Road - play review.

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Road

Playwright: Jim Cartwright

Director: Marcus Romer

Company: Pilot theatre Company

Date: 23rd January 2003

The set: The type of staging was a proscenium arch. It was set on a revolving stage where the characters pushed it round. It showed the never-ending circle of life of the characters and them not going anywhere. Quiet a simple set appearance towards the audience, but provides the sense of understanding, as the audience is able to work out which house belongs to who.  The rotating stage is split into three sections each of which are basic rooms of a poor housed person. The set is already on stage so it dissembles the problem of carrying set on and off stage. The idea of the revolving stage was to show the changes throughout the play but without having to change the set and bring in new props.

Use of projections: at the beginning and end of the performance projections were shone onto the cyclorama revealing the idea of a television programme and relating it too the audience as we are the television generation. The beginning started with a projection of a real life street relating the play to reality. Just before the street there was a projection of different views of London and roads resembling a television programme, e.g. eastenders. Projections were also used throughout the play showing different aspects of the life, e.g. at one point a television was made by projecting an image onto the house wall this was then taken away when not needed. Projections also represented changes in characters lives and emotions or maybe a change of scenery.

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Use of lighting and sound: monologues were shown with a spotlight isolating the rest of the stage to draw on emotion and atmosphere. It also made the audience focus on that one person and no one else. The individual spotlights also showed individuality with the idea of separating all the characters. The lighting changed for different house settings resembling the difference between all the characters home lives. The colours used were dingy, dark and tired to make it look as though life is an endless struggle for the people.

Sounding and music was used to reinforce aspects of the play, ...

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