The scene that was set created an atmosphere of bitterness, she also seemed extremely lonely because the poet uses words like freezes, draughty, icy, hurt, alone. I also think she is lonely because she is desperate for someone to love her back so she put all her time and effort dressing herself up for her date. Evidence of this is when the poet says, ‘A face all smeared in tears and lipstick’. She was also insecure and vulnerable to the world because she has been let down by someone she loved. You know this the girl was deeply hurt in poem by the way she had been treated by her date as she starts to cry.
Our first task that we were set was to act out the poem ‘First Ice’. We had to act from when the girl, in the telephone booth makes her call to her date. Everything we acted had to be performed in slow motion to emphasise the girls’ pain and misery. We also had to include several different people walking past her with different emotions about the situation. We had to end the performance with the girl walking home alone.
When we created our slow motion re-enactment, we tried to show the audience how much pain she was in. We showed this mainly by showing how other people reacted around her and to her. We had a happy couple, where they proposed to each other in front of the girls’ eyes and literary rubbing the engagement ring in her face. This added comedy to the performance, but it was still effective because you felt sorry for the girl because she had to see that after she had just been stood up. After that, we had a non-caring person who threw the girl out of the telephone booth because he needed to use the telephone. The girl sat down at a bench and one of her friends spotted her and tried to comfort her, but she was upset and went off home.
One piece of drama which I thought was effective, was when in slow motion two lovers were running towards one another, wrapping there arms around each other and walked off set. This was effective because it was in slow motion, so everything lasts for longer which brings out the maxim pain of what the girl in the telephone booth is going through. Because the performance was, in slow motion it made it seem that the couple was running to each other for hours and they hugging for days, when actually it only lasted for a matter of seconds.
The music definitely played a huge part in the performance, without it, I do not think it would have gave the same effect. The music was slow, which made all you body movements naturally slow down. The music also made the performance more effective because it brought out the sadness in the act, it made you feel even more sorry for the girl, or made you laugh because she had to watch all the happiness which she did not have. All that depended on what type of performance it was.
In our groups, we were asked to do an improvisation either before or after the date. Our group decided to perform what we thought might happen before the date. The girl was not very confident with herself. This was also the first time she had gone out on a date with this boy. She asks her friends to come around and help her get ready for her big night out. The girl leaves the house and decides to give her date a call as she was late. When she calls him, she hears her brother in the background. She starts to question her date about what is going on, why her brother is at his house, and why her date is not with her. She finds out that her brother is gay and was having an affair with her date. We tried to add a bit of comedy into the sketch to make it seem that it was not all bad. The comedy kept the audiences attention with the story. I believe this because we as humans enjoy other peoples pain, that is why we continue to watch television soaps daily when we see people having affairs.
Most people acted as if it was after the date and she was discussing what happened on the date. One group that stood out to me was a group that did a flash back of what happened on the date. This work stood out to me because no one else had performed in this way. It was effective to have a flash back instead of just describing what happened. It stood out to me because you could relate to what was happening as it was set in a general situation of a sleep over and everyone talking about themselves and their problems.
The poem and the improvisations we created said to me that human relationships can always go wrong, no matter how in love you think or know you are. The people that you love and care for the most, are probably more likely to hurt you more than anyone else that you know. Just because they hurt you, it does not mean that they are doing it just to spite you. As I mentioned before we enjoy watching other people’s relationships suffer because we watch daily soaps on television such as Eastenders and Hollyoaks where u always see A wanting to go out with B, but B wants to go out with C but, C is gay with D. We laugh and cry at relationships falling apart. I think we enjoy other peoples suffer because it makes us feel better about ourselves and our own relationships.
