(The baby pushed through. You hear screams from the mother as she pushes the baby out)
Midwife 1&2: (Together) Ok push, that’s it nearly there, keep going……and relax….all over now.
(Baby cries. Midwife 3 goes off to get the baby)
Mother: (talking to father. Sighs, looking tired) I can’t do this again. No more…no more kids, ever.
Father: Ok…ok don’t worry about that just now.
Midwife 3: Here ma’am, you have a wonderful baby girl.
Mother: Aww… (Pause - looking at baby’s skin colour)...I think there’s been a mix up, this baby isn’t mine.
Midwife 3: (Playing with the baby’s hand) I assure you it is ma’am; she came out of your womb.
(Everyone stares down at the baby and freezes. Grandmother gets up, walks forward, picking up the baby to do her monologue)
The strategies we used within our group were; still image, monologue, flash back and marking the moment. We used our still image to show what was happening as (Elda) the grandmother did her monologue. This showed how important the grandmother’s monologue was and helped focus all the audiences’ attention on her. We also used a flash back to show how this situation had come about and make the moment at the most significant point in the play, when the girl/ mother was conceived and how, we did this by making all the characters scream and feel the pain and terror the mother, a young girl at the time was going through. The scene above is repeated at the end to add to the tension already built up.
To make our performance more effective we used masks to emphasize and clearly show the race of each character. We also used costume and make-up to show character features and so the audience we clearly understand all the character changes, including the Lingo that the aboriginal people would talk within their communities. This would show our understanding of the aboriginal culture and make it obvious to the audience who we were playing. The whole group used a variety of levels within our performance, sometimes to show superiority.