Live Production - Pains

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Khadija Saye

Explain how two or more performers use vocal, physical and facial expression to engage the audience within one live production you have seen and asses the effectiveness of the performance.

    On 19th January 2010, I went to see a production of Pains of Youth, at the National Theatre directed by Katie Mitchell. It was a naturalistic play by the Austrian writer Ferdinand Bruckner, about six sexually entangled medical students in the 1920s, Vienna. Where the bourgeoisie lifetyle was seen as one of only two alternatives open to the young in a post-First World War Austria of widespread social disillusion and personal instability

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The opening scene of the play was engaging for the audience as the naturalistic setting of the room was covered in polythene plastic which immediately made the audience question the reason for the wardrobes and beds etc. to be covered in plastic sheets. Two cast members came on stage in fully black suites, looking as if they were crime scene investigators, with very straight postures and seriously facial expressions. This was a shock to the audience as they were not expecting this scientific opening to the play. The actors walked in a fast pace coming on from opposing sides ...

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