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 for this we performed little parts in which we integrated this technique.
To pick out main features of the play we used freeze frames to achieve this. Like cross cutting we also prepared for this by performing little plays so we could be spot on in the real performance.
As the ‘The Hurricane’ has many historical points to it, so to understand the text more we as a group research and developed our knowledge of the main issues regarding the text. Researching the black civil rights made my knowledge of the 1960’s clearer. Information such as the way in that Martin Luther King believed and carried out peaceful protest. I also learned that these peaceful protests did not work as white civilians and state police used violence as a detergent to get rid of the protest.
As a result of violence towards the protesters groups like the ‘Black Panthers’ were established, this group did not use peaceful methods but instead they were urged to arm themselves and use violence to obtain civil rights.
The other stimuli that were performed and looked at were ‘Medea’ by the Euripides (Ancient Greece). This peace of text is very old has a complex background to it. It consists of many people and all sorts of problems.
This peace of text is more complex than ‘The Hurricane’ as the Bob Dylan’s song is more recent and has fewer characters to understand.
“The Medea tells the story of the jealousy and revenge of a woman betrayed by her husband. She has left home and father for Jason's sake, and he, after she has borne him children, forsakes her, and betroths himself to Glauce, the daughter of Creon, ruler of Corinth. Creon orders her into banishment that her jealousy may not lead her to do her child some injury. In vain she begs not to be cast forth, and finally asks for but one day's delay. This Creon grants, to the undoing of him and his. Jason arrives and reproaches Medea with having provoked her sentence by her own violent temper. Had she had the sense to submit to sovereign power she would never have been thrust away by him. In reply she reminds her husband of what she had once done for him; how for him she had betrayed her father and her people; for his sake had caused Pelias, whom he feared, to be killed by his own daughters.” (This summary was taken from www.theatrehistory.com)
To understand the text more and our objective we were shown by the teacher how the Greeks used to emphasis their moves more as the audience in those days used to be more.
For this task we got into groups of four. We discussed various ways that the verse could be said in, with dramatic effects.
Our group focused on the chosen lines ‘so you Medea……’ Each person was assigned a line to say with either a dramatic effect or another devise. We chose to say the verse in a pattern by one persons saying one line then the next line would be that everyone in the group would say the following line together. We also added in repetition on the last words of each second line. To make it more dramatic as a group we also spoke loudly and softer.
As said before the Greeks used their bodies to make out important thing so we did the same thing, so when everyone said ‘gone’ we would throw our hands out to symbolise the word ‘gone’.
The emphasising made our play unique and also made it a success as we did more physical movements than other modern century plays.
After the lessons, the activities done were recorded into our exercise books so we kept a diary of each lesson.
Lesson 1
To adapt to the script we gathered round in minimal numbers to talk about the background of the pre-century Greek society and how the theatrical performances were achieved. After having talked about the background we then received the script in which we annotated on by describing the various points that we would make more dramatic e.g. Repetition, Echoes, Volume-loud, soft.
In the lessons 2 and 3 we read as a class the whole dialogue and discussed what the situation is and how we would position ourselves within the groups. To gain more insight of each character and how other people in the class portrayed them various people were ‘hot seated’ within there character they played.
When we performed the Medea I noticed that our group used more hand movements to highlight the part that we want, but the improvement that could be made if performed again would that we should use more body movements so in effect we wouldn’t be just using the hand gestures.