Alex played the girl who the captain tried to set up with Festus. She was very kind hearted but a bit too friendly and narcissistic as she loved to talk about herself.
I contributed to our group by trying to make Festus into a believable character that was intolerable and loveable enough for the audience to laugh with him. I did this by using sarcasm and very longwinded metaphors to make him seem annoying, but also quite funny.
My idea for the plot was how a teenager tried to battle conformity, but by doing this they would also conform. This shows how today people try to dress differently, but all look like each other. The same can be said for their music taste as well. We discussed this idea and decided that it provided us with limited ideas to the plot. More ideas are found in the spider diagram such as: rebelling, depression and adventure.
I helped others in the group by giving them ideas of what to say or do if they didn’t know quite how to phrase something. I also encouraged them to do what they wanted and to try new things and for them to be confident in their own ideas working. For example Alex was doing really well playing the annoying girl, but she thought that just asking questions would be too boring for the audience so I suggested that she talk about herself for a while and she did it really well and it definitely improved the scene and made it awkward and funny.
I thought Ash’s idea of a cruise ship was extremely inventive and helped emphasise the message of how teenagers’ lives are rapidly changing – in this case there were different people there every week. This was extremely effective and made the theme much easier to get across. I thought that Joe’s ideas to include as many awkward situations as possible was extremely effective as it allowed the scene to be funnier and achieve the awkwardness and confusion a teenager feels.
Overall, I found our improvisation very funny. I thought we produced a well staged scene as our drama mediums of space and levels were used to great effect. I thought it was very well acted and performed and the elements of drama: characterisation and contrast were used very effectively and helped make it a comedy by how the characters were played so differently to each other. Our explorative strategy of narration worked terrifically as it really helped tell the story to the audience. However, I think there should have been more of a story behind it and we could have made the plot a lot more developed as it didn’t seem to have a beginning and an ending to it.
Evaluation of Another Group
The group who called their work “Come Home” was based on a care home that had decided a boy in their care was ready to be fostered. He didn’t like it in his foster home and so he escaped back to his care home, but in a tragic turn of events his own foster mother runs him over while he runs back home.
James is a teenager who has been in care for most of his life and now has been sent to live with his new foster mother. He is very temperamental, but he’s a good kid at heart.
Kate is James’ foster mother that tries her best to help James, but fails in James’ eyes. She really does care for him even though James doesn’t think so.
Tracy is a book-smart girl in the care home that is always getting distracted as it is far too noisy for her liking.
Melonhead, the fond nickname given by the others at the care home, is a fun-loving little boy who creates a lot of noise while entertaining himself with his own games, such as being an aeroplane. His loud games always annoyed Tracy, but they loved each other despite this.
Lucy is described by James as “a mess” because she is always crying. She got sent back from a foster home, which she didn’t like and was upset about it.
Jenny is the mother who is very caring to all in her care home and gets emotionally involved with who she looks after.
I thought the group “Come Home” staged the piece very well. The drama medium of space was used thoughtfully and effectively as there was enough space between the two homes, yet they still remained in full view to everyone. However, I believe that levels could have been used to greater effect to establish a relationship between them by using these levels.
I thought that their characters were all very believable and accurate and think that they’re portrayals of these characters were extremely successful. I thought the games they played really helped with their scene, especially when they were all pretending to be in a car. This really emphasised how it was about children and added comedy to the scene.
The explorative strategies they used were cross cutting and thought tracking. I thought they used cross cutting between the separate homes very well, but I think that they could have improved it by travelling differently rather than just walking to their positions. The drama mediums that were used were the use of sound and the use of movement, mime and gesture. The use of sound was used excellently to build tension by doing a beat that got faster and louder as it progressed. Movement, mime and gesture was used well to emphasise comedy in the car and aeroplane games and make the audience understand that the owner of the care home ran it well by miming to cook and clean. The elements of drama that were used were contrasts and climax/anti climax. The contrast was used to show how James found the two different homes, whereas one was empty and had not as much love and the other was full of people and was full of love. This contrast worked very well in telling James’ story. The use of climax/anti-climax was used well to build up tension before the crash and produce a shocking climax. It was also used to build up to James running away and the anti-climax was used to brilliant effect when he was reuinited with everyone in the care home.
An area I feel that should be improved on was the drama medium of levels, which was used well but could be improved as I feel that this could have made the scene more eye catching and could have expressed the relationship of James and his different homes a lot better. I would have made the scene with his foster mother longer to explain why he disliked her so much because his hate seemed a little unexplained and unreasonable.
They used explorative strategies to great effect, for example thought tracking (by Ben voicing his thoughts as he was in his new home) helped present the scene extremely well as it helped clarify the actions in the scenes and made the audience relate and sympathise with the characters more. The drama medium of sound (by the children in the old home) accompanied the scene excellently, by adding to the scene rather than distracting from what the actors were presenting. Contrast, a drama medium (by comparing the new and old homes), made the scene more striking and interesting and made the improvisation, as a whole, better presented. Overall, I thought it was very funny and at times quite sad, making it quite a touching piece of work. I thought they worked really hard on this piece and it really showed as it was well rehearsed and excellently performed