Fatal Shore
Critical Evaluation Arising From Final Improvisation Piece
In our final improvisation for fatal shore, we were in a group of 5. Our piece started off with a blackout, two members of the group were holding candles another member shouted out the year that fatal shore took place. We all walked in to the room where the fifth member of the group was stood, frozen. The spot light came up onto him very dimly as we got to the middle of the room. I read out a few lines from the first sheet we’d ever looked at about fatal shore. When I’d finished reading the spotlight and the candles were put out.
Next we got into the shape of a 5 on a dice matching the 5 spotlights, we used thought tracking for the person that was stood in the middle of our square. We chanted words that might have been issue if we were convicts. We took it in turns to say a thought of the convict, for example, The conditions and the hunger he might’ve be experiencing, this gave the audience an idea of what it might have been like. After this we all started to whisper “The officers coming” making it tense, we got louder and louder and finally the convict in the middle of the square shouted the same words and ran off. The officer then came out of the shape and grabbed the wooden stick that the convict was using as a broom at first and it suddenly became the officer’s staff. She banged it on the floor and shouted, threatening the other people in the group, who had now become convicts and were hiding. Lucy, who was playing the officer, grabbed Jack C and told him to get back to work. She then approached me and Charlotte and we had our heads lowered to signify that we were hiding, she threw us to the floor showing the audience that she was the leader, this was also good as we were on a lower level than her. She was stood up and we were on the floor this also showed that she was much more important than us. We then were convicts scrubbing the decks showing the audience the amount of work the convicts had to do, Lucy stayed close by criticising and nitpicking at the convicts work. My character got annoyed by this and had the guts to stand up but not look the officer in the face. In role I then said, “Why don’t you do it?” under my breath. The officer made out what I had said but they did not like being questioned in this way so the convict was threatened with flogging. At this point Jack G came onto the scene in role as Governor Philips, stopping the officer from flogging the convicts that were now all stood up sticking up for the convict that I was playing. As Governor Philips disagreed with flogging convicts and that he’d rather educate them, this showed this point very well.
