Compare and contrast two pieces of stimuli - 'The Hurricane' and 'Medea'.

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                                          Drama Coursework

In this essay, I am going to compare and contrast two pieces of stimuli. The two that have been selected are ‘The Hurricane’ and ‘Medea’. ‘The Hurricane’ is a song written by Bob Dylan, in 1974. Bob Dylan was an American artist and wrote about issues in America at that time. The focus in America during the 1960’s was the struggle of Black Civil Rights. Racism was a major factor in America; most of the bills going through congress were related to racism across America. For instance the most popular law passed by congress was one that cause a lot of controversial issues to surface and this was the for black U.S. citizens to have the right to sit anywhere on a public bus. A black female called Rosa Parks brought this on. She refused to get up of a seat when asked by a white person, as they wanted to sit down, this action caused her to be arrested and fined by the local police. Rosa Parks refused to let this matter go, so she prevailed and made a very important phone call to a person called Martin Luther King who was the local priest. The actions of Martin Luther King would have repercussions on the Black American Society, as they would eventually be granted freedom from segregation and discrimination.

   Bob Dylan portrays the fact that many black U.S. citizens were being marginalised from society, even though the people being victimised were famous black people. This is what Bob Dylan tries to convey, in his lyrics he talks about a boxer called Ruben Carter. Bob Dylan sings about the way in which he was framed and bought to justice on something that he did not do. When reading and listening to the music I was stricken to the fact that the authorities didn’t find this event suspicious and that it could’ve not been Ruben Carter. As I read through the lyrics of the ‘The Hurricane’ I noticed the emotions in which Bob Dylan went through. The reason for Rubin Carter being found guilty was that the jury were all white as he says “all-white jury”.

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   From reading the script, I noticed that this song is hard to relate to when translating it to a play. It would take various explorative strategies to perform a good play.

To perform the play good with most strategies we had to practice them first. As the song skips from place-place a good technique could be used called cross cutting e.g. after the murders have taken place the scene immediately changes to the scene with Rubin Carter in his car, cross cutting can be used to change scene quickly so in effect there would be no pause. To prepare ...

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