In the lesson on Schizophrenia we explored schizophrenia through the use of drama medium through miming, movement and gestures. Our teacher then read out a poem and we had to respond to it as if we had schizophrenia. Our story was about a person who has schizophrenia and was going out to the high street in the first time in 10 years, across the street was a father and son, the son was pointing towards the schizophrenic person, she reacted quite badly, being scared and very self-conscious, and wanted to get out, the irony was that she was standing in front a of toy shop and the child was pointing at a toy he wanted, in doing this we showed contrast between the characters and the effects of schizophrenia. We made a group of four consisting of: Me, David, Sophie and Tyrell. I was son of the Father who wanted buy a toy, David was the father. Sophie was the person who had schizophrenia and Tyrell was the care worker who was walking with the patient. To start we mimed both sets of characters walking down a busy high street, suddenly me and David came to a halt; directly opposite Sophie and Tyrell; the patient and the audience are aware of mine and David’s presence, we created tension between the characters. I then start to point in amazement, at the toy, which was just behind the patients shoulder, the patient saw and completely erupted into shouting and uncertainty, we then paused for a still image to emphasize what is happening. We resumed with the patent running away and finished it off with the dad saying ‘is that the one you want son?’ .That last line was used as a clue to give the audience and idea that started off this event and to indicate how fragile schizophrenic people are. What went well for us is that we created a good performance that was understood well by the audience, even though we use very little dialogue.
In the lesson based on Victorian institutions we started it off by looking at an extracted image from ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest’. We discussed what was happening in the image, of a man being dragged by two people in a hospital, he had a wide open mouth; it made it look like he was laughing. Only using the picture we as a class contributed ideas that suggested this man was a mental patient who was oblivious of his current situation, we also thought that he was almost happy that he was being taken into a mental hospital; as he can be safe in there. We also suggested that the two men taking the patient was ‘doing their day job’ they didn’t seem very interested in the patient; it’s just a usual case for them.
In the same lesson we considered the type of people that were put into Victorian mental asylum. We came up with a list that consisted of: mentally ill, disabled, paraplegic, people accused of being mentally ill, criminals, homosexuals, ‘witches’, people with down syndrome and those how have leprosy. In pair work we had to show one character being incarcerated and the other character putting them into the asylum. A boy called Luke and I was partners in this, we decided that I should the one who becomes obliged to be a ‘patient’ in the asylum, while as Luke is the person who puts me in there. We made a story that started out with me inside a cell begging for ‘a single ounce of greatness.’ we then did a cross-cut to me trying to walk barley being able to stand up. I was portraying a young opium addict. Luke was an apothecary who owned a workshop. I would be intoxicated with opium and make an un-scheduled arrival at the apothecary’s workshop, and breaking everything inside. The apothecary could sense that I was an addict and began to lure me to a backroom, by pretending to offer all my opium demands, he then quickly locked the door and ran to the authorities to take me away.
We used the cross cut to engage the audience, as it gives them a purpose to know what I meant by ‘a single ounce of greatness.’ And it also makes the audience think of how I ended up into a mental asylum in the first place. We also included the use of space and levels, to show the how the Victorians affected those condemned into a mental asylum, whenever I was near the apothecary I would always made myself lower than he was, this also showed the audience who was in control and what made them stay in control (staying calm, and using your abilities to stay one step ahead). At the end of our performance we had to include a thought track of our current situation, since I was currently in a Victorian mental hospital my emotions was a giant mixture of: anger, fear and depression , I was extremely unstable; I talked about ‘why I didn’t deserve this’ and my hatred for the apothecary.
We was asked to create a character that had been in an Victorian institution for three years , for a monologue piece to perform to the class, we also had to write the monologue, based on a stimulus given to us; which was a naked woman in a locked room, she was hugging herself for: comfort, warm and strength. My character was an unqualified worker in a bicycle shop, he only got the job because his father was the owner of the business. But then his father passed away leaving the business to be taken over by his best friend, who hated the son of the owner on personal reasons such as looks, height hair etc. The new boss decides to fire the son, he was reduced to begging on the street and became a criminal to ensure his own survival; he was caught and brought to an asylum. My character feels no self-esteem, he feels anger and thinks about revenge everyday as he was stabbed in the back and had nowhere to go. To begin my monologue I used the effect of space to show my instability, but keeping my body tight and closed and sitting in a chair, in the corner of the room. To show that I was scared I kept turning my head to look around for things and behind me, even though there was a wall there, I felt this showed the audience my insecurity and the anxiety inside me. I gradually increased my speed of my voice as I’m trying to build tension as to when I explode into madness, when that happened I was shouting with anger. I jumped out of my chair taking my anger out on it, my facial expression showed my anger, my eyebrows were narrowed and eyes were sharpened, I look as if it was about to start a fight. Then I came to talk about my life within the asylum and my voice quickly changed from hard and angry to a low and frustrated tone like I was giving up on the world, as I got into detail my voice became softer and more scared. I was missing out words as if I was being watched from behind. I felt as if I portrayed this character extremely well.
