Thought tracking was used with a model on what she was like before and after the accident. People stood up above her on blocks, there using levels, and spoke what she was thinking. The before and after showed how it had effected her life, and it had dramatically. Before she was a self-centred control freak, whereas after she became withdrawn and depressed.
The whole structure of the play was based a lot on cross cutting. It cross cut between scenes happening at the same time and scenes happening in the past and future. For instance when the couple were in the café it cut mainly between real time, and her parents views of her past boyfriend’s and how racist her father was. And it also cross cut back to when he started to get the letters from his government.
My opinion on the standard of acting is fairly high, as it was a complicated structure, with many contrasting characters, and the actors played most of them very well. No one went out of role, and the lines seemed to have been learned well, and were spoken clearly with purpose.
The blocks were used throughout, not just to create the taxi, but to create levels whilst thought tracking was going on, for instance in the scene with the model I have already mentioned.
There were several instances of different voices being used. Like in the pub where there was a seemingly constantly angry person who just spoke very loud all the time, not always with a lot of intelligence, and another boy who was very shy and quite nervous as he had a stutter, due to the voices in his head.
The actress who played the former bullying victim and child with an alcoholic mother impressed me quite a bit. Both parts would be very difficult to play, as they are both difficult and emotionally harsh subjects. I know this as I have played a child in a previous play who was being abused. She conveyed the parts very believably with seemingly real emotion.
The example that springs to mind of dramatic contrast between sound and silence is during a scene with a taxi driver and his passenger. The driver seems unable to be quite, and just rambles on about nothing inparticular until his passenger gets so annoyed she just shouts at him to “shut up!” He does so for a few seconds, then carries on, giving the scene an edge of humour.
Patterns of movement were created in the switch between scenes, when 4 people walk past each other, but get in the way. This shows how everyone’s lives effect everyone around them, even if just for a second.
The most obvious symbolic objects were in the scene with a wife whose husband cheats on her a lot. He buys her a gift every time he cheats on her, so the gift switches from being a sign of affection, to a symbol for his adultery. At the end she throws her wedding ring away, and a ring is a symbol of eternity as it is circular and never ending.
The video in the background again shows people on a journey, linking to the idea of linking people’s lives. The projected quotes were used as a distancing tool, to distance the audience from the action, and make them aware that it is just a play they are watching not real life. It does this by making people think about the quotes and how they link into the action, and they see the play from a different angle.
The social issues in this play were very prominent: racism, sexism, child abuse, adultery, and bullying were all looked at which are all common place in today’s society, but this play tries to give hope to those people affected, especially in the bullying scene. This scene shows a bully and her victim re-united 20 years later, and they end up being very good friends as the bully herself is now a victim of abuse from her husband, another social issue.
The main historical link came at the end with the September 11th tragedy, when the wife of an adulterer gets onto the plane that flew into the twin towers. This issue was a shock at the end when you realised what was going to happen to Jenny, and it gave the play a fixed ending. Cultural issues were seen in the episode involving the Iraqi student facing Military service in Iraq. And culture is also seen in the model scene, to show how fickle people are in today’s western culture.
This play had an impact on me, because it made me think about life, and how fragile it can be, and that no matter how different people are they can all still have common ground somewhere. The structure of the play was very well planned, and the way it was performed showed that you don’t have to have enormous expensive sets to get a message across.
