The original stimulus to our original ideas was the way in which children of different religions and races unite to create a harmonious society within our school. We discussed the situation within a small area, such as a school

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Clara WIddison

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Inspiration, Aims and Techniques

        Colourblind is the story of three young women whose lives are all very different. They are introduced to the audience at their first meeting, when friendship seems unlikely. However, they overcome obstacles such as religion and race to embark on a friendship, which teaches them about life, love and loss. Each character struggles with their own personal antagonist.

For this piece, we drew upon many different sources of inspiration, some being course content, the works of theatrical practitioners such as Stanislavski, to outside sources such as films and newspapers. We have been inspired by many parts of everyday life, from religion and oppression to sexuality and love. We have used both personal experiences and external influences.

The original stimulus to our original ideas was the way in which children of different religions and races unite to create a harmonious society within our school. We discussed the situation within a small area, such as a school and it was agreed that this could be viewed as a microcosm of society. We also felt this subject, due to educational value, could be beneficial to both ourselves and the audience due to its large coverage in the media recently.

We were inspired by other performances, such as Three Sisters by Chekhov. We studied this particular play for several reasons. Firstly, the style that Chekhov writes in is that of a melodrama and therefore we felt we felt our ideas could relate to those used in Three Sisters. The use of naturalism throughout inspired the realistic behaviour we intend to achieve between the charcaters in our piece. We also looked closely at the relationship between the three sisters, which is similar to the friendships among the three girls featured in our play. The way Chekhov portrays the character differences between the sisters inspired us to consider our presentation of Yaz, Mel and Scarlett.

Sophocles’ Antigone was inspiring in the sense we were able to view alternative ways in which to depict the story of a heroine who is treated badly for her beliefs. Both Sophocles’ Antigone and Chekhov’s Three Sisters inspired the use of symbolism. We have incorporated symbolism into our production with the use of costume. The costumes in the ancient Greek theatre have a symbolic significance in the way the production is understood. The most essential part of their disguise was the mask, which inspired the use of the headscarf and masks within our piece. The headscarf is symbolic of Yaz’s faith and beliefs, whereas we used the masks to symbolise the lack of identity of Yaz’s attackers, but they were also used so members of the group could portray different characters.

We discussed The Color Purple by Alice Walker in view of the racial attitudes and attacks it features. The storyline helped us understand the effects of racism on individuals, both emotionally and physically. We gained a greater understanding of discrimination from The Color Purple.

We have aimed to create a melodrama. The themes of dramas can be exaggerated within melodramas, and the liberal uses of music often enhance emotional plots. We have used music and audio throughout Colourblind to increase the effect the performance can have upon the audience. Victims in melodramas are presented with tremendous social pressures, threats, repression, fears, or difficulties with friends or family. We have mirrored this in Colourblind, representing Yaz’s attempt to balance her religion with the pressures of growing up in an unaccepting society. Mel struggles with her father, whos strict views she wants to escape and Scarlett constantly battles with the need to be thin, pretty, and to wear the correct brands of clothing. The melodramatic format allows all of the charcaters to work through their difficulties or overcome the problems with determined endurance, sacrificial acts, and steadfast bravery.

Our dramatic aims and objectives with this piece are to present a dramatic interpretation of racial issues in a modern day society, incorporating controversial and political views, which are presented with the use of both realistic and surrealistic techniques. Our main aim is to make the audience aware of issues such as discrimination, domestic violence and oppression, which the majority of people are oblivious to within everyday life, and the minority must face daily. Our aim is to above entertain, educate. Our primary target is to incite emotion, which in turn will generate a positive reaction from the audience. We feel this is possible if we create a feeling of empathy towards the characters from the audience. We decided to exhibit the stories of both the victim and the attacker to outline the causes and outcomes of prejudice and discrimination. There are certain emotions, as a group, we feel are essential to the success of our performance – anger, sympathy and hope. In order to achieve this, we have focused upon these emotions within our piece. The group also wanted to create a range of moods and atmospheres to help the audience experience the emotional trauma suffered by those involved.

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Each character in Colourblind battles with oppression, which is our principal theme. Oppression is exerted in many different ways, by many different sources and we wish to illuminate some of these with in aim of educating our audience. Other themes which we have incorporated into our piece are racism – experienced by Yaz, family control – by Mel, media authority – by Scarlett and social pressures – encountered mostly by Mel’s father. One way in which we have presented the themes is with the use of dramatic techniques. Techniques which we are experiementing with include stylised and choreographed movement, freezeframes, ...

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