commonly referred to as 'freaks of 
nature'. People exhibited at these shows are uncommonly large or small, people with both male and female sexual characteristics, people with diseases and conditions, and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers as well as heavily tattooed or pierced people.

 In the mid 16th century, freak shows became popular pastimes in England. This is when deformities began to be treated as objects of interest and entertainment meaning crowds flocked to see them exhibited. Freak shows were popular in taverns and fairgrounds where street freaks were often combined with talent displays.

For the beginning part of our performance we have been separated into 3 groups:

-Circus Street Freaks

-Nirvana

-The Clockwork Group

Each group is inspired by the songs written by Tom Waits. The group that I am in is the Circus Street Freaks. I feel that it is important to know more information on Circus acts especially the ones that were regarded as freaks because those were the people that were considered as faulty or different. This links to the way that people with mental health issues are thought of. A lot of the time people with mental health issues are not helped in the right way because they are outcast by society which would have been exactly what had happened to the circus street freaks. I feel that in forums and social groups where people with mental health issues are able to talk and socialise with others with the same issues, they will often feel less alone and have a sense of belonging. I feel that the circus street freaks years ago, although they were definitely made to feel ugly and often ridiculed by audiences, would probably feel more comfortable amongst each other. I feel that this should be implied in our section of our performance because it creates a more obvious link between the brain and more importantly mental health issues.

As a group we brainstormed ideas for characters that we can embody who will collectively become the Circus Street Freaks. We decided to create characters that were not really that spectacular or interesting to make it a little more comedic. We don’t necessarily want to portray the hardship of being a circus freak. We would more want to imply to the audience that although we all have our differences, freakish talents or not so freakish talents, we are all human beings.

As there are 7 of us in our group, we had to come up with 7 ‘freakish’ talents to incorporate in our piece. We did this by going round the entire group looking at each person and using their appearance or characteristics to inspire their own character. We did this to make the talent seem even less impressive.

The first character we had come up with will be played by Edgar who has red hair; we decided to call him Fire Boy because of this. We decided to have him on a stool or even standing up with a lighter in his hand flicking it on and off. I feel that his character should be staring at the flame quite intensely. This would make his ‘freakish’ talent seem much funnier.

The next character we came up with was Lizard Kid. We gave Hannah this character because she has a very long tongue. She will be crawling on the side walls and the floor at quite a steady pace, miming the physicality of a lizard.

The third character will be played by Delainey who will be Big Bosoms Girl. She will be walking around with two balloons. We will have the two balloons in her top to make it look like. This character is based on a real person called Sarah Baartman, who was displayed as a freak because of her unusual physical features (mostly her large bottom).

The next character will be played by Tobi who will be the Ringmaster of the Circus Street Freak Show. We chose this character for him because he is a natural leader and has a naturally loud voice.

Another character will be played by Rasaq; his character will be called Crumpet and he will be 

crumping which is an impressive dance move.

The next character would be played by me and would be called Mute Girl. She won’t at all talk throughout the whole performance but will accidentally say something she shouldn't.(contradicting her freaky talent).

The last character will be played by Fifi. Her character is called The Girl who Doesn't Move and throughout the performance she will be keeping very still and releasing short screams.

Forced Entertainment 

I decided to research the company Forced Entertainment because I felt that what they often work to achieve is something that we could work to achieve as a group in our section of performance. 

Earlier, I touched on the idea that we as a group had decided to make our 'freakish' talents the least impressive as we possibly could for a more comedic effect. Researching Forced Entertainment meant that I could discover how we could incorporate this strange style of comedy in our performance. For example, in one of their shows a man stood on stage and spent roughly 30 mins trying to remember his lines purposefully. 

On the website, they admit to have 'stayed silent' and 'made serious work that turned out to be comical'. I would agree that this would create a more experimental type of theatre, one that we could definitely achieve in our Circus Street Freak Show Performance.

I like the idea of purposefully making your performance quite dull and uninteresting in order to create interest to get the audience to question 'why have they done that?' and 'what are trying to say?'