If you came to this exhibition and you knew nothing about PLP or what we do you would think that we were all communist! Good thing there was capitalist me to balance things out.
I’m going to be blunt, this exhibition was a bit tight for time. We had to work late nights and during other classes. But in the end it was totally worth it. Everyone loved and was impressed with our performances. I think some of them thought we had been working on it for months. Little did they know we only got about two weeks.
When we were preparing for this project I thought we would have more choice in our groups. Little did I know that we would be stuffed into whatever group they wanted us in. Anyway, I thought that I would go into the trenches. I had done weeks of research on my costume, props, setting, backstory, speech style, hair style, and basically anything else you could think of for a WWI sniper. I even when over my data plan because I would research on car rides! All that went down the drain when they told me that I was in the Depression. Needless to say I fit the title.
Even though it wasn’t exactly the topic I expected the group was still great. We had the combined powers of Nolan’s creativity, Teva’s leadership, Alanah’s initiative, and Matthew’s ingenuity. We were first influenced by the film “Modern Times” starring Charlie Chaplin. It depicts a factory worker during the depression and in typical Chaplin style, everything goes wrong. This idea went through a few revisal stages but ultimately decided on our end result. There was just one problem, we had no idea how we were going to do it. But that period didn’t last long. We start to ask if we could borrow things and In the end I think some people said yes to get us out of their way. Some of our ideas for the factory setting were pretty cool, although I think I went a little overboard with the conveyer belt, Alanah’s sign, and the office. But they all turned out looking awesome!
The story that you walk through is a tale of tragedy. You get hired at a big factory that you are only a small part of. Your pay sucks and is not nearly enough to compensate you for your amount of hours. You end up getting call up to the CEOs office (me) and I fire you!
In your moment of rage and betrayal you decide to join a protester outside. She rallies you up with her heroic speech! And as you yell for your rights to be heard…. you get arrested. Some of you were lucky enough to just be dispersed but one thing was clear, nobody cared about your rights as a human being.
Man, that’s pretty depressing. But for a lot of people of the time it was their only reality. So even though it was sad to learn about the tragedies that ensued it still is an important part of our history as Canadians.
warning, contains foul language