Since the song did not tell us why they had been separated, we had to decide this ourselves. We had several ideas at first, one of them being that ‘Tom’ had called up to serve his country in the war and therefore, having to leave ‘Martha’ on her own. We did not pick this idea, as this was a common drama performance and reason why people separated. Another idea (which was our final idea) that we explored was that ‘Tom’ and ‘Martha’ should meet again after several years and have flashbacks of their lives when they were together. During the performance, the audience will soon realise why they had been separated for so long, and why ‘Tom’ decided to meet ‘Martha’ again.
As the theme was tragedy and the song was based on love, it was a great match to mix together. We wanted the audience to feel sorry for more than one person. We wanted ‘Martha’ to get most of the sympathy because she had been arranged to marry someone she does not love. If she ever spoke out of line, (like she did when she lsaid she was not going to get married) ‘Martha’s Dad’ would beat her. We also wanted ‘Tom’ to have sympathy from the audience because he never ‘got the girl’ which usually happens in romantic drama’s.
We used freeze-frames for when ‘Martha’ got abused by her dad. Her dad beats her in this scene because she answered back to him. It would have been awkward if the freeze-frames did not have any music with it. Therefore, we play a very slow and moving song to help bring out the pain and suffering of ‘Martha’. There were four freeze-frames. First one was ‘Martha’ sitting down on a chair and her dad coming in behind her. ‘Martha’ had her back towards her dad and therefore, could not see he was there. Freeze-Frame two is when ‘Martha’s Dad’ has ‘Martha’ by the scruff of her neck. This is her dad taking revenge out on his daughter for answering back to him earlier especially in front a guest. Freeze-Frame three, ‘Martha ‘ is on the floor. She shows no resistance, as she is scared of her dad, as she does not know what he would do to her. The fourth and final freeze-frame is ‘Martha’ on the floor with her head in her hands and her dad walking away from her without a care in the world.
Another technique we used was flashbacks. We used flashbacks all throughout our drama as we were trying to show the audience, what had happened between ‘Martha’ and ‘Tom’. This was essential for our performance because otherwise the audience would not be able to understand why it was so awkward for ‘Tom’ and ‘Martha’ to meet again.
A group that I thought was particularly effective was a slow-motion scene. It was a couple with problems. The husband had come home from work expecting his dinner. His wife hadn’t made it. All that was done normal motion. After that, music came on (‘A Perfect Day’ By Various Artists). The wife, in slow motion, starts to walk away. The husband, grabs her, turns her around, and hits her to the ground. The music makes the scene perfect, without it, the scene would not of worked at all. The music is of a slow pace, which helps the actors move in slow motion. The words of the song are ‘it’s such a perfect day’. This is quite ironic as it is not a perfect day at all as her husband is beating her up. When watching it you really did hate the husband because of his attitude towards his wife, and how he did not respect her at all. When he hit his own wife that sent a shiver down my spine. This was because things like that do happen in ‘the real world’ and it is scary to think that at the end of the day, we have no control.
I particularly enjoyed doing this drama as the audience did all the ‘ha-ha’s’, the ‘aawwww’s’, the ‘oooo’s’, and the ‘aaaaahhhs’ when it was appropriate. I thought it was good that we showed our drama not just to a different audience, but also to an audience of a different age range. I think this because you get different reactions from different people. Also, if you act in front of people you know, it is not as realistic as it would be in a theatre. In a theatre production you do not know the audience, and therefore, gives you a whole new experience.
I was extremely nervous before performing our drama, as there were so many people in the drama studio. Also, we were the last group to perform, so we had to wait for everyone to perform their show, until we could do ours. Once I was on the stage, I did not feel nervous at all. I just hate the anticipation, I hate waiting, to go on stage because you start to think about things you have forgotten. You start to ask yourself, do you know what you are doing? Are you sure you go on stage from the left, or was it the right? Then you start to panic and realise how big the crowd actually is.
Nothing major went wrong in our play, everyone remember their lines, when they had to come on, and from which side. But as expected, of course just little things went wrong. Little things like, forgetting a prop or not moving a chair. In our play we did not use many props so there was not much to get confused about.
