Drama Report

        As a small class of no more than 18 we have developed our relationship from the beginning of the year. We felt very comfortable in the groups we chose and all communication was clear between the team. All members contributed suitably both in their opinions and ideas to improve the play. I feel our play was affected more by Shane Campbell as he had many useful ideas and was keen to contribute to the play yet both Fiona Teddy-Jimoh and Elizabeth Aylwin also had many valuable concepts. At times we were unable to sustain useable material so we turned to other groups. We were pleased to watch their progress as it would help up with our ideas; they were also exultant to perform as we were capable of leaving feedback.

Part 2 Essay Niall Byrne 10F 13/2/07 Page 2

        I play a witty and enthusiastic friend to three, although my character is not too bright I am eager to follow the group or come up with plans. Fiona plays an also slow and unintelligent character, she is not joyous and trusting. Elizabeth plays a very clever young woman, she along with Shane play the serious roles of the play whereas me and Fiona are more comic relief. We got our ideas from textbook stereotypical characters but adapted them to make them unique, going with our instincts we altered our characters to which most suite our styles and methods of acting.
        As I said before we decided to have a minimalistic play, this meant a lack of props, costume and sound. We kept the set design and lighting to a minimum using just blocks and a single set spotlight. The lack of objects improved the performance of the play as the audience focused on us. Some of the techniques used were:

• No props – To get the audience to focus on the characters
• No extravagant set – Not enough time to prepare / portability
• Local Dialect – Suites the actor’s style
• Changeable set – To set the scene and to show the audience that there is a change of setting
• Split scene – To emphasise the divide between sex

As we only performed in front of our class I was comfortable and confident. The main difference for me between the rehearsal and performance was the fact that we weren’t allowed to vocalise our new ideas and we could just perform. The reaction from the audience was mixed; some were pleased with our performance whereas others were keen to put across their opinions.

        I think our performance was slightly less than successful although I think If we put more time into practising instead of brainstorming ideas and developing them, our outcome would have been more positive. I believe we each contributed a lot to the play, each coming up with their own unique ideas which would have made an outstanding play and I believe if we had slightly more time to rehearse we would have performed better on the day.