Performing "Snow White"

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Nicole Daniel

11 Clitherow

Written Examination

Drama Essay- Part 1

This coursework is going to be based on an extract from the play “More Grimm Tales” which was formerly written by “Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm” and “Wilhelm Carl Grimm” but later on adapted by Carol Ann Duffy. My group and me are performing “Snow White” which is an extract from “More Grimm Tales”, In the play I perform two parts they are the part of the prince and three different dwarfs, as the prince my character is bold and courageous it is my duty as the prince to rescue Snow White and make her my bride. My role as dwarfs is to perform them in with different personalities. The personalities I have to I have to be performing are sleepy, happy, and doc. In my coursework am going to be describing the similarities and differences between the text and performance of “Snow White” and “The complete works of William Shakespeare”, I am going to pay great detail to the social, historical, and cultural aspects of the texts, I will also be making comparisons with the designs, styles, characterisations and ideas within the plays.

The play “More Grimm Tales” is a European folklore tale, which was written in the 19th century it incorporates the fairytales of the “Grimm Brothers”. The story was developed and adapted by Carol Ann Duffy who rewrote the story in 1953 and turned them into play form, the play I am performing “Snow White” was written in 1900s but although it was written at that time the play can be set in any time period.  I am comparing this play to “the complete works of Shakespeare” which too was modernised, Shakespeare’s plays were originally written in the 1600s (17 century), “The Complete Works Of Shakespeare” modernised the plays and brought them forward to the 21st century (2004) making them written in the past but set in modern times, the reason for this was to make them more understandable, they wanted to contemporise it so that it would reach a wider audience, the play deals with timeless issues such as love and conflict in “Romeo and Juliet” and envy in “Othello and Macbeth” the aim of this was to make it enjoyable to both children and adults so they improved the entertainment affect it had on the audience by changing simple things like language and humour to make it more pleasant to watch, they incorporate things like rap into their plays to make it more interesting. “Snow White” too was written with the same timeless issues as Shakespeare the plays contain greed and lying in “Rumpelstiltskin” and again envy in “Snow White”.

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 I will firstly be talking about the society in the two plays. More Grimm Tales are directly aimed to fulfil the entertainment of young children and families. The plays are full of fictitious characters such as kings, queens, dwarfs, witches and mystical creatures. The characters alone are used to show us that the plays are set in fictitious and make believe worlds. The idea of all this make believe is to help enhance young children’s minds and broaden their imagination it also helps make them aware of make believe characters. This is also very similar to “The complete works ...

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