Month: May 2016

In my group’s piece, me, Jameel and Ashan used the stimulus of a poem and the image and story of the young Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi dying and being found on the beach by a Turkish police officer. This stimulus disturbed me the idea of child and father having to leave as they had been forced out their home truly sickened me, the scenario is difficult and truly emotional to try and perform. Even though it disturbed me , we were able to form our central question from it. We want people to question relationship a father and son have and what happens when pushed to certain limits.

This question came from the stimulus, the idea of a father and son being forced into an uncomfortable situation and then conflicting with one another in that situation. We were able to take from the stimulus the scenario of an abusive father, played by Jameel, and a child about the age of 11, played by myself and a social worker, played by Ashan, taking the child away from the abusive father. Our initial ideas were to make the scene with the child getting hit by the father, then the social worker talking to the child and the father, then the social worker coming back the next day and taking the child away from the father.

When we first attempt doing the scene it was done to fast and took 2.30 minutes, so we needed to add more to the scene. We were able to extend the scene by doing pauses in between certain scenes to help create tension in the scene and to make scene longer. Also by creating tension in the scene we can further draw the audience in  and get their attention. We were able to further develop the scene by adding in those improvements I was able to do this during the scene when I asked by the social worker, Ashan, if i had a good relationship with my father. I said “good”, then stayed silent for a second or two and then said “right now”.

Item 1

The scenario that we came up with was the idea of a child being taken away from his father, who is abusive, by a social worker. This was our first idea and everyone within our group thought it could work so we kept with it and it seemed to be something unique to take from the stimulus as most other groups just thought of the idea of being a refugee and having to leave home and used that alone. We did alter it slightly by having a split scene where the child calls the social worker for help, the social worker also talks about how he lost his children and can’t believe that someone else is treating their child like then arrives to the house of child too late and sees the child is dead and kills himself.

Ashaan played a Social worker roughly 35 years old. He also has a history of losing kids as his own children died so he takes his job seriously. Jameel played the father who is widower who is in his 30s. After his wife died he became depressed he ends up becoming an alcoholic and eventually ending up affecting his work and getting into fight, which causes him to be on probation. The his wife died talking to the child while she driving and crashing the car which killed her. The father then blames the child for the mother dying and starts to abuse him because of this.

The child played, played by me, is the of 11 and is in year 6. He is abused by his father because he was talking to the mother before the car crashes and is therefore blames for the eventually death of the mother.

With more reps and pratice we had, I felt i was able to become more comfortable and develop the character further during the performances as time went by. Having to talk like an 11 year old and have the personality of one became easier to do as it went on. My character wasn’t really based upon much research. I remember reading the book ‘moon pie’ when I was younger and how the daughter of the book couped with having an alcoholic father and how at such a young age she didn’t really undestand much, so keeping that mentality of an 11 year old and how they still have a sense of innonece and no understanding of a situation such as this.

To communicat this to the audience, I talked alot slower when i said certain things, I was quite fidgity like an 11 year old. I also made my voice a bit higher when speaking to communicate to the audience that I was younger in the scene despite my huge/tall stature. When I had to start talking about unpleasant things like being abused by the dad i would hold longer pauses or tell the social worker to leave when he asked those kind of questions in scene.

Using improvisation was good because we just had to remember what happened in scenes, we didn’t actually need to remember any lines.  So every time we performed or practised our scene, Ashan was a good example of this when he played the social work because every time he asked the child a question he didn’t word it the same but still remembered the type of question he need to ask.

I think we were able to communicate our question very well. In the scene it showed how the father and son’s relation was tested and how eventually the father grew apart from his son. however we made a late change in the scene which we didn’t get time to practice,  so in the last scene it didn’t come out the way we wanted it to.

C27 : Joe visits Pip but feels intimidated by Pip’s fortune.

“Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded together, as I may say, and one man’s a blacksmith, and one’s a whitesmith, and one’s a goldsmith, and one’s a coppersmith. Divisions among such must come, and must be met as they come.”

C28 : Hoping he can get a chance to see Estella, Pip makes he way back to London. He shares a coach with a group of convicts. One of them is the mysterious man the Jolly Bargemen that gave him money. The convict doesn’t recognise Pip, Pip but eavesdrops on the conversation to find out that the convict sent the man that gave them money.

C29 : Pip goes to satis house the next day. He meets Orlick, who is now working for Ms. Havisham. he sees Estella and is stunned by how much more beautiful she has become.Pip still feels like he is lower than Estella, even with his new fortune. Estella treats Pip bad and upsets him.

C30: Pip talks to Mr. Jaggers about Orlick’s past and Jaggers fires orlick from working under Ms. Havisham. Pip gets roasted by the tailor while walking along the road. He goes back to London Upset, but Herbert tries to make him happy. herbert also tries make him know that even if Ms. Havisham is giving him the money, she will do everything she can to stop Pip and Estella getting together. Herbert is also engaged to someone, but to poor to marry her.

C31: Pip and Herbert go and watch Hamlet. Hamlet is played by Mr. Wopsle but he did awful. Pip takes Woplse out to eat and he acts like a tool.

C32: Pip gets a note from Estella, it says to meet her a station in London. He gets there early and sees Wemmick there. Wemmick takes him on tour quickly of Newgate Prison. Pip is uncomfortable and meets a man who will be hung.

C33 : Pip thinks Estella looks like someone but he cant remember who. Estella treats Pip bad and bosses him around.  He sees her at nigh then goes back to the Pocket home.

C34: Pip feels bad for how he treated Joe and Biddy when he was acting like a jobsworth. He feels that he has influenced Herbert’s behaviour badly.

C35: Pip is sad that his sister has passed away. He returns home for the funeral.He meets Pumblechook who keeps brown nosing him. He tries to be friendly to Joe and Biddy but Biddy doesn’t that he will visit more often. Pip says goodbye to them the next morning and leaves to go back to London.

C36: Pip has his birthday and his allowance goes up to 500 quid a year. He gets excited and thinks Jaggers will tell him who the benefactor is. Even though Herbert warned Pip, he still believes that ms. Havisham wants Estella and him to be married. Jaggers is invited to Pip’s party but kills the vibe.

 C37: Pip decides to invest in Herbert anomously, so he can start his business. He asks Wemmick for advise and Wemmick responds saying he would more fun throwing his money into the Thames, than investing. Pip still invests in him anyway, but like Pip, he doesnt know his benefactor’s identity. He also meets Herbert’s girl.

C38: Pip spends alot of time with Estella at her the lady’s house she is staying in. Estella isn’t treating Pip like someone she would actually date. Pip finds out that Drummle and Estella are going out. Pip confronts Estella and reminds him that he is the only suitor she isn’t deceiving

C39: Pip is now twenty-three. During the night, a man enters Pip’s apartment. Pip is nervous around him and acts smug. Pip then realises it’s the convict and that he was the secret benefactor. the convict went to Australia and made fortune on sheep ranching. Pip becomes upset because it means that Estella wasn’t going to marry him.

He finds out that the convict is on the run and will die if he is caught. Even though he is upset Pip helps him because he is his benefactor. Pip goes into the convict’s room at night and sees him with a pistol, sleep. Pip then locks him in his room.

C40: Pip wakes up in the morning to a shady character squatting on his staircase. he goes to get the watchman and when they go back the man has disappeared. Pip then talks to the convict and finds out his name is Abel Magwitch. Pip gives Abel a disguise and new name to hide him from the authority. Pip contacts Jaggers to find out whether it was true or not that Magwitch’s story of him being the benefactor is real. Pip is embrassed by Magwitch’s poor table manners and rough language.

C41: After five days of pip having to live with Abel he has talk with Herbert and confront his problem when he returned home. Abel leaves, Pip and Herbert discuss what to do about him. They agree pip should stop taking his money and plan that Pip will take him somewhere abroad and they will say goodbye and go their separate ways.

C42: it’s morning. Magwitch tells Pip his story. He was an orphan and was involved with crime all of his life. He stole to feed himself. as a young man, Magwitch met a gentleman ,who was also a criminal, named Compeyson. Magwitch began working for him. Compeyson had driven a man named Arthur mad and to become an alcoholic. Arthur had fallen to despair due to the fact that Compeyson and Arthur had victimised a wealthy woman. He doesn’t say who the woman is. Compeyson switched on Magwitch when they got caught and used his manners to get a light sentence. Magwitch wanted revenge and Pip finds out that Compeyson was the man Magwitch beat up that night at the marsh.