On the 6th of December 2006, the year 10 Drama students went to Barton Pevril to watch the play "Our Country's Good".

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7th December 2006

First Impressions of - "Our Country's Good" Review.

On the 6th of December 2006, the year 10 Drama students went to Barton Pevril to watch the play "Our Country's Good".

As soon as we entered the theatre there was an immediate atmosphere which gave a great first immpression. In order to achieve this they used drama techniques such as a well thought out and interesting set consisting of a worn out flag of England and a map of Australia made into one. This allowed the audience to know that the play was about English people in Australia which was effective as it looked important but didnt move any focus off of the actors. The actors also gave a really good first impression, as soon as we walked in, they were acting from the moment we say them, not by speech however they all looked very proffesional, especially with their costume and make-up. The make-up on one of the actors back allowed the audience to know that the play was to be quite brutal as he writhed in pain,whilst we could see his back covered in cuts and blood, this was done very well and helped to set the grusome scene of the prisoners. Their costume got it across to the audience that the play had been written about and set in the past (1788) round about the 18th century, the audience were aware of this at the very beggining of the play which helped them alot to understand the concepts of the play. Scene 1 was very effective and gave very good first impressions as the actors were very focused and the way in which the convicts huddled together really showed how very much in fear they were of what their next punishment might be, their body language and facial expression was a key part of conveying this fear. The lighting also helped this as at this point it was fairly dark, almost a purpely colour which also gave out a creepy, scared atmosphere to the audience. The part which expressed the fear most in the setting / first scene was when one of the convicts recieved a punishment that consisted of a series of whips to his bare, bloody back. The pain that this man suffered was conveyed by the use of vocalisation and body language of the actors for example the grunts and screams that the man being whipped used and his body language was as he was being whipped as his body writhed in pain , his head was down showing the hummiliation of it. Overall the first scene was percieved by the audience very well giving a good impression of the production so far.
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The Set was effective as it looked good and gave out good perseption of thier production values as it was multi-purpose, effective and it set the eliments of the ship well. The fact that the actors used the set for multi-purposes made them seem more skilled as actors as they used something simple as more than one object allowing the audience to use their imagination which allowed them to concentrate on the performance more. The production was performed on a thrust stage, this made the audience feel as though they were actually there with the actors not just ...

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