Gemma Bridgman
Drama essay one part two
In our drama piece we are using different extract from other plays and social references from television programmes. We have also used song lyrics, which fitted the mood and context of the piece to inspire us and add to the drama. The portrayal in books and film has helped us to build up our characters and to see the reactions from the different times in which book like ‘The cement garden’ and films such as ‘Girl, interrupted’ are set.
We used an extract of Macbeth’s which we adapted to fit the performance using Lady Macbeth and the doctors lines, symbolising the problems as well as the cure all represented within one character shows the personality of the character, ie that she is self-aware, and tries to solve her own problems. The style and way it is performed as well as the difference in language makes it easily recognisable as Shakespeare, the genre is similar, with murder and influencing characters such as the Witches or our masked characters. Both Macbeth and our performance have an influential lead female, and also the male lead who is very confused with conflicting feelings. The times are very different; ours is modern whilst Macbeth is Shakespearian, written at the time of James I and was based on real characters, whilst ours is fictional. In Shakespearean times, Lady Macbeth would be washing her hands like our female character and may even be washing her hands in blood, this would all be on stage as Shakespeare likes the audience to see everything. Lady Macbeth is a very unstable character, similar to our female lead, and the washing of hands is a classic sign of mental instability.
