Our piece was set in the present day. This was shown to be very obvious as mobile phones, a shuttle link connecting England and France, recent slang language, for example – “Yes bruv, how’s it goin’?…Safe”, and rap music were all used in our production. The Stone Cold play, written by Joe Standerline, which was based on the novel by Robert Swindells is set in the mid to late nineties. This can be seen due to the use of mobile phones, tube gates, the “Big Issue”, the shop Oxfam and also the use of modern language, for example – “See yer ginge” and “Get lost, piss off!”
The people who appear in our production vary in a society status. Although all of us end up to be tramps, we tell our stories of how this occurred, consequently making the people much more wealthy than they are as tramps. Our play included a gangster, two schoolboys, a tourist and a wealthy young boy. As you can tell, all of these people would have been fairly well off. Stone cold contained a mixture of people on a large scale of wealth. There were homeless “dossers” and “Big Issue” sellers but also a landlord, a teacher, a reporter and newspaper photographer, newspaper editor and a benefit officer. Most of these people would have been fairly wealthy, living in or near the London Borough of Camden, but not as well off as the people in the explanation stories of our play, this is because we wanted to emphasise how easy it is for anyone to become homeless due to misfortune in our production. The public status of those people in Stone Cold wasn’t too high as none of them had much reason to be respected, apart from by their friends. This was very similar to our play as a gangster would not be accepted by society, as well as tourists or wealthy children. This is very much the case for the homosexual boy I played, as gay people are still ostracised and disrespected by society to this day.
In our production, none of our characters had that much morals or manners. Almost all of them used fairly foul language and had a discourteous attitude towards each other, for example – “Shut up! No wonder why we beat you in the war!” I said this to the French tourist when I was playing a passenger on a train heading to London. An exception to this was the wealthy young wannabee rap star and his parents, due to him being brought up to be polite and speak well, although he threw a tantrum when he was declined a rapping deal and when his mum and dad refused to let him be a rapper - “No son of mine will be a rapper!” “Well I wont be your son then!” This was said in a shouting, aggressive manner, with him storming off the stage to the right. The characters manners and beliefs in Stone Cold vary for each character. Gail, for example is good at heart although she lied to Link about her profession. Ginger and Link were good people, Ginger was there for Link when he first got onto the streets and Link is a friendly boy, forced to run away from his home by his step-dad and mother, who are neglectable, selfish people, especially his step-dad, Vince who abuses his mother, Joan, yet Joan backs-up her boyfriend rather than her own son when he wants him out of the house, which is unforgivable. Shelter is by far the most evil character of the book, befriending homeless people and then killing them in cold blood.
We chose to perform in the style of a comical, up to date way. Using jokes that teenagers can relate to well, as this was our target audience, for example, changing the words to a popular recent rap song to make it amusing and poking fun at tourists and stuck-up upper class people. It was also helpful to perform it in this way as we enjoyed creating and writing the script and creating new jokes that the audience and us would find very funny. While changing the set around we also played popular songs to keep the audience entertained. Stone Cold was performed in a serious context, which is trying to make people aware of homelessness and that it can be no fault of the homeless person that they are in the situation. They did this by presenting Link as the narrator in the play. They even include homeless facts at the back of the script to ensure this awareness. It can sometimes be similar to our play as they add in some light humour, for example when Link is brought out of his Carribean dream by a fart. I think they did this as the play is fairly depressing and they are trying to cheer up the audience a bit.
Our play is similar to Stone cold in the way that they both contain fantasy scenes. Links fantasy scene in Stone Cold is on page 52/53. It shows Link falling asleep and dreaming of a Caribbean setting, with tropical music, colourful lights, dancers and plenty of drink and food. This is something which Link would love to have and be in that position. Our play is very similar in the fact that at the end of our play we all talk of what our lives would consist of if we weren’t tramps. It shows Sanjeev - the gangster killing the rap star for insulting his home town, James – who has finally made it big as a rap star (the one Sanjeev wants to kill), Ben – back in his home town of Marseille (This is where the concert is being held) and Joe and myself doing hair and make up for the now famous rap star, James.
Stone cold and our play both seem to have fairly simple sets, making it easy to change sets quickly and effectively between scenes. For example, stone cold may contain a bin and some rubbish on the street and then a chair and light in shelters house. In our play, props were simple, but seating was very important as there had to be a bench for when we are all homeless, but apart from that there were no major stage changes.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I learned how to work as a team more in drama productions and not to make things too complicated. We arranged times out of school to go through the production and discuss any difficulties we were having. I have also learned to take responsibility for my individual character and research for that character, as it needed to be produced from scratch. I also think that it boosted my confidence in drama, as I was able to perform a play that went very well, knowing I contributed a great part in the producing and smooth running of the play. I also found it funny and enjoyable. I worked with friends, which made communication and constructive criticism a lot easier. I have also learned to not make private jokes that only a small number of people would understand and find humorous, as it did not go down too well when performed in front of a lot of people, although most jokes were targeted to a wide teenage audience, which gave us all confidence during the production itself.
