The central theme of the play is respect. The actors were positioned on stage in a triangular shape with the boy centre downstage and the men completing the triangle upstage right and left. This automatically gave the impression that the Boy was in charge and that he had radical and different ideas to the Man and the Dad who, as we find out later in the play, share much of the same thoughts about the issues raised. The physical skill used here gave us all these ideas and the fact that the Man and Dad were physically looking down on the boy as they were set out on the stage. In the first scene the actors are mostly emotionless but they made eye contact with the audience and rolled their eyes. The actors were positioned so that they were looking out to the audience at all times, not conversing with each other directly but through the audience. I think this made the audience feel like they were much more involved with the play and helped to make them feel the emotions and get deeper in to the plot.
In the opening scene he Boys attitude helps to convey to the audience what type of person he is. He is aggressive and cockiness and oozes with confidence. His first line is ‘my generation’ – he says it possessively as if he owns the whole generation and that his generation is the best. He follows this with ‘respect is a thing you demand’ – this makes the audience think. Do you demand respect? Is it given freely? Should it be demanded or given freely? He says this line with ‘all-knowingness’ as if he knows what it is like to try and earn respect. This gives the audience the idea that he might have had to earn respect the hard way.
In the play, the thing that stood out most for me was the amount of eye contact that the characters made with the audience. They are looking straight at you so they tried to make as much eye contact as possible, sometimes this made me feel uneasy but others it was as if you were right there in the play with all three actors. The Boy talks about his enemies being ‘everyone’, here I noticed that he made eye contact with many members of the audience. This would have made them feel scared because he was looking them in the eye like they were his enemies.
Although there isn’t much movement in the play, a poignant movement is when the Dad mentions ‘gang crime’ – here the boy punched the air as if he was boxing, again this showed the audience how aggressive he was and made them think that perhaps he had a history of gang crime himself. During this, the expression on his face was crazed as if he was enjoying what he did in the gang (presumably violence). This gives the audience a pre judged opinion about him when it comes to the rape scene.
The scene in the play that I felt was the most moving and emotional was the last scene. Here both the Boy and the Dad use vocal and physical skill to really get the audience enthralled and emotional about the Boys current situation. A strong part was when the Dad reached out to take the Boys hand and the Boy says ‘don’t hold my hand’ – he said this in a way which was under his breath but he sounded as if he really regretted not being able to do it. He ripped his hand away from his Dad and the expression on the Dads face was so torn and upset that you had to look away, at this point, some people in the audience were crying.
Both the Dad ad Boy are still facing the audience in this scene and we see a new and improved version of the Boy. Instead of slumping in his seat, he is sitting upright with his arms crossed as if to say ‘I’ve changed and I am no longer a rebel’. This also gives the impression that he has been brought down from his high seat and down to the real world. As an audience we feel sorry for him at this point, which is a total change to at the start of the play where we feel like he is very cocky and argumentative.
I feel that all actors were very successful in changing the emotions of the audience through vocal and physical skill. One moment I was feeling one feeling and the next that had totally changed to another. I really enjoyed this play and felt that the characters were very well acted and emotionally presented.
by
rosielorien (student)
