The techniques and strategies used in 'Teechers' by John Godber and my own performance of the text.

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Teechers - Part 2

I will aim to write about the techniques and strategies used in 'Teechers' by John Godber and my own performance of the text that help my understanding and appreciation of the play. 'Teechers' is a school play performed by three students based on their new Drama Teacher and follows events that may or may not have happened over his first month or so in the School. It is a clever and insightful comedy, which employs a lot of the dramatical techniques I have learnt in my drama course.

The action is set within a 'play-in-a-play' format, which is something you must remember when watching or performing it; your character is a student acting the part of a teacher, dinner lady etc so you are in fact playing two characters at any one time. As a result the style of acting has to be exaggerated and energetic, but never deliberately amateurish or flawed as this would affect the audience's enjoyment of the play.

The play is universal to audiences of all ages. Everyone can relate to the events, circumstances and stereotypical characters in 'Teechers'. We've all experienced the relaxed, laid back drama teacher, the clock-work efficient, strict head-of-year and the school hard man. For the slightly older audience there will be an element of nostalgia when watching the play. Even if 'Teechers' isn't an audience's usual type of humour, they will feel the need for reminiscent laughter and a nodding head as the memories come flooding back.
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John Godber uses a lot of techniques to allow you to get more familiar with the characters and the plot as the play progresses, some of which I included in my performance. Monologues and more commonly, thought-tracking are used a lot in 'Teechers' and help one to understand characters in the play more. The monologues Godber uses often describe events not in the play, which bear relevance to the plot. For instance, when Mr Nixon tells of his time at the theatre with Hobby, Gail and Salty, this helps with the audience's relationship to the characters.

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