Does anybody know about volte-face?

Question

I need to do a piece on it for a drama play & was wondering if you could help?

I know the meaning of the phrase but I just don't have many ideas on what I could base it on. I'd like it to be something different & abstract.

Could anybody help please?

Only mature/serious/proper answers please.

Answer 1

Volte-face is a turnabout, a reversal of opinion or policy.  

Here are several ideas:

1) A famous volte-face within business was when Coca-Cola announced New Coke, which was to replace their main product with one containing a different formula. After public backlash, Coca-Cola pulled New Coke and returned to the original.

2) The Diplomatic Revolution of 1756 is a term applied to the reversal of longstanding diplomatic alliances which were upheld until the War of Austrian Succession and then reversed in the Seven Years' War. The essence of the revolution may be thus summarized: France and Prussia versus Great Britain and Austria became France and Austria versus Great Britain and Prussia.

more on this here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/diplomatic-...

3) The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, refers to the officially-titled Treaty of Non-aggression between Germany and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, signed in Moscow 1939

more on this here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/molotov-rib...

4) Another famous volte-face in diplomacy is the successful maneuver of Italy in September of 1943, when the Italian Army capitulated immediately after the Allied invasion of Sicily

5) Andromaque - One of Racine's most successful tragedies, first performed 1667. Set in Epirus after the Trojan War, it concerns four people locked in an impossible chain of unrequited passions. A series of volte-faces and vacillations leads to the murder by Oreste of Pyrrhus, who is about to marry Andromaque.

more on this here:

http://www.answers.com/topic/andromaque

6) Singer Robert Gordon made one of the sharpest volte-faces in musical memory when he left New York pseudo-punkers Tuff Darts to reappear as a freeze-dried '50s rocker.

More on this here:

http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=...

7) One of the most unexpected stylistic volte-faces in modern music came in 1957, with the appearance of the ballet Agon.  

More on that here:

http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/...

Answer 2

Cant expand on Cynthias excellent answer!