Drama (find Me)

Response

For this unit we focused on �Find Me’ text written by Olwen Wymark. The text is about a woman � Verity’ who is sent to Broadmoor prison for burning a chair. Throughout this unit we performed and worked on pieces on text and off text, looking at different periods of Verity’s life.

All pieces performed were connected to the emotional struggle and differences Verity and her family had to coop with. We communicated these emotions through dramatic devices and skills.

When we were looking at anger and madness in lesson 1, we concentrated on the thought of a key subject or matter that made us partially angry. Then we discussed this with a partner and expressed the difference or the building up of madness from anger in 5 stages. Using body language and the transfer from your personnel space to others was the keyway that people expressed their anger growing. We also worked in a group of 5 and created a piece of improvisation about a subject brought up, using different dramatic devices we showed the stages of anger to madness. We communicated these ideas by using different explorative strategies.

Throughout this unit we used marking the moment, this when after creating a piece of drama an individual identifies a significant moment in the piece, by using lighting and dramatic devices. In lesson 2 we created a piece in pairs, using a piece of text from �find me’. The scene was an interview with Edward and an interviewer. The text I used was

Interviewer-Not affectionate? Responsive? Warm?

Edward- No No not really

Interviewer- At what age did she began to walk?

Edward- Well, a little late. She was about two. The thing was she didn’t seem to have any- sense of territory?

We marked the moment by using a sound collage of a ticking sound and heavy breathing this was to build up an atmosphere and tension that the interviewer created. Another example of when I used marking a moment in a piece was in lesson 4 when we were looking at Jean’s monologue. In this piece we used still imagery and movements, which was a quick effective motion that showed the power of Jean’s thoughts and emotions. Also in this lesson we created a nightmare scene in-groups of five, which communicated the fears of Jean being answered. We used dramatic tension to build up the emotions and create suspense between the characters and the audience could easily see the friction between each of the characters as well. We ended this piece with a sound collage of � your going to Broadmoor mummy’. Jean then hit Verity. This was a sharp movement that was an effective way of ending the piece, as the audience was not suspecting it.

To develop characters, we used hot seating. This is a technique is used to deepen the understanding of a character by being asked questions. In lesson 5 we hot seated Verity this was effective as we could see how other people informed the audience of her feelings and emotions. Asking simple questions that you felt was appropriate and you felt you needed to know to develop your character more and successfully. We also did this in lesson 4 but looked at another character �Jean’, to get a better understanding of her character fired questions at her. This helped our understanding as it gave us a deeper view of Jean’s emotions and struggles that she has to live with and survive with. It also up us develop a piece of text by letting us look closer at the monologue and find the real meanings of the words she said.

We also concentrated on Narrating; in �Find me’ there is a narrator.

The role of the narrator is to inform the audience of what is happening in the performance and to remind the audience that this is a true story and what actually happened to Verity. The narrator introduces the play and what happen to Verity and why she is in the position she is in. The narrator talks to the audience in 4th wall and informs the audience of Verity’s future. The narrator performs the same monologue at the end of play. This reminds the audience once again that this is a true story of a young child that went through all this pain and suffering. During lesson 5 in-groups of 6 we created a piece of drama using the monologue. With the idea of gossip we created a piece that used the text as guidelines but had a realistic twist on how people get the facts wrong and make the story more interesting. We used dramatic tension in this piece when characters began to taunt someone about her past. Using the words �neetz’ we built up an atmosphere and tension between characters.

Still imagery was also used during the unit; this was used as a device to mark the moment or for another piece to carry on. We created a piece in fours, using a scene from �find me’. The setting was the village scene, were verity made a village, named it hers and named her self the protector We open the piece by someone naming each person as a place i.e. church, houses etc. Verity became a sculptor and positioned people to create shapes of the buildings.