As a part of our GCSE Drama assessment we have explored the topic of Stolen Lives. Which focused on war and how war steals lives within a society.

Authors Avatar

Name: Maddyson Guzmán

Candidate number: 4033

Dubai English Speaking College, 91527

Unit 1 – Stolen Lives, Documentary Response

As a part of our GCSE Drama assessment we have explored the topic of ‘Stolen Lives’. Which focused on war and how war steals lives within a society.

We were presented with a variety of stimulus material to get us to think about the topic of ‘Stolen Lives’. The material which most evoked thought out of me was the music that we listened to in our first lesson, from ‘Oh What a Lovely War’. I found it appalling to think that people could listen to the music and think it was encouraging them to go to war and fight even to the point of death; despite the fact that the music was an obvious representation of propaganda.

Earlier on we did activities that explored how propaganda during World War I became apparent to people as a fiction throughout 1914, 1916 and 1918. Part of the stimulus material we were given was displayed as images in a power point showing people enlisting to the war as well as people being drafted for the war. Both image sets included the stimulus music in the background. What we then decided to do was show three still images from the perspective of the recruiter throughout the years of 1914, 1916 and 1918. We showed this recruiter standing and greeting a young man in the first image. In doing so we used the Brechtian idea of having a placard saying ‘Recruit for a damaged soul!!’ This illustrated the idea of a boy blind to the reality of war because a Lieutenant has made him believe that he will come home as a hero. In the second freeze frame we showed the Lieutenant (played by Georgia) during the year 1916. In the image he is stood over Moritz and beating him, this helped the audience to understand the reality and brutality of war. In the 1918 image we showed the audience the reason that people would come back from war as completely different people through physical expression. As an example we showed me standing over the Lieutenant (played by Georgia) with absolutely no sympathy, whilst she was mourning.

Join now!

I suggested that we show how the Lieutenant is using propaganda to convince people to enlist. This worked well so we decided to use a placard to show the reality in contrast to the melodramatic physical expression. I played the role of the narrator throughout our freeze frames. To do this I had to stand to the side and use facial expression to show the fear and the hypocrisy of the propaganda. The use of the drama medium helped us communicate to the audience whom the power belonged to throughout our images. We specifically used levels and space to show ...

This is a preview of the whole essay