Author: Tyrese

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.

Our scene was supposed to communicate the idea of Fontanelle and Bodice using their bodies to try and seduce their husbands, Duke of the North and the Duke of Cornwall.

Through our scene, we were trying to show how Fontanelle and Bodice had to use bodies, through sex, to try and take over their father’s kingdom.

We staged our scene by using a ladder and having Fontanelle (Courtney) and one side, and the Duke of the North (Jameel) on the other behind Fontanelle. We put the Duke of Cornwal (Me) and Bodice the same way but both on the ground instead of being at a higher lvl.

The salute shows some sort of respect that Lear has for the other people in the scene, but mainly Warrington, as he asks him to take over his kingdom when he dies and to carry on building the wall. It’s also ironic because he is talking about his daughters betrayed him and he is saluting to there betrayal because they are trying to break down the wall he is building and let in the outsiders who are trying to attack them.

In our depiction , we had 1 person saluting to 4 other people standing in a line looking away from him. We wanted the audience to interpret the disrespect that person saluting was being given by  the other 4 people. Different people may find a different meaning for the depiction depending how the interpret it.

C20 : Pip is taken by Jaggers to London. Pip is amazed by the city because he was raised in the countryside . Jaggers seems to be important because many people are waiting outside his office.Pip meets Wemmick.

C21 : Wemmick shows Pip to where he will be staying and also introduces him Mr Pockets Son, Herbert. Herbert and Pip get along well with each. Herbert is the boy Pip fought at Ms Havisham’s house.

C22: Pip asks Herbert for help to be a gentleman. Pip is given the nickname “Handel” and tells him of Ms. Havisham’s life and how she ended up they way she did. Herbert also tells Pip about how she had a half-brother who wasn’t cared about as much. He isn’t sure about when Ms. Havisham adopted Estella.

C23: Pip visits the Royal Exchange. He then goes back to Mr Pockets place to be tutored and eat dinner. The house is chaotic with the servants running all over. Matthew is absentminded but kind-hearted. His wife is not good at socialising and isn’t good at looking after her kids.

C24: Pip goes back to Jaggers office so he can change rooms and share with Herbert. Pip befriend Wemmick and is invited to dine with him. Jaggers is so strong willed and menacing he scares the judge as well,  with his speeches.

C25: Pip continues to get to know students and Wemmick. He also attends the meal at Wemmick’s. He sees how Wemmick has a very odd “castle”. While He is very cynical, he is verry Merry as well.

C26: Jaggers house is very dark and “musty”. he also has a housekeeper, They meet Drummle and even though Jaggers likes him Pip is warned to stay away from him. Pip’s students also attend the dinner at Mr Jagger’s home. Mr Jaggers also embarasses his housekeeper in front of the guests it gave the impression he can be very sadistic.

In our scene, we were trying to make the foreman was like snitch. during our scene me, Corey and Henry played the co-workers talking about him behind his back. Jameel played the foreman who snitched on his co-workers before he said something to end the scene.

The scene the workers talking behind the supervisors’ back about him. Then the foreman tells the supervisor what they had been saying about when he was not there.

The objective in our scene was however different to the one of king of lear.  In the king of lear, the foreman’s objective was to get the workers to try and remove the body and then get back to work. In our scene, the objective for our foreman was to just make the workers do their jobs.

In thd King of Lear scene I would have given the foreman a weaker tone voice because he wasn’t listened to at first it took a while for him to finally get his word across to his workers to go back to work again showing that he usn’t very powerful when he acts and speaks.

So while he is performing, he probably would not be remembered as much because he isn’t very aggresive or powerful while he is talking and performing, especially for the role he plays in his work as if he was more aggresive like his role should be.

In image 1 you can see to people on there knees beside a dead body and image 2 one dead person and a soldiet standing by what look likes gates.

These images can communicate the death that WW1 had brought to countries everywhere and the sadness felt by people having to clear the bodies of dead people and soldiers.

Our scene was us just laying dead on the floor like the German soldiers, So if one of the images is in the back drop of our seen it will just add to the tone of sadness that our scene didn’t really have.

The images create an old war time depressing feeling like if you were watching an old movie.

The social point we were trying make audience think that there are consequences to being in the army that even people who join now dont even realise like death and losing your fellow soldiers

We wanted our audience to realise that we were trying show that women had nothing to do when their men were at war during WWI, since most of them were housewives just cleaning houses or looking after their kids. That’s why we used the split scene to show how dull their lives were and how they had almost impact on the war.

We had the male side, men fighting and dying for their country, and the women, which were doing chores and looking after their children.

When the men were fighting, the woman were cleaning the floor and looking after their children. Having them stand side by side showed the huge difference between whet they were doing and how what they were  doing was impacting or not.

If you have men , who were allowed to fight in the war, and the women, who weren’t allowed to and had to stay at home and take on chores, it just shows for itself in the seen.

The split scene was able to impact on the our scene even better because as one of the men fighting for the country died, one of the women who couldn’t was at home in our scene cleaning the floor and looking after a baby.

Chapter 14 : Four years passed and Pip is older and is working with Joe as a blacksmith, But he hates being a blacksmith. He hides emotions because he doesn’t want Joe to know. He keeps thinking about Estella.

Chapter 15 : Pip tries to see Ms Havisham again, But Joe tells him not to. Joe fights one of his workers, Orlick because he was rude to Mrs Joe. Joe takes Mrs Joe inside to calm her down. Pip visits Ms havisham to learn Estella is abroad. On Pip’s way home he runs into Orlick and Mr Wopsle. They go home to see Mrs Joe was unconscious and had been hit in the head with the iron from Pip’s convicts leg.

Chapter 16 : Pip feels guilty for his sister being attacked because it was his convict’s leg iron. Mrs Joe can’t speak and can only right. Mrs Joe starts drawing a “T”  and Biddy realises it refers to Orlick. They see Orlick and believe that see will tell them he was the attacker, then instead she seems happy to see him and calls for Orlick by writing “T”.

Chapter 17 :Biddy moved in to help to help take care of Ms Joe. Pip goes to Miss Havisham’s house and realises how lonely it is without her. Pip goes on a walk with Biddy and he seems attracted to her but he believe his love is for and how he would like to be a gentlemen. Biddy tells him to give up on her and he got jealous when Orlick flirted with her but she doesn’t like Him.

Chapter 18 : Pip is at the pub one night and he is listening to Mr Wopsle is ranting on about a murder in the newspaper. A stranger who turns out to be a lawyer calls him out on the rubbish he is talking. Pip remembers him from Ms Havisham’s place. His name is Mr Jaggers and he goes home with Pip and Joe. He offers Pip the chance to inherit a large sum of money and get an education to become a gentlemen. Joe and Biddy are sad to be losing Pip and he becomes rude to Biddy. Pip is lonely feeling lonely when he goes to bed.

“It was an uneasy bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more.”

Chapter 19 : Pip wakes up with an attitude because he believes he is too good for his old life. He gets a new suit tailored by Mr. Trabb. Mr Pumblechook took him out to dinner and is being nice to him because he is trying to get at his money. Joe is still upset that Pip is leaving and Pip tries to force an attempt to comfort him and Biddy gets mad at him because of the way he is acting.

“I promised myself that I would do something for them one of these days, and formed a outline for bestowing a diner of roast beef and plum pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of condescension.”

 

 

Task 1.

The V-effect is achieved by distancing the audience through the characters actions in the scene. For example, breaking the fourth wall between the actor and  the audience. When this done or ( something like this ), the audience members will no longer have the ability to act as if they are unseen or not heard any longer.

While we were thinking about what to do we were trying to find the best way to make the audience feel as if they had been distanced from the performance. By the end Jameel and the rest of our group had decided on the word “cracker”.

Our way of distancing the audience turned out to by making them feel uneasy (and also laugh a bit too from the reaction we got from the start.)

We were trying to make the audience think and feel more about how the audience the soldiers, who were very clearly untrained, by there actions rather than there words (obviously because of gibberish drill.)

By choosing a word such as “cracker” it made the audience focus more on the untrained soldiers rather than the word “cracker”. Having the spectators look more at the way the untrained soldiers were doing the push-ups,  planks and sit-ups appallingly, than rather what they were saying instead.

By our group doing this, it meant that the audience would focus more on the way the untrained soldiers performance of fitness and understanding how they hadn’t met requirements to join the army in WWI and how just because need bodies down on the war front, they would rather the rookie soldiers received as minimal and lacking training as possible rather than be trained to a standard where they would be able to defend themselves and fight properly and maybe just complete the exercise performance to a decent standard in our scene.

Task 2.

2a. They were trying to put it within context of trying to make their audience think more about actions of characters rather than what they say.

2b. The V-Effect is the use of distancing the audience and making them know they are no longer unseen.

It was used to relate to real events.

2c and 2d. We used the word “cracker” in our scene (instead of penis.)  We decided to show the audience how badly trained the recruits were and how they were not fit for service.

By using the gibberish language the audience focused more on the actions of the drill sergeant rather than what he was saying.