Claire and David’s Feelings after the Party:
After the engagement party I would think that Claire would be feeling really confused. The man who is supposed to love her, and supposedly spend the rest of his life with her, just tried to hit her in front of both of their families. If I was Claire, after the incident at the engagement party, I would really think of hard about the future and whether or not I was going to remain with David. On the other hand if I were David I would be asking myself why I just tried to hit my fiancé. If I was David I would also evaluate my behaviour and examine deep within myself to see if I really wanted to be with Claire for the rest of my life. It is obvious that these two needed to sort some things out after their engagement party. If this were done we might have not read about Claire and David’s story in this workshop about abuse in relationships.
Moment Tracking, Thought Tracking, and Still Image:
During the engagement party Still Image was used to create a dramatic climax to the party. When we saw what was happening (David hitting Claire) it was very surprising since we didn’t know that that was going to happen. Another reason I think that we froze the scene at this moment was to emphasize the fact that this man was very insane, and was willing to cause a scene in a public area. I think that in the love scene thought tracking was used to relate the real emotional feeling that we perceived David having for Claire.
Development Phase 1:
Development of Claire or David:
During the romantic scene between Claire and David, I was picked to play the part of David. What we were meant to do in the scene was imagine that we were out on our first date, at a restaurant or the cinema, where couples typically go for dates. The scene was supposed to end with David saying, ‘Will you marry me?’ I made David quite forgetful, to add some humour to the piece. Also I made David sort of antsy, as if he were very nervous or unsure about whether he should ask Claire or not. Also I tried to give off the feeling that David didn’t think much of Claire on the outside, because he needed to keep his macho persona around his mate, but then it came out that David obviously had a very soft spot for Claire in the end.
Development of the Scene:
My group had the problem that there were not enough girls to pair up with the boys, so instead we had two guys out for a meal and David was telling his mate about his girlfriend. We made and alternative ending, where David told his friend that he asked Claire to marry him, for very obvious reasons. We made it seem as though both mates were very masculine not wanting everyone knowing that we had places in our hearts for loved ones. We then worked on our basic outline for our dialogue, as we didn’t have enough time to remember it.
Development of Costume etc.:
Seeing as we had such short notice we didn’t really have much of a chance to get a suitable costume prepared. In terms of props we had a table which we used as the dinner table that we were sat at, and we had two piece of paper which we used as menus. We didn’t change our voices, but we did add extra emphasis on things that needed to be stressed; although at times we did try to make it seem as though we were making fun of things in the media and we would imitate famous people.
Evaluation Phase 1:
Evaluation of Performance Featuring Claire and David:
Overall I felt that my partner and I performed very well. We stayed in character the whole time; there were never any awkward pauses, and it went very smoothly the whole way through. Also I believe that we added just enough comedy to make this piece interesting for the audience.
Evaluation, What Worked etc.:
I think that overall we had more things that worked than things that didn’t work. Our comedy is one part that I thought went really well as I said before, although some of our more subtle jokes were not picked up on by the audience. Also one thing that I thought that could have been done to enhance the performance was to dim the lights as I think that it would have given the piece a more dramatic feel.
Evaluation of Other Group’s Performances:
Overall I think that the other group’s performances went as well as our did. Many groups had good props that they used well. Also another item worth commenting on is other people’s choices of setting. There was a very large variety of setting ranging from a walk in a park where movement made the piece more interesting, to cinemas were lighting was used exceptionally well to set the mood of the “cinema” that the piece supposedly took place in. Some things that I thought could have been improved was keeping in character. A few people came out of character quite often. For example a common trend was people giggling when their partner would stumble with words. I will say it again that I thought that the positives very greatly overweighed the negatives.
Evaluation Learning Processes Throughout Workshop:
I think that this workshop helped me a lot with my creative thinking. I think that creating a piece of work from scratch was very challenging, but overall enabled me to become a much more deeper thinker. Also I think this workshop helped me to become a much more group oriented person. I think that it is harder to work with another person while trying to devise a piece of work like this because sometimes your ideas will clash and you will have to choose between your partner’s ideas. I found this out many times during the workshop and as a result of this I have become a much more agreeable person and have been able to take the middle with much less arguments.
Response Phase 2:
Response to Character from Family Tree:
During this performance I played the man who was a shelf stocker at Tescos. At first I thought that he was going to be an easy character to play so I asked the teacher if I could make him more interesting by having him have bad relationships with everyone in his family besides his sister who already has a child at 16. Also our group made everyone else in the family look down upon my character like he was the “trash” of the family.
Development Phase 2:
Development of Family Tree Scene:
What my group decided that we would do for our family tree scene was pretend we were taking a large family photo. We used freeze frame every time another character would come on ensuring the audience was focused on the character that was the most important at that time. When a character would come on they would give some dialogue telling about their lives or something that indicated what type of person they were.
Development of Costume, Space/Levels etc.:
During or Family tree scene we used costumes in the sense that we changed our school uniform to the way that we thought our characters would wear it. For example my character, a shelf stocker, I thought would have worn his uniform very untidy and have his shirt hanging out his top button undone etc. For my grandfather we had him very sharp looking shirt tucked in and what not. As far a levels go we had many levels as we were taking a family photo, thus we had rows of people and there were about three levels. For props we used what we could. Our grandfather had a cane that he used since he was old. We had a disposable camera that one of the characters just happened to bring in and other things. One of the other things worth mentioning is our movement. My group made it very easy for the audience to focus on the character that we thought was the most important at the time.
Response Phase 3:
Response to Three Articles:
Amanda Reilly and Jason Baker: When I read this story in class I was horrified at how someone could do this act of sheer violence to another human being. We had to read this in quiet, and I could hear in my head her screaming because of the immense amount of pain she was in. I have tremendous amounts of respect for this woman for telling her story so that others could see that it is wrong for people to abuse people.
Dawn Wooton and David Kelsey: Again I was amazed at how a human being to could do this to another of their kind. All of the articles ceased to amaze me on the fact of how terrible human being can be.
Lynda Evison and Jeffry Ince: This story was the story that amazed me the most. I couldn’t help but think that this couldn’t be a man who did this to this woman, but he was a monster. For someone to hurt her like he did, deserves for them to go to prison and be locked up for a long time. To tell the truth I had to try not to cry when I read this story.
Answer Questions:
Why do you think people are abusive towards each other?
I think that there are many factors to be considered when we think about this answer. First of all the person could have some mental disability that caused them to be so violent towards someone that they are supposed to love or like a lot. Secondly the abusers might be taking drugs which alter their state of mind making them extremely violent and delusional. Other than these two reason would make the person extremely violent so that they enjoyed hitting, burning, cutting etc. their victims.
Why do you think people allow themselves to be abused?
This is the question that I am struggling to answer. I can’t understand why anyone would allow themselves to be abused. One reason that comes close to making sense is that they love their abuser therefore they think that their abuser loves them too which makes them stay. What I don’t understand is how these people think they love them when they take out all of their anger on their supposed “loved ones”.
Development Phase 3:
Development of Drama Using Article:
Our group decided that we would use the story of Claire and David, and would turn it into the trial at court. We already knew that David would be found guilty so we weighed most of the evidence against David. I was assigned by our teacher to play their neighbour who witnessed the crime. We decided whether or not he actually say the crime being committed or not, we chose to make me a witness in favour of David. We made it a very emotional trial with David yelling to Claire, “I loved you, how could you lie about me,” and other things of that nature.
Development of Costume, Space and Props:
During our court case we used a lot of these concepts trying to make or piece the best it could possibly be. In terms of costume we made David seem mentally ill with his clothes all distraught and he always kept fidgeting as though there was something wrong with him. In terms of space we set up all of the chairs in a way that resembled a court room with all of the chairs facing the witness bench and other things like that. The props that we used included the Judge’s gambit that he uses in cases of noise.
Evaluation Phase 3:
Evaluation of Courtroom Scene:
Overall I think the courtroom scene went very well. There were a couple of cases of people coming out of character but other than that the performance went very smoothly. I felt the way we interpreted the scene went very well. The layout was very good for the performance which allowed the room a feeling that we were really in a courtroom.
Evaluation of Learning Processes:
I think that I came away with a lot after this piece of drama. I think that this piece in particular really helped me to work on my abilities to work with a group. We had to make very many hard decisions and I think that we did really well in choosing what we were going to do. I really enjoyed doing this piece of work as it was something that I was very interested in and I liked the character who I was cast as.
