Explorative Strategies essay

Authors Avatar

Explorative Strategies essay

(Response Phase)

As part of our Drama GCSE unit on Blood |Brothers we were requires to use a vast amount of sills and drama techniques in order to improve our understanding of Blood Brothers; in order to do this  we completed various exercises to develop our explorative skills.

One of the improvisations we had to partake in was the re-enactment of the finale scene in Blood Brothers.

As we had already seen the Blood Brothers production, this acted as both an advantage and a hindrance. This acted as an advantage as we had an idea of both characters and therefore an insight into how we could perform this re-enactment, however the disadvantage was that this may prevent us from having our control over the character, this may also prevent us from using our own imagination to interpret the character and their actions as we would have been heavily influenced to mimic what we had already seen.

However though we already had familiarity with the production, as it had been a considerable amount of time from when we had seen the production, our drama teachers refreshed our memories by establishing a class discussion on the subject, and the main themes of Blood Brothers. As a group discussed the main themes, scenes and then discussed the finale scene into depth; while doing this we discussed what body language and facial expressions were used and what we all found particularly effective in the scene.

Once we had completed our discussion, we were then given a time frame to work towards.

Once we had dispersed into our groups we divided the roles in the scene amongst ourselves; Adrian as Eddie, I was Mickey, Tamara was Mrs Johnston and both Zion and Emma acted as the police officers.

I felt that this particular exercise was particularly interesting and beneficial for us all; this is as we had a new insight and understanding of Blood Brothers on a higher level. Through the re-enactment of the Blood Brothers production I also found a new knowledge of each character, particular Mickey (the character I played), this is because as you take on the role and you’re in a maximum involvement level you absorb the character and believe in the scene although it is actually happening. This lead to me felling more empathetic towards Mickey as I really felt able to relate to his feelings and his situation, therefore understanding what made him react in the way he did. Mickey reacted in the way he did as he was angry and felt completely betrayed by Eddie, his feelings weren’t helped by what he’d already been through in prison and with him now having to be on medication.

Our own re-enactment was fairly accurate to what we had seen in the reduction, however I genuinely feel that we added our own input and originality into the way the final scene was devised and appeared to be (this is inevitable as when you relate to a character, your own feelings and opinions are bound to show through).

In our own finale, Adrian (Eddie) opened the scene by thanking the audience for being elected as councillor, while doing so my character then interrupts by running down the stairs and onto the stage. I felt that y my character (Mickey) running down the tiered seating stairs, the audience became more involved in the scene.

Join now!

My character then started pushing Eddie and shouting about his infidelity with Lynda, Eddie then tries to reassure Mickey and justify himself by claiming that both him and Linda are only friends. At this point my character becomes enraged and grabs him by his collar. In our re-enactment there was more physical violence and confrontation on Mickey’s part, I felt that this would portray his rage more effectively. I also took a conscious decision to make Mickey’s tone of voice, behaviour and body language very erratic; this was in order to portray t the audience that he wasn’t in a ...

This is a preview of the whole essay