I am going to discuss my devised thematic work - I will also out line my piece and state how and why I created the piece of theatre I did - I am going to compare and contrast it with the film "Dance with a stranger".

My piece of theatre was set at many different time periods. This is because the mother told the story and there were various flashbacks. The mother was telling the story in 2003. The school scene (showing when Rosa had first met her husband) was set in 1989, the birth of her twin girls in 1999, the flashback of an argument with her husband around the dinner table in 2001 and the death of her ex-husband and the twins in 2003. “Dance with a stranger” was all set in 1950.  There are no similarities between when my piece of theatre is set and when “Dance with a stranger is set”

There were four main characters in my piece. The mother (rose), her ex-husband (Jeff), and her two twin daughters (Holly and Polly). The mother and daughters live in fear of Jeff. Jeff is a tense, obsessive and aggressive character and is always on edge. Rose is caring and very protective of her daughters. Rose’s was from a loving background; Jeffery was obsessive of rose from a young age and had an abusive childhood. Jeffery’s culture shows why he is so aggressive and tense. Roses culture shows that she is loving and caring. Rose and her daughters lived in fear of Jeff. Roses culture shows that she is unused to being in fear as she has always been cared for. Jeffery’s aggressive, abusive culture contributes to our tragic theme as his character reflects the tragedy. In the film “Dance with a stranger” Ruth Ellis is lively, outgoing character. David Blatley character is similar to Jeff ‘s character in my piece. They are both tense, obsessive and aggressive. The community in which Ruth Ellis lives in is wild. No one seems to care about anyone else in the society. The characters were mainly loud and outgoing, which reflected the wild society.

The mother and daughters live in fear of Jeff. Jeff is a tense, obsessive and aggressive character and is always on edge. Rose is caring and very protective of her daughters. Rose’s was from a loving background; Jeffery was obsessive of rose from a young age and had an abusive childhood. Jeffery’s culture shows why he is so aggressive and tense. Roses culture shows that she is loving and caring. Rose and her daughters lived in fear of Jeff. Roses culture shows that she is unused to being in fear as she has always been cared for. Jeffery’s aggressive, abusive culture contributes to our tragic theme as his character reflects the tragedy.

The culture in Ruth Ellis was drinking and going to brothels. In my piece the characters all had a lot of worries in the film no one in the brothels or bars seemed to act as if they had any problems or worries. They all seemed to try and forget their problems, especially Ruth Ellis.

The style of our piece was naturalistic at some parts as it was based on a true story. We used situations Rose had been in rather than dreams to make it naturalistic. The part of our piece where it is not naturalistic is when Rose is having dreams about Jeff and we show them so the audience knows what she is dreaming. The piece is also full of flashbacks and narration. We did the flashbacks in between parts of Rose telling the story. We would turn the lighting of then switch it back on when we begin the flashback. This was a simple but effective way of using this technique.

“Dance With a Stranger” is naturalistic. It contains no un-naturalistic techniques such as flashbacks, narration, voice-overs etc. It was completely naturalistic unlike my piece.

I think my piece was successful as we had an emotional response from the audience. Our theme of injustice and tragedy was conveyed well to the audience. Our ideas, for example our flashbacks. The audience responded well to the flashbacks and understood what was gong on. It was very valuable to start with Ruth Ellis and ‘A sense of injustice because it gave us the motivation to look up stories of injustice and tragedy. It also gave us a good base to build on.