The drama medium

Rhys Rolfe

TASK 2: DEVELOPMENT

Part A-The drama medium

We use the various mediums of drama every time we do any practical work but I have chosen three of them to focus on for this part of my coursework.

These are: space/levels, movement/mime/gesture, and voice.

Space/levels are used all the time to show the importance of characters and there relationships with each other.

The example that I have chosen is from workshop 5 during a ‘dream sequence’ involving the inspector and Mrs Birling.

The levels change frequently but the inspector always remains standing to show that he is the person in control of the situation whilst Mrs Birling’s status always lower than the inspectors and is constantly changing to represent her confusion and lack of control over the situation.

Mrs Birling started the role play seated whilst being questioned by the inspector who was circling her and constantly getting closer to represent his pushing for answers, at this point there is a cross cut to Mrs Birling and Eva where she asks for help but is refused then there is another cross cut back to Mrs Birling who is asleep on the floor and the inspector is again circling and tormenting her in her dreams trying to make her feel guilt for what she had done.

Movement/mime/gesture are the very basis of drama so are used every time that we do any practical work.

The example that I have chosen is from workshop 4 of a group role play using narrating I have already used this role play as an example for narrating so I shall give only an overview of how we used this medium of drama.

In this role play we used mime when the other pair was talking to keep the appearance of the conversation taking place whilst allowing the other pair to be heard.

We used gesture to ...

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Movement/mime/gesture are the very basis of drama so are used every time that we do any practical work.

In this role play we used mime when the other pair was talking to keep the appearance of the conversation taking place whilst allowing the other pair to be heard.

We used gesture to create more believable characters and to convey information and ideas whilst miming.

Only Eva’s character used movement during this role play but she used it expressively and to intimidate the other characters.

Voice is a very important medium of drama it can give huge amounts of information to the audience and can be the difference between a failure and a successful character.

As an example of this I have not chosen a specific piece of practical work instead I have chosen a character that I have played successfully several times throughout the workshops and I believe that my successes as this character has been mainly due to how I used my voice, and the character that I have chosen is the inspector.

As the inspector I have used my voice very calmly but firmly with fairly long dramatic pauses at times to build the tension.

I have stressed some words during my interrogations by altering the tone of my voice to convey deeper meanings to what I say and to give the impression that I know more than I am letting o and that I an the one in control.

Part B- The elements of drama

I have chosen three elements of drama to discus in this task these elements of drama are characterisation, forms, and climax/anti-climax.

I have decided to use my characterisation of the inspector as an example of characterisation.

I characterised the inspector in numerous ways including voice, facial expression, body language and movement.

I used my voice very calmly without a lot of change in tone, so as not to give away emotions but I used measured dramatic pauses to build tension.

The facial expressions that I used were limited but effective.

I mainly kept a blank emotionless expression as I felt it to be the most appropriate expression to use.

My body language was strong but open, my arms were by my side or behind my back and I was stood up straight to show my strength and authority.

I moved very slowly and calmly which contrasted with everybody else’s anxiety about their role in Eva’s death.

The example that I have selected for forms is Sheila’s engagement dinner.

The forms of drama used include narrating; freeze framing, mime, improvisation and developing the role,

Eva narrated during this role play, she froze the action and narrated what each person had done to her.

Freeze framing was used when Eva Smith clicked her fingers the action would freeze and she would narrate.

Then she would click her fingers again and the action would resume.

Mime was used in two ways during the role play, firstly mime was used to give the appearance of several conversations going on at once but in reality only two or three people were speaking, this allowed them to be heard and understood easier

Secondly mime when the action was frozen except for Eva Smith and the character that she was narrating for, the character had to mime their reaction to Eva’s presence despite the fact that they were not totally aware of her until the end of the role play

The lines used had to be improvised as the lines used were not from the text of the play only related to what was happening/happened in the play.

We developed our roles whilst we undertook the response work.

We developed the mannerisms, body language and voice patterns that we would use to characterise our roles.

The example of climax/anti-climax is that of the end of the play, which we staged during workshop 2.

The tension was built up throughout the role play by the use of very little movement, no eye contact, mime, closed body language and dramatic pauses.

This tension continues to build in these ways until the moment that Mr Birling answers the phone as the method of building tension switches to dramatic pauses, Mr Birling then puts the phone down and breaks the news to his family that a real police inspector is coming to the house to ask them some questions this is the moment of dramatic climax of the scene.