We started off by reading an article on Timothy Mc Vaugh. We spoke about how the writer described the final minutes of Mc Vaugh’s life. We were then put into groups. In my group there was Chelsey, Ronald, Miguel, Dami and David. We were told to create a tableau from anytime from the actual bombing to his final minutes. Our group decided to create a scene of when he was about to die. We quickly gave each other a character, Miguel was Mc Vaugh, I was his mother, Chelsey was his sister, Dami and David were family members of the victims who were killed, and Ronald was the guard. We placed ourselves so that Mc Vaugh was lying on a table in the centre, the guard was standing over him and we had Mc Vaugh’s family on one side and the victims family on the other, this was to show the contrast. Then the rest of the class commented on what they thought of the way we were set up on stage and each characters facial expression. This helped everyone discuss his or her different opinions of each character. Everyone commenting about their ideas lead to one character from each group to be “hot seated”. This is when one person is chosen and he or she has to sit on chair in the centre of the stage and that person has questions fired at them. The person on stage has to stay in character throughout being question. This helps the person on stage to understand more about their character. From my group David was chosen to be hot seated and I thought he stayed in character really well. I liked the way his character was angry at what Mc Vaugh did and that he was happy to see him die but then again he knew what Mc Vaugh’s family was going through so he did sympathise with them.
I think this strategy is also very affective because even though they are making up answers on the spot it helps them and the audience to build a character profile together.
We learnt a new explorative strategy called “Track Alley”. This is when a person is given a character and they have to walk down the “alley” which is the rest of the group. The group has to be split into two facing each other and they have to be stranding up straight with neutral faces. When the person starts to walk down they chose when to stop and when they do the person whom they have stopped in front of becomes the character and they have to say what the character might be thinking and also act like them. We were given many different characters relating to the death penalty. For example Kim was given the character of being a little boy who’s older brother was on death row and she created a story about her not knowing that his older brother was on death row and that he thought that he had just gone away.
I think that this strategy is very effective also because it helps give people ideas to those whom are short of ideas. This helps that person to maybe build something on top of his or her own ideas.
Development Phase
In class we were put into pairs. After we our time was up to prepare, each group had go up onstage and perform. And as usual at the end the audience had to comment on what they liked and what they could have improved. I was with Shirin. We were told that we were cellmates on death row and we had to build it from there. We decided to be sisters and that we had killed our mother.
It is a cold dark small cell with nothing but a dirty toilet on stage right.
Alex (centre) and Sandra (stage left) are eating their last meal together; it’s two hours before they both die.
Sandra: Saying whilst enjoying chewing on pizza
We’ve always loved pizza, with chicken and sweet corn toppings. Especially with the barbeque chicken wings and garlic bread.
Alex: staring at the piece of chicken in her hand
Yeah, we have
Sandra glances over to Alex
Sandra: what’s wrong? Aren’t you hungry? If you don’t want your pizza I’ll have it.
Alex: I can’t believe we did what we did, I can’t believe we killed our own mother (Pause) I can’t believe we are both gonna die soon.
Sandra puts her food down and walks over to her.
Alex looks up.
Alex: (shouting) Look, just take it if you’re so hungry.
Handing over the plate
Sandra takes it, sits next to her and puts it down beside herself, and then she puts her arm around her.
Sandra: But that’s the good thing
Alex: What is? That we killed our mum
Sandra: No, I mean yeah, I mean
Alex interrupting
Alex: then what?
Sandra: Listen sis, we had to kill her but that’s not what I meant
Alex: What’s good then?
Sandra: the good thing is that we are gonna die together
Reassuring her
And I promise you, when we die and I go first I will be waiting on the other side for you.
Alex: You promise
Sandra: I said didn’t I?
Taking her plate
Now eat
Alex: No I don’t wont to, I’m not hungry
Sandra: Fine more for me
Taking a bit from the garlic bread and walking back to stage left.
Alex glances over to stage right and starts to panic
Alex: sis
Sandra: yeah
Alex: sis, the guards are coming
Guards enter stage right
1st Guard: Right Sandra, this is it, come with me.
Sandra puts her plate down, walks up to Alex where she is still sitting and gives her a hug. Alex has tears in her eyes
Sandra: Remember what I said, I’ll be waiting
Alex: I love you sis
Sandra: I love you too.
1st Guard: Right that’s enough come on hurry up
Guard grabs Sandra by the arm
Exit stage right
2nd Guard: Finished your meal
Alex: (pause) Yes
Guard collects plates and exits stage right leaving Alex by herself crying in the centre
Evaluation Phase
Two convicts on death row
Shirin was my partner for this particular scene and this is the scene I’m proud of the most in this term. It was easy for us to come up with a plot because it was just the two of us. We up with the plot of the two characters being sisters and they killed their mother. Our characters were total opposites; Shirin’s character was the brave and loud character whilst my character was more timid and afraid. We started off by both of us facing back-to-back kneeling down in the centre and when Shirin’s character became angry she stood up and started to circle me and at the end she stops with one side of the stage.
The group I enjoyed watching the most was Wumi and Sheldon’s group. The scene kept everyone in suspense. I liked the way the spoke over each other so there was never dull bit. They seemed to keep firing comments towards each other. They used the full stage and they used different body levels. They made us think that the characters were mental. I think this scene was very successful because the scene wasn’t short but it didn’t drag.
The courtroom scene.
We were split into two groups. In my group there was 13 of us. This was very difficult, because when it came to discussing our ideas and building a simple plot, it took quite a long time. It took a long time because whenever someone came up with an idea everyone kept disagreeing. I found it easier to not say anything at all; I wasn’t really bothered about the plot I just wanted to get on with the performance especially because the other group had more time than us. A thing that did help us to get on with what we were doing quicker was that we straightaway agreed on what character everyone was. Another thing that we wasted time on was setting up the stage. This affected the rest of the performance.
It wasn’t till only a few minutes before we were on stage that we actually started to rehearse what we had discussed. So when we went up on stage to perform we were totally unprepared. We had to make things up as we were going along which lead to things not making sense and the scene just seemed to drag. Also because there was so many of us on stage there was hardly any room for all of us to be seen and that lead to the people most of the time putting their back to the audience. Another problem with this scene was that because there was so many of us some people like the jury members hardly said anything. I think this performance was the worst our class had ever did. Also the other group wasn’t any better, I think the major problem was that no one was used to performing in big groups especially if we were used to only working with about 7 the most.
If we had a chance to do this again I would change the way we approached the scene. I would set us a time limit of which we had to come up with a plot and a time limit in setting up the stage. And then spent more time on the actual performance. If we were told to the courtroom scene again I would prefer if we did it in smaller groups so that it would give everybody in the group a chance to participate. It will also help with having a lot more room on the stage to perform and to make things more interesting to watch. If we had to stick to the same people than I would suggest that a script of some sort would help. Because it was easy for us to pick characters so all we would have to worry about is how we presented the scene on stage. But I guess doing this will help is in the future from learning the same mistakes again.
A member of the accuser’s family visits the victim’s family
In my group there was 5 of us. We came up with many ideas for the plot and when we decided on the final idea we got straight down to setting up the stage. We decided to locate the scene at a church at the funeral of the victim. Daniel B and me were the victim’s parents, Azra was his girlfriend, Peter was the killer and chelsey was his girlfriend. In our scene the victims parents does not know he is their sons killer and when the killer tells the father who he is, the father is very angry and wants to fight him. However the mother interrupts and asks whom the person was but he keeps it away from her he doesn’t want her to know who he is.
In our performance we used up all the space on the stage, we shared out all the speaking parts so that everyone was equal. The strongest part in our performance was when Peter told Daniel who he was. However what also spoilt this part were members of the audience sniggering and putting them off on stage. But this was another performance that I was proud of everyone worked together as a team and our performance showed so.
