Theatre In Education

The main problems which we encountered involved the audience, the interaction between the characters on stage and pupils had to fit our dialogue and plot. Meaning that if we needed a progression from one scene to the next, or a character making a vital decision, which affects the plot and scenes after, we would use the audience. Because we couldn’t spend a lot of time developing costume and scenery, we tried to make it rather simple. To allow the children to focus on message rather than the shiny package. We also had talked as a group of exploring our characters further and experimenting with different situations, how a character would handle it and why, and also accents. Accents are an easy way of detaching yourself from your character and therefore making it easier to play. Some in the group including myself didn’t use accents, and this made it far harder to become that character in our minds.

We structured it in the usual scene style of introducing the characters Will Power and Dr. Ding. We used a mock introduction; our aim here was to make play with the idea that Dr. Ding was going to talk for the whole piece instead of there being any other acting, and so when Will Power came on, he could explain the character traits of Dr. Ding, and so introduce himself as Dr. Ding’s son. Thus creating knowledge which the audience uses later on in the piece, and making it even more interactive, and more active than just listening to the piece. We then chose progression scenes, so that we got get a sense of movement and flow, and not carry on with the same dialogue or theme in different scenes. Our character would then be shown in different situations and showing how they react with other characters, and adding to the audiences’ knowledge of the piece.

The compromises that we had to make were that we couldn’t spend more time on developing the characters further. If we had more practice time, we could have made clearer characters with their own little habits, to make it clear to the audience who they were, and help them identify how the character might react next, as if they know them already. We also wished that we could have created set pieces, such as painted backdrops. However after our performance, we identified that scenery would have taken a lot of effort and initially confused the situations.

To enhance the piece we used our usual method, humour. Improvisation was a huge aspect, as a group that usually works together, we believed that if we laid out our plot into scenes, and then bulked it out with the aspects we need to cover, we could then improvise through out. After practicing this improvisation, we could have a set dialogue. However on the day we performed it, we found that using frequent improvisation at the last minute kept us alert and also added a spontaneity, which made acting easier.

Our successes with the piece were that it was very spontaneous and bright, which appealed to the young audience, and the characters were well loved, (judging by the feedback sheet.) We enjoyed performing, as during rehearsals and practices, as our problem during rehearsals was that the humour didn’t carry to an audience of 13 who had heard all of the jokes at least 110 times over, then crushing our confidence. However we felt much more relaxed when the children watched it.

The heath and safety matters were that some of the scenes were very physical. David Edgar has to roll around on the floor simulating a fight between himself and a mock cigar. He could well have hurt himself whilst dragging himself across the floor. Similarly David Roberts had to run offstage in an exaggerated style, through the audience. If he had fell it could have hurt himself and the people around him. We also had to carry our own props on and off the stage and they were quite heavy, which could have resulted to injury.