As mentioned, the most influential play was A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller. This play was set in New York, America, in the late 1940s. This differs from out piece, which was set in England, in the present day. Even though we were using A View From The Bridge as our main influence, we felt that the story would work better set in the modern day, and it also meant that we didn’t have to adapt to a different location or time period for our piece. We could all draw on real life, to help our play.
The characters that appear in our production are mainly schoolgirls. This is contrasting with the play we studied, as in A View From The Bridge; the majority of the characters are adults. Some of the roles they played, however, were similar to some of the roles used in our performance. In our piece, we had the character Emma Winters. She was admired by Alex, who looked up to her, and finally became obsessed. This is similar to A View From The Bridge, in which Eddie becomes obsessed by Catherine. In our piece, we also have the character Stephanie, who notices Alex’s obsession and tries to warn Emma. Again, this is similar to A View From The Bridge, in which Beatrice warns Catherine to be more cautious around Eddie. The final character in our piece that is similar to a character in A View From The Bridge, is my own character, the ghost of Emma Winters. My role is that of narrator, which is similar to Alfieri in the other play.
One of the main differences between A View From The Bridge and our play was that in A View From The Bridge, there is a strong sense of culture and loyalty, which holds the play together, and creates atmosphere. This is very different to our piece, as there is nothing similar to this in our play. A View From The Bridge had such strong culture as it was set in a Sicilian community in New York in the late 1940s. Our piece, set in the modern day in England, lacks culture, and this makes the characters more intense as they do not depend on a set of beliefs. The lack of culture in our piece allows us to explore each character fully.
In our piece, we acted in the style of realism. This was because we wanted to keep the piece as realistic and grounded as possible. We wanted all of the situations in the play to be plausible, as the storyline was realistic. This is exactly the same in A View From The Bridge, but Arthur Miller draws on culture more to sustain plausibility. Each character was a serious character, as we felt that if we used comedy etc, we would not be able to convey each characters emotions to the audience properly.
By studying A View From The Bridge, I was able to develop my piece greatly, and the themes and characters in the other play meant that each character could be adapted to suit the piece best. I was able to learn, not only about how to act my character, but also how to perform physically, and what stage directions to use. I was also able to explore my character more by studying characters from different plays, especially A View From The Bridge.
