Once we had done this pre-performance work we had to start the brain storming to get ideas for what situation we were going to act in the performance, in our groups we all shared our ideas, through these Ideas we started to devise a plot. As we came up with new thoughts the piece was adjusted several times; yet the final plot turned out to be a combination of all our ideas imported into one runaway story. We took turns at being different characters in our play and then we settled for who we thought suited each role best. I played a homeless girl named Mary; Mary recalls her life in the form a narrative piece talking to the audience. Whilst I being the ‘homeless Mary’ told the story of my ordeal it was acted out on stage. Lisa, who was another girl in the group played the part of Mary too she was acting out my life as I was telling it to the audience. Dana-le the third girl in our group played the part of Mary’s mother. Sarah, our fourth girl played two roles her first as Mary’s friend and second as a drug dealer. Finally Matthew the only boy in our group played the part of the evil addict boyfriend Adam. We felt our roles were very well suited and that we had the potential to make our performance very powerful.
Our intensions when setting out to create our drama sketches were to raise awareness of the plight of homeless people and to raise money to help them. We researched our charity and studied the intensity and seriousness of the case we were looking to help. Once we had grasped the dramatic issues this gave us an even bigger drive to be successful. When rehearsals started we focused on the feelings we wanted to give the audience and the impression we would like them to get two of the main themes we came up with were to shock the audience and make them feel sympathetic towards homeless people. We wanted to stop the people from pre-judging the homeless when they are unaware of their backgrounds. We had discovered that most of the people that were homeless had been placed in this situation through no fault of their own. Most were getting away from danger or forced out of their homes and left in pieces.
Outline of Plot
Our plot involves a gullible and timid girl called Mary she is seventeen and living on the streets she tells the story of how she got where she is. She used to live with her mother her mother loved her dearly yet they were growing apart. One night Mary is at her friend Emma’s house and following in Emma’s sisters footsteps the pair try their chances at getting in a club! They succeed and everything at first is fine, this is until Emma scurries off! Mary is left alone, soon she bumps into a drunken 25 year old man named Adam. He buys her drinks and takes her up on to the balcony where they are alone; he tells her she is beautiful and he likes her; he then kisses her and she is besotted by him. She has never had any attention from the opposite sex before and everything he says to her is like magic. She falls in love with Adam and he takes her back to his house; a scruffy apartment twenty minutes from her own house. He seduces her and she stops over the night. In the early hours of the morning she walks home still in a drunken state, her mother is waiting up for her worried sick not knowing where she has been. Eventually Mary tells her and her mother is understandably distressed she orders Mary never to see Adam again. Yet Mary defies her mother, skipping school to visit Adam. Time goes by and she has been seeing him for almost a year. He tells her he has had problems with his rent and has to move away, he would like her to go with him. She is scared of loosing Adam yet to frightened to tell her mother, she runs away. She moves into a run down apartment with Adam and soon she sees he isn’t the man she thought he was. He orders her about and forces her to work long hours to satisfy his drug addiction. Yet she thinks Adam loves her and won’t allow herself to believe what is happening. She starts feeling sick regularly and getting easily worn out she at first puts it down to stress but then decides she needs to take a pregnancy test. It’s positive! She is at first panic-stricken but then becomes joyous as she thinks of starting a family with Adam whom she adores dearly. The next day is when she tells Adam the news, his reaction isn’t at all what she imagined he became violent throwing her on the floor and kicking her in the stomach he tells her she is a stupid little kid and she means nothing to him; he throws her out on the street and she is there pregnant with a child begging for money from passers by. This is the end of Mary’s story and at this point her old friend approaches her and forces her to come home telling her that her mother hasn’t stopped loving her and just wants her back. Mary is taken to her mother and the story is ended with Mary’s mother holding Mary in her arms.
Costume
For our production there would be two people playing Mary as explained. I was Mary when she was on the street and Lisa was Mary before she became homeless. We had to look into costume quite deeply and figure out a simple way to show that we were the same person at different stages in life. Here are the ideas we decided to use in our final performance…
As you can see the costumes were not very detailed, we were on a relatively tight budget though and so we felt that these costumes gave us the best look and weren’t too costly. On the left is ‘homeless Mary’ and on the right is Mary before she became homeless. The costumes are the same yet there have been alterations on the homeless costume to make it look more worn and to show the difference in class between the two. Also I believe that the stage makeup we used reveals the difference in age between the two; homeless Mary has a pale and drained complexion which along with the dirty effect contributes to an older and more worn look apposed to Lisa’s healthy and young complexion. Homeless Mary wears this costume throughout the production where as the past Mary changes her costume to this after the party scene where she meets Adam. Lisa and I have different coloured hair so to make the performance more realistic Lisa was given a dark wig where as I just back combed my hair to give a disorderly and slovenly effect. This effect was reinforced through the rips in the homeless Mary’s clothing and the dirty effect made by talcum powder on the clothing. In addition I would carry with me a tattered blanket that acted as a safety barrier from the perspective of Mary as well as some warmth! We also got different effects with the stage makeup we used. For Mary before becoming homeless a darker more healthy shade of foundation was used where as when she became homeless a pale and sickly colour was used to show she was drained and starving, also black powder was used on her face, neck and arms to make her look dirty and to show the lack of hygiene she had gained through living on the streets. This all added to our performance as a whole and being in costume made me personally feel more in role and ready for the performance as it gave me more confidence and I felt as if I had actually become my character.
Final Performance
Our performance went as follows…The stage lights are dim and the mood is uneasy as homeless Mary comes slowly forward to centre stage. I am Mary the homeless girl begging on the streets for spare change. There are some members of other groups on the stage acting as business men and ordinary people; I go to them pleading for money and they ignore me. Everything is very slow and eerie until homeless Mary approaches a woman, she soon realises that this woman is in fact her old friend Emma. The pace immediately changes and the lights are bright on stage adding to the sudden liveliness, Emma realises who this homeless wreck is and forces notes into her palm Mary is scared and uneasy she manages to scurry away too frightened to face her past. At this point Emma is on the phone, this is her monologue. She is talking to a friend and asking her what to do she decides to try and find Mary and exits stage centre left. The lights become dimmer once again and Homeless Mary comes to downstage centre sitting slowly down. At this point her monologue is performed. This is my main part in the performance as it is just me on stage and my acting skills are really put to the test. I recite my monologue it goes as follows…
Alone and cold with no place to go,
I look back on everything I once knew and saw.
On the outside I am bruised and battered,
Inside my heart is broken and shattered.
I never imagined it would end like this,
I cannot believe it was the last kiss.
He became the centre of my dismal life,
We were soon to be; husband and wife.
What went wrong? How was I so mislead?
I believed every single word of lies he said.
When I was younger my life was complete,
I don’t deserve this; alone and cold on the street.
I have nothing of my own to hold or touch,
I wish I had my family back; they cared for me so much.
Now it isn’t about just me it’s my baby’s life too,
I can’t stay here starving I must pull myself through.
Yet nobody gives a damn about those like me,
We are just waste of an increasing degree.
How can I carry on? What is the key?
What will become of a wretch like me…?
I think that this monologue is very effective I wrote it myself and I think it sets a certain mood for the audience, when I read it I saw that everyone was looking very sympathetic and were all silent. After this my role switches to more of a narrative part. Mary at first questions herself asking what could have happened if she had stopped and let Emma talk to her and help her out yet she knows she could never have had the audacity to stay and talk; she is too regretful and scared. Homeless Mary then decides to talk to the audience and tell them about what has happened to her and how she is in this awful situation. Homeless Mary stands, making use of space she paces in thought then settles over at downstage right ready to tell her story. As Mary is talking about her life and what happened to her it is being acted out centre stage by Lisa (as Mary), Matthew (as Andy), Sarah (as Emma) and Dana (Mary’s Mother). Through the performance there are certain things that were hard to act out on stage. The main thing we found difficult was portraying what the characters were thinking at certain times. For example, when Mary was thinking about whether to move out or not we had me (the homeless Mary) stood upstage centre, Lisa (Mary before she was homeless) stood centre stage and then her mother stood centre right and Andy stood centre left. It was symbolising what was going on in Mary’s head at this time. Andy would stand saying nice thinks to Mary telling her that he loves her and at the other side stood her mother telling her that she has changed and she doesn’t know who she is anymore. In turn they would say their piece and each time Mary took a step closer to Adam until finally she was in his arms. There were also things that I had to do, I wasn’t just telling the story and letting the others act I had to act too. I showed how I was crushed and hurt, I had to act angry at myself and show that I was devastated, vulnerable, cold and hungry. I used actions such as putting my head in my hands and pacing the stage. I would put on a shaky voice and wrap myself tight in my blanket. After I had told my story we used a very stylised and modern technique to show the two Mary’s coming into one person as Homeless Mary had come to the point in her tale of her being on the streets. I, (Homeless Mary) slowly stepped towards Lisa (Also Playing Mary) we took each other by the hands and I asked her questions…
“Why were you so stupid you have lost everything” I ask her
“I thought he loved me I thought we were going to build a family together” she replied
“How could such an evil man have any love” I shouted.
At this point Lisa breaks down into tears and the lights dim as we spin into one person and I push her off stage (Centre Left). I then sit my self down again downstage centre as I did when reciting my monologue. Mary, i myself; mournfully weep upon what I have lost. Then appearing behind me from upstage right comes Emma my old friend I try to run again but she has me in her grasp. She says “Mary you must come home your mother is beside herself with worry, she doesn’t care about what you have done she just wants you back. There have been countless appeals sent out the police searching for you! You need to go home Mary; now come with me”. Mary takes her hand and they exit upstage left. Finally the performance ends with Mary and her mother in the spotlight embracing each other centre stage; this sincere moment causes a few tears in the audience, as a happy ending beams through the sorrow.
Character Relationships
We could not make our performance very realistic as we didn’t have the money for scenery or the materials and props yet I believe that a sense of realistic relationships was imported into our performance we wanted to make the performance believable and though we used elements of stylised drama, we wished to show that this wasn’t just a piece of fiction it was a situation that real people can actually be put into. I feel that the strongest relationship shown is that of Mary and her mother. Though Mary does fall in love with Adam and choose him over her mother at first it is the bond between mother and daughter that stays alive and admirable until the end.
Conclusion
In conclusion to the performance I think that as a whole it was rather successful there are things that could be improved but there are many things that went well. I think that through the rehearsal process we made a lot of improvement and gained more confidence. We worked well as a team and were all very committed. I believe that if we had more money then the performance could have been a lot better as we would have better scenery and props but we were given great advice and worked well with what we had. I think that our piece was very thought provoking and made the audience realise that homelessness is an exceedingly disturbing and genuine problem, I felt that the audience had become more affectionate towards the homeless people and more compassionate about helping them. i think that if the performance was carried out again I would have suggested different uses of lighting; we did dim the lights and raise them during certain scenes and also used the spotlight towards the end of the production yet it was all performed under the white light there was no coloured lighting used. I think this is a shame because coloured lighting could have reinforced certain moods though our scenes. Apart from this I think that it was a really great project and I enjoyed studying and researching the issue as well as acting out our drama sketch.
