Part One essay for Blue Remembered Hills

                                          On the cuc-cowshed...Raymond’s smile wavers.   The story revolves around a summer's afternoon in a remote country setting - the play opens with Willie, eating an apple and pretending to pilot a war plane, when he encounters, falling from a tree as a parachutist, Peter. After a fight over Willie's apple - in which Peter attempts to show how powerful a bully he can be - the two eventually spot a squirrel and chase and corner it up a tree. They are joined by John and Raymond, and the group of lads attempt to force the squirrel down the tree and managed to trap and kill it.  Meanwhile, in a barn nearby, “Donald Duck” is playing with Angela and Audrey. As they engage in their fantasy game of Mummies and Daddies we see how vulnerable a child Donald is as he suffers some vicious teasing from the two girls.  And although the killing of the squirrel and the girls' baiting of Donald seem dreadful at first, it appears they have just been rehearsals for a much more horrific persecution at the end of the play.   The main theme of the play is the loss of innocence but also deals with how we have a nostalgic view of our childhood and bullying, like our last assessment piece, “Bruises Heal”.  However, where “Bruises Heal” is about verbal bullying, “Blue Remembered Hills” contains more physical bullying (the domestic abuse of Donald, the fight between John and Peter).   Our last assessment piece was an improvisation based on the poem “Bruises Heal” by Polly and Andrew Fusek Peters.  As well as bullying, the poem also uses repetition and medical metaphors however we chose to use the theme of bullying and violence in the form of domestic abuse, as in “Blue Remembered Hills”.   Our piece was non-naturalistic, unlike “Blue Remembered Hills”, because we used freeze frame and it had a non-linear narrative due to our use of flashbacks.  However the acting within it was naturalistic because it was realistic and believable.   My character in this piece was the father in a family of four who hated his eldest daughter and was always violent towards her.  The basic plot was what effect this had on the rest of the family - the mother and youngest daughter and how the mother.  My character was extremely aggressive and always had the highest status, no matter who he was talking to.  Because of this, he was the dominant figure in all of his relationships, with his wife and with his children.      Playing this character is very different to playing Raymond in “Blue Remembered Hills”, not only because of the huge age difference but also because the personalities of the two characters are completely opposite.  Raymond has no desire to fight John or Peter for leadership of the gang of friends and is willing to go along with whatever someone else suggests: John:  I’d rather find some jam jars meself.  T’ent bad money a’ter all is it?  Penny back on a two pound jar. Raymond:  Let’s l-lul-look for some, eh? On the other hand, my character in the last piece always wanted to be in control of everyone, especially his family, and became violent as soon as anyone stood against him.   The acting required, therefore, was also very different.  Playing Raymond in “Blue Remembered Hills” I need to have the constant, near gymnastic, movement of a 7 year old whereas for our last piece I had to have an angry, menacing movement and also walk like a grown adult man instead of a young child.   From doing rehearsals for this play, and for playing Raymond, I’ve learnt how to keep up constant movement but to make it look natural at the same time.  Another necessary thing I’ve had to learn for the play is how to put on a convincing Somerset accent.  It’s also shown me how much we look back on our childhood as the “good times” and how we were so “innocent” when in reality we were just a smaller version of the adult world.