Drama Portfolio - Too much Punch For Judy

Nicola Simms 11W Miss Bruton

Drama Portfolio – Too much Punch For Judy

Introduction

During the past few drama lessons we’ve been studying a real life tragic play called ‘Too Much Punch For Judy’. It is a play about two sisters (Judy & Jo) who decide to go for a drink one day. They meet two guys who buy them drinks. When they are ready to go, Judy suggests to Jo that she should drive home as she has had less to drink than her (however she is still over the legal limit). After some persuasion Judy agrees and throws Judy the car keys. As they drive back Jo pleads to Judy to slow down. However, Judy suddenly loses control of the car and crashes. Judy survives the crash, her sister Jo who is in the passenger seat dies. A man who has heard the crash from his house runs down to the scene, he rings the police. The police arrive and call for two ambulances. When two ambulances arrive Jo and Judy are taken away separately. At this stage, Judy is unaware that Jo is dead. At the hospital Judy consistently asks to see her sister, until the policeman finally tells her that her sister is dead.

After reading the play, I immediately felt angry with Judy. I felt sorry for Jo and her family and perhaps almost for Judy. As the play was a true story the moral of the play ‘don’t drink and drive’ struck me harder. The moral definitely gets across to me, and made me aware of the effects of drinking and driving. I thought the play was a good way of getting that point across. It gave young people, like my group and I, a chance to be put in that situation and to experience the feelings and emotions of an actual person in that predicament. Depending on how we deal with this we are able to make a choice whether it is the right or wrong thing to do. In this case, during a scene that I played Judy crashing and killing her sister, I felt scared at the consequences and extremely guilty. I would not like feel like that at any time. I have the power to control that, so that is why thanks to the play, I would not put my self in the same situation as Judy and feel it is the wrong choice to make.

Response

Too much Punch For Judy allowed us to look into the effects of drinking and driving. It is a tragic piece of drama, however there are many scenes which exaggerated and comical, resulting in completely the opposite feelings to the inevitable tragedy of the play. Such contrasts work well, as it provides the audience a range of emotions and feelings. This attaches them to the characters in the play even more. If a play were just sad and tragic all throughout it’d become predictable and boring. ‘Too much Punch for Judy’ provides us with a play that is very attention grabbing as it includes different elements of emotions and climax.

In order to help us explore the play even further, we used various strategies. The first one we looked at was using ‘mark the moment’. There were many moments that were significant in the play, and different methods to mark the moment such as when Jo through Judy the keys for her car. Previously Judy had persuaded Jo into letting her drive home, as she had drunk less alcohol than her. When Jo finally agreed, she threw her keys to Judy. The moment she threw the keys the play froze and it symbolized the dramatic irony of the play. The audience know that it is a wrong decision to let Judy have they keys and drive, as it will end in disaster. However, the characters in the play don’t. This leads into the audience feeling in control. To mark this moment, just as Jo threw the keys, the scene would freeze. The keys would be on fishing wire, then someone would pull the wire so they’d dangle in the air as everyone is in freeze position. Then, playing in the background I’d have the pop song ‘Tragedy’, the Beatles version. I don’t think the audience would understand why such a song was playing. My reason being it would create a memorable contrast, therefore marking the moment well.

Our drama teacher, to create 4 still images set us a task. They had to show 4 key points from situations throughout the play. This was called ‘Marking the Moment’. I worked with Hayley, Anna and Kirsty. We decided to mark the crucial moments of Judy’s mum, I rested my hand on her shoulder and everyone bowed their heads in sorrow to show remorse and despair. When we showed the image of Judy being told we all stood around her while Judy kneeled on the floor, this showed that Judy had a lower status at this point because of what she had done. To add the effectiveness of the images, we decided to add narration of the situation. We decided thought tracking would be more appropriate. As Judy knelt on the floor, Judy’s mother who rested her hand on Judy’s shoulder said, “I don’t feel mad Jude, it’s not your fault”. This line was typical of a mother. However, it probably was a contrast to how the audience felt. It may have made some feel irritated at her mother’s passiveness.

Another task we were set in order to make us explore the play from different aspects was to create a scene where a person was under pressure. I think Mrs Bruton set us this task so we could explore for ourselves situations where pressure is applied e.g. peer pressure, family pressures. It allowed us to create the problem, and then involve others from the whole group in assessing the scene(s) and share their ideas on how the problem could be solved. We used the strategy role-play and decided to create an abortion scene. After some discussion we decided that it ...