In Ant’s speech I also had strong initial feelings, one of the key ones being embarrassment that I live in a country where things like racial attacks, verbal and physical, are a familiar event. This leads to me feeling anger and shock towards Ant’s parents who have brought him up to believe that being racist is an acceptable means of behavior. I got the impression from reading this monologue that this is more than likely taking place in low class areas where people don’t have a broad spectrum of views and often echo their families beliefs so I feel a certain degree of sadness and also relief that I am more fortunate than Ant and have been brought up in more suitable means. Ant’s mother when he tells her of what happened does not feel sorry for him when he tells her of how he has just been in a fight neither does she worry about nursing his wounds but surprisingly seems more concerned about his blazer being torn and she tells of how it cost her ‘Thirty quid’ this could be used to back up my previous thought about maybe money being an issue but it also allows me to feel sorry for Ant as his mother shows him no affection, even though the injuries are a result of his inappropriate actions.
‘No Idea’ appears to be a good piece of stimulus to base a piece of drama around. It is a hard hitting piece which could be looked at in great depth from a variety of angles such as the build up to the suicide, the aftermath or maybe even the actual suicide itself. It would be good to perform as a solo actor, as a pair or even a group which offers versatility as well. On the other hand, it is quite open-ended and contain little more than the basic information so for some people it could prove quite a challenging piece to dramatize due to the fact that it may be hard to focus in on certain events contained within the actual poem itself but this may favor some actors. It may also be a difficult piece to use as a piece of drama due to the nature of the poem being about suicide and if someone knows of friends or family or even their selves that have been suicidal it may be an emotional piece to use and may offend a small portion of people.
Ant’s speech again like ‘No Idea’ may be both a good or bad piece of stimulus to base a drama performance on only this time because it contains a lot of information so requires less imagination to fill in the gaps which may favor some peoples style of drama. We also know nothing about Wassim who Ant gets into trouble with other than the fact that he is of Asian origin so people who prefer to make their own ideas by filling in missing information could favor this as that could prove to be a significant part of the final piece.
‘No Idea’ could prove to be a challenging piece to use for an exam due to the fact that there is a lot of key information ‘missing’ which some people may not favor. In contrast, it may be an easy piece for some people to use if they favor this style. The same goes for ‘Ant’s Speech’ except in this case a lot of the information is filled in.
Although both stimuli are different on first glance they also have several similarities contained within them, when of the most obvious ones is the theme of bullying. Although different forms of bullying for instance, in ‘No Idea’ the bullying in that poem is more than likely to be more verbal if not all verbal unlike in ‘Ant’s Speech’ which is more physical, although probably sparked by a verbal insult. One of the similarities which we would normally pass up as it seems insignificant is that they are both based upon real life events however when I re-think this I begin to think and appreciate that this is actually one of the more significant similarities. Finally the key similarity when being used for inspiration in a piece of drama is that they both are very emotional and contain hard hitting and real life events which are actually happening right now so they are also somewhat factual.
Of course they are bound to have differences but there are several which spark real interest. In my opinion the key one is the year they were written in; there is a ten year difference between each piece. ‘Ant’s Speech’ written in 1997, has had a long time since it was written so maybe things are not like that today, however I do think racism will be persistent and will never die out completely, the same applies for suicide but I am aware of several anti-racism campaigns since 1997 so maybe numbers of these types of incidents maybe have decreased by a vast amount or possibly even risen making an even bigger problem! Along with the date written being a major difference the country written in is also a vital point. Americans are known for being very ‘over the top’ so to some people Americans resorting to suicide may not seem as big as an issue. The fact about racism in each country also plays a big role, Americans are probably more tolerant with different races than English, in America there are lots of people with different ethnic backgrounds living in together and different races are generally more tolerant towards one-another.
Both are very inspirational in the types of drama they inspire and both have several element which will remain the same in both. They both feature one predominant character in which we are more than likely intended to focus in on; Ant and Roberta. In accompaniment with each of these they both have an almost open ended amount of family and friends to explore due to the nature of them both being based around school children, the actors could explore two sides of the story in each, family and friends/schoolmates.
If I had to chose one I preferred most I would choose ‘Ant’s Speech’ I believe it suits my style of acting well and I personally feel it would be better drama wise and enjoyment. It is also a versatile piece. With two sides to explore and lots of room to use imagination to create ideas for Wassim and his friends it would definitely be the one I would favor.
