Body language is such an important part of exploring a character and performance because it shows the exact emotions the role is feeling regardless of whether sound is used or not. It can tell someone about a character’s mood, for example, if I were to wring my hands, it would instantly show that I am worried or if I were to clench my fists, it would show that I am feeling anger. Body language can also suggest the type of character the person obtains, for example, a shy and tense individual would use completely different body language to that of a gregarious person. A shy person would normally corner themselves so as to make sure no-one sees them. They would try to avoid eye contact and would have a tendency to lower ones head. On the other hand, a gregarious person would use extroverted body language to deliberately show others what they are feeling. They would purposely obtain eye contact to communicate that they want people to inquire on what they are feeling and they would normally gesticulate and use over-exaggerated arm or head movements. The effect of movement is very similar to that of body language as it can also suggest a person’s mood or type of personality. A shy person would use very enclosed movements to shelter them away from troubles. An extrovert would use much amplified movements to gain comfort from others who would instantly notice their distress, for example they would possibly stomp across a room and use indelicate movements.
We performed a role play that was split into two. At first we enacted a mother and a daughter looking back on the life of the grandmother and her life. Secondly, we portrayed the future, by making the daughter from the first half of the role play into the grandmother speaking to her grand-daughter, looking back on her own life. This role-play helped us to comprehend what sort of characters we would expect to find in the play because the same sort of situation that is portrayed in the role-play was portrayed in the play itself. Margaret is very much like the daughter/grandmother in the role play. Doris is a lot like the grandmother in the first half of the role-play and Rosie is a lot like the granddaughter in the second half of the role-play. The same theme in our role-plays were also reflected from the play because the same scenarios occur within the play itself, for example, when Doris reflects on her life with Rosie. The exploratory strategies used in this exercise was obviously role-play as it was a role play and dialogue as they both permitted us to communicate to the audience what was intentionally happening within our performed idea and how we portray the past and future to be like. Gestures helped us to portray what our characters were like and how attitudes would’ve changed through time, for example, someone from the past was taught to behave in an introvert manner and keep to oneself whereas society would have changed from then and people would’ve become far more relaxed and sociable. Gestures were used in the first half of my role-play when the mother and daughter found an old school uniform of the grandmother, and my partner in the exercise and myself had to show that we were studying a uniform even though we had no props. Stereotyping was used throughout the role-play because we had to show what our opinions were on what the future would be like even though we are not living in that era. We had to use our own knowledge and understanding on what the past and future was like through our knowledge of films we might’ve watched or books we might’ve read, and this in hindsight probably made our audience understand our concept as they probably used the same stereotypical thinking that we used. This exercise helped us focus on the principal themes that revolve around the play as a whole. It also gave us a vital introduction into the social, cultural and historical facets highlighted within the play.
To help us explore and understand the characters and themes within the play we used a lot of exploratory strategies like still image, thought-tracking, gestures, characterisation, role-play, marking the moment, vocal tone and stereotyping. In my personal opinion the most effective of these exploratory strategies was thought-tracking because it relates to what is going through a persons mind regardless of what he/she appears to be feeling, it also gives a better understanding to what type of person the character is. This exploratory strategy was used during an exercise we did in which we had to form still images of what would made someone angry, and we did this in 3 separate groups. One group were children, another group were teenagers, and another group were adults. I was in the group that showed what would make a teenager angry and our idea was to have several people acting as different teenagers worrying on one aspect of what would make a teenager angry or distressed and we all surrounded another teenager whose main worry was school. Thought-tracking was used in this still image to show what that certain character was going through almost as though the audience was entering into her mind and showing the audience what is important for a teenager.
The main scene I enacted with a group of five more people was a short extract from act three, scene two in which Margaret tells Jackie that she knows that Jackie wants Rosie to live with her. Jackie confesses that she wants to make-up all the time she has missed in Rosie’s life but Margaret tells her that she cannot and she cannot bring back the past. The scene is set in Croydon, London at Margaret’s office. Our concept was to make a stylised piece of drama showing how different types of guilt can destroy a relationship between two people. We wanted to show the different types of guilt that can be brought out of a person because this scene revolves around Jackie’s guilt of missing so much of Rosie’s life. We also wanted to convey the sheer significance of society and culture that is shown throughout the entire play by using different types of vocal tone and costume. This also helped us show the different interpretations of each character that can be formed and created. In hindsight we wanted to morph a straightforward scene into a surreal and abstract scene to lead our audience into a false sense of understanding one moment but completely throw them off grasp the next moment to create a sense of surrealism.
In the extract we were performing, we noticed that there are three main changes in its structure. We noticed that the language in the first few lines starts off with an atmosphere of great tension and uncertainty, in which Jackie and Margaret are making awkward conversation to avoid what their heart truly desires to discuss. In the next few lines, the atmosphere changes from tense to a build up of rage. These few lines show an obvious rise in anger and desperation between both Jackie and Margaret. The next few lines after this show Margaret losing her normal cool and leave Jackie saying nothing and she finishes the argument on her terms with an air of intense finality. As we chose to show different types of guilt throughout, our obvious choice was to use this change in structure and combine it with our concept of guilt by creating concealed guilt, angry guilt and Jackie’s full guilt showing. We also decided to use costume to show this, for example, when Jackie exposes her full guilt at the end, she wears very abstract clothing to show how many thoughts were running through her mind. We decided to use costume as a vital medium in our performance because we wanted to audience to relate with the characters.
We had three people in our group play the three interpretations of Margaret and three other people playing the interpretations of Jackie. I played the part of Margaret with ‘concealed guilt.’ I thought to myself that I should make Margaret into a type of person that she hasn’t been portrayed as yet. In my eyes I saw Margaret as a rather uptight person, so I figured that if I wanted to make this an abstract adaptation that I should make her the opposite of this. I made Margaret into a friendly and bright person, which integrated well with the fact I wanted to portray conceal what Margaret truly felt inside.
The movements I used within my performance very friendly maternal actions but I backed away when Jackie came too close to me, but I soon realise that I have let my guard down so I immediately place me false smile and friendliness back into play. I used very fake and sarcastic actions like nodding my head and looking as though I am thoroughly interested in what Jackie has to say, when inside, I am genuinely frustrated at her. When I say “I thought you wiped out that little girl” to Jackie, I used a thoroughly sarcastic tone of voice and I wag my finger at Jackie in a mocking fashion. I used these sort of movements to show how hard Margaret was trying to conceal whatever she was truly thinking and by using blatant sarcasm, I ensured myself that the audience noticed that something was not right with the way Margaret was acting.
My voice in the performance was used to portray a phoney playful type of accent. I spoke clearly and projected my voice in order for the audience to hear every single word I was saying and for them to grasp my concept not only through my movement but I wanted them to hear what I was trying to aim for. I spoke at a slow pace to create more tension between my words to add to the build up of climactic rigidity. I had a tendency to use silences and pauses to add to this build up of tension to also keep the audience engaged into what we were trying to achieve. I used an average pitched voice to show how hard Margaret herself was trying to make the atmosphere as normal as possible even though she is only making it worse. I chose to use my voice in this way because it truly shows how hard Margaret was trying to not lose control and it also gave an uneasy atmosphere to the performance in general.
Pace, silence, pause and pitch are all extremely important in communicating a message to an audience because they communicate what emotions are going through someone’s mind and they then communicate it to the audience. They portray what kind of frame of mind a role has, for example if a character is depressed or disheartened, he or she would use a dull tone of voice, and speak at a very slow tempo and leaving lots of pauses and silences.
Facial expression and gestures are also extremely important in communicated a message to an audience because it gives almost the same effect as pace, silence, pause and pitch, except of course, without use of sound. If a performance was either mimed or a still-image you would not need to use pace, silence, pause and pitch because you would just have to share your idea using a facial expression and a gesture, in other words you are still showing the audience what your character is feeling without the need of telling them.
The gestures I used in the performance were mainly arm movements, from wagging my finger at Jackie in a mocking manner to show that I was being sarcastic to holding my arms out before me in a peaceful manner to show that Margaret suddenly switched in mood to contrast the mocking manner she was using before. I would then walk away, having my back facing Jackie to that I want to reject Jackie’s attempt at trying to convince me into letting Rosie stay with her. I would then stop and sit at a table and I would end my performance by looking at Jackie whilst she recites her final line in a way that suggests a slow rise of indignation in Margaret to pave the way in the atmosphere for the next two Jackie’s and Margaret’s in our group concluding the rest of the extract. These gestures used helped me to communicate my message to the audience because as I was performing in the introduction of the scene, I had to make sure that I should engage the audience straight away and I feel that the gesture used in this performance managed to create that tension.
The facial expressions that I used for my portrayal of a ‘concealed’ Margaret were over-exaggerated and highly feigned. I tried to use and blatantly phoney smile to show the audience that I was pretending to be so friendly when really I was feeling completely different inside. My facial expressions were derisive and false to show that Margaret was trying as hard as she could to ensure that she would not fly into distress. When I begin to say, “No, I except the fact you had another date planned when you were going to tell me you’d like Rosie back” my false smile begins to waver and small frown comes into play to show that Margaret is beginning to crack.
We used three different types of lighting for our performance. For the first part of the scene in which I performed in, which was the ‘concealed guilt’, we used blue lighting to show an air of apprehension as blue can be associated with sensitivity and vulnerability which is what both Jackie an Margaret feel during this performance. We wanted to show the audience that while both characters are battling to not lose face, they are still vulnerable inside whatever they appear to be feeling. The second part of the extract which portrayed ‘angry guilt’, used a vivid red lighting throughout because red is often associated with anger and power and we wanted to show the audience that both the characters were agitated and that there was a slight sense of conflict in the atmosphere. For the third part of the extract, which conveyed ‘open emotion and guilt’ we used a bright white light because white is often associated with purity, honesty and transparency and we wanted to show the audience that true emotions were being given out and that Margaret and Jackie were now being honest to one another.
For our scene, we played ‘Holding back the years’ by Simply Red as background music because it was a slow and emotional song that helped us to convey and emotional scene. The beats in the song represented time ticking in our performance and this showed the audience that given ample time, Margaret and Jackie would soon enough be honest with each other.
The subtext we were trying to convey was that Margaret was slowly but surely crumbling down emotionally and that she is learning to resent her own daughter, Jackie, and that it is now becoming not only visible to herself but to others around her. In this scene we see this when Margaret says: “You can’t! Those are my years!” and this sort of vehemence is rarely shown in Margaret’s personality.
Many contrasts were used throughout our performance, this spanned from costume to lighting and from facial expressions to body language. We used a contrast in lighting by beginning with a blue light (unease), then changing to a red light (anger), which then changes again to a white light (honesty). Unease, anger and honestly all contradict each other a great deal. The portrayals of Margaret and Jackie within our group also contrasted each other as my Margaret was very false and very conjured up, another Margaret was more to the point and firm, and the other Margaret was her normal honest self as she normally is throughout the play. There were contrasts in tone of voice, costume and facial expression and they all relate to one another in the same ways that the lighting does.
Contrasts helped in communicating our message to the audience because our initial idea was in fact contrasts itself between each character and how many times someone’s mood can contrast itself within a matter of seconds, instigated by only a few words. We wanted to show our audience that’s there were many contrasting sides to both Margaret and Jackie. We also wanted to show our audience that a change had taken place within the characters because Margaret has now grown to resent her own daughter and Jackie now in a slight sense begins to fear her own mother which had never happened before as Jackie always had the upper hand over Margaret.
DATE OF PERFORMANCE: 11TH OCTOBER 2001
GCSE DRAMA: PAPER 1: UNIT 2: DRAMA EXPLORATION: TASK 3:
A CRITICAL ACCOUNT OF A LIVE THEATRICAL PRODUCTION WRITTEN AS MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE
On the 11th October 2001, I watched a production of Willy Russell’s “Blood Brothers’, at the Phoenix Theatre, London. ‘Blood Brothers’ is a play about a Liverpudlian working-class, single mother, Mrs. Johnstone, who falls pregnant with twins. As she was impoverished and didn’t have enough money to raise both children, she is eventually persuaded by her employer, Mrs. Lyons to give one baby away to her as she incapable of having children herself. The two brothers grow up in completely different social atmospheres and they are completely unaware of each others’ existence. Fate strikes when the boys miraculously become best friends at the age of 7. The parents try to shelter the boys from the truth and the play concludes with Eddie and Mickey both realising the truth and fate strikes once more when both men tragically die once finding out.
In the play, Eddie and Mickey both grow up in completely different class systems and this affects how both of them have shaped as human beings. In other word Eddie, who was born as upper/middle class received far better education than Mickey who was working-class. There are constant references to class throughout the play and the plot revolves around the fact that the class system affects the chances people receive in life. Eddie received far more opportunities than Mickey. He became a member of council whereas Mickey ended up working as a labourer in a factory. Eddie also receives far better treatment by the police when the police catch the boys and Linda throwing stones at a nearby house. The policeman blames Mickey for the mischief primarily because he is lower class and the policeman doesn’t show any sign of wanting to punish Eddie even though he partook in the activities. The class barrier was emphasised by costume, accent and setting. Eddie wore neat clothing made out of what looked like expensive materials, while Mickey wore an old ‘hand-me-down’ jumper with holes. The divide was also shown by accent: Eddie has a posh English accent whilst Mickey had a scruffy Northern accent. This showed difference in class because it illustrated that the higher-class you are, the better education you receive and if you are born into a working-class family, you receive less regardless how hard you work to try and earn. The set was divided into two parts; the left hand side was Mrs. Johnstone’s home and the right-hand side was Mrs. Lyons’ home. This layout promoted a barrier between classes because both types of people were divided to different parts of the stage. The outside of the Lyons house was illuminated and clean and had potted plants on the outside. The outside of the Johnstone house was dark and gloomy and there was graffiti on the walls.
The characterisation within the play develops to a great degree. The audience can establish this by the excellent use of costume, body movement and voice. One of the performances in the play that hugely impressed was that of Mickey. I found that he was very co-ordinated and believable. In the beginning of the play, when he plays a seven year old, he dresses in scruffy, badly kept clothing and generally has dishevelled appearance, which portrays a young working-class child perfectly. Mickey used constant, hyperactive movement; he walked and talked extremely quickly and he used big, over-exaggerated movement as a child normally tends to do. He showed that he had babyish habits, for example, he constantly pulled his jumper over his knees, whenever he felt sad or angry to comfort himself. I thought it was highly impressive when Mickey pretended to ride, mount and dismount an imaginary horse because it showed the audience the sheer extent of a child’s imagination and caused them to believe he was a child. His voice was high pitched, to show he was still only a child and had not hit puberty yet. He had a loud and excitable tone of voice to show that he wanted to be heard and wanted to be the centre of attention. When Mickey turns fourteen, his body movement changes drastically from the excitable mounting of an imaginary horse, to an image conscious ‘strut’, which immediately shows the audience that he has grown up and he is trying very hard to look ‘cool’. When Mickey courts Linda, the audience can tell through his use of voice that he is excited yet scared; his voice wavers up and down when he is nervous. When Mickey is in Eddie’s company, he uses a very deep tone of voice to make him look more macho because he wants to impress his friend. As an adult, Mickey is jailed for aid in a robbery conducted by his elder brother Sammy. During his time in prison he becomes highly depressed and becomes highly dependant on anti-depressants. Again there is a colossal change in his movements while depressed. He changes from walking with the teenage strut to moping around with his body hunched and stooped and his head held down to show that he is not well. Mickey is normally a very energetic character, but whilst depressed, he uses no energy in his movements and he walks at an extremely slow pace. His voice shows desperation, and his vocal tempo is extremely gradual and he speaks very quietly. To show his nervousness, he fiddles with his clothing, head hung low to show drastic change from the happy, enthusiastic child that he once was.
The main characters within the play are Mrs. Johnstone, Mrs. Lyons, Eddie, Mickey and Linda and they all have quite large roles to play and they all play massively crucial parts. As the entire plot revolves around the twins, Eddie and Mickey, the two main characters are of course Eddie and Mickey. The standard of performance was outstanding and this was due to the fact that actors had showed their true calibre in acting by making each of their roles so truly convincing to the audience. Mickey gives an amazingly impressive performance in my opinion because it was very clear that he had researched so thoroughly into the role of Mickey that he almost, in a way, became Mickey. I found it fascinating how he managed to be a hyperactive and wholesomely friendly working-class Liverpudlian child, into an image conscious teenager and then into an adult drug dependant depressive, living on the dole, all within the space of an hour. The gestures he used for each age were highly convincing, for example, when he was a teenager he had a tendency to fiddle with his hair when he became nervous or agitated. Stereotyping was used throughout the play in order for the audience to understand what was being communicated. Mickey’s character frequently used stereotyping, for example when he was portrayed as a teenager; he acted as the clichéd teenager who is totally absorbed in appearance and constantly thinks about sex. Not all teenagers act this way but the only way for the audience to understand that he was a teen was to show him in the way that everyone would understand him.
One main character within the play is the narrator, who gives a constant commentary on what is happening. He was set apart from the rest of the characters through his use of voice; he sang much louder than the others and he sang more dramatically and in an almost frightening manner. He was always detached from the actual scenes and his commentaries pushed the storyline forward. The Narrator represented the conscience of the mothers and his words made the audience think.
The most climactic part of the play is in the final scene when Mickey is about to shoot Eddie and to stop him Mrs Johnstone tells him that Eddie is his twin brother. One knows that both men will die in the end because the play uses cross-cutting through showing the final image of both twins lying dead side by side in the beginning of the play. Knowing this, causes the final scene to become so much tenser because the audience already knows what will happen, but they are left with no clue as to how and why it actually happened, so they are left in anticipation for finding out whether they find out about each other’s true identity or not. One of the themes of the play was how superstition can govern the lives of ordinary people, so much so, Mrs. Lyons eventually has a nervous breakdown. In fact, Mrs. Lyons invents a superstition so as to frighten Mrs. Johnstone because she knows Mrs. Johnstone is a very superstitious person. She tells Mrs. Johnstone that if separated twins both find out the truth, they will instantly die. As established above, the audience already wait with keenness to discover whether the men find out that they are brothers or not, and with this superstition that was repeated many times to the audience by the narrator (so as to remind them of it), made the atmosphere so much more climactic because the spectators want to see whether it will come true or not. Mickey’s performance adds to the climax because in the play Mickey is a kindly individual who would not shout at anyone or argue, and in the final scene, he holds his best friend, Eddie at gun point whilst bellowing accusations at him. The audience immediately feels that Mickey is mentally unstable, and they fear that Mickey will end up doing something horribly regrettable. Mickey also uses many pauses and silences in between words so that the audience can truly soak up what he is saying and this adds to the intensity. The pace of the play is very irregular because as the play begins, the pace begins slowly so as to introduce the plot, characters and themes of the play to the audience, and when Mrs. Lyons threatens Mrs. Johnstone with the superstition, the pace accelerates. The pace is very uneven throughout the play because it begins slowly and whenever a climactic moment comes into play, the pace quickens for a while and then decelerates. The pace of the play intrigued me because whenever the pace was slow and you wanted the plot to unravel, it suddenly does so and when it does it shocks you so much and then the pace becomes slow again. This keeps you extremely engaged as a member of the audience because one minute you are sure that you know what is going to happen, and then suddenly you are proved completely wrong.
The costume used for the play was very successful in not only showing what age each character was, but it also show what type of person it was, for example, Mrs. Johnstone wears a cleaning apron, which suggests that she is a cleaner. Costume also showed the clear class divide between the Lyons’ and the Johnstone’s. The seven-year-old Mickey sported a hand-me down tank-top with holes in it and he wore grubby shorts while Eddie wears a very neat and tidy school boy’s uniform made out of fine wool. His uniform fitted him perfectly while Mickey’s clothing was far too big for him. The grey colour of his uniform showed the rigidity of his education. This contrast between both boys through costume was shown throughout the entire play.
Lighting was used throughout the play to symbolise moods or location. In the first act, the lighting is dull and drab to show the atmosphere of a slummy Liverpool. In the second act, brighter lighting is used when the Johnstone’s move to the countryside as a symbol of new hope and a new start in life. When Mickey becomes depressed, blue lighting is used because blue is often associated with depression; ‘feeling blue’. When Mrs. Lyons threatens Mrs. Johnstone, red lighting is used to suggest anger or hatred in this conflict between them. Large shadows are made with lighting during the final scene during Mickey’s rage to show that he has because a monster, something different to how he was before. The most vivid prop that I remember throughout the entire play would be the locket given to Eddie when he was seven, from Mrs Johnstone, after Eddie announced that he was leaving. The locket contained a picture of Eddie as well as a picture of Mrs. Johnstone. Mrs. Johnstone gave him this locket so that he would always remember Mickey but secretly, he wanted him to have the picture of her even though he would never find out the truth. When Mrs. Lyons finds out about Eddie obtaining this locket, she becomes furious and then she finds out that the Johnstone’s moved to the country straight after the Lyons’ did. Mrs. Lyons tracked Mrs. Johnstone down and accuses Mrs. Johnstone of following her and she then attempts to kill Mrs. Johnstone in an insane rage.
All in all I thought this play to be a very clever, deep moving performance, conveying many different issues and aspects of people’s lives. I really enjoyed it and I was moved by the way the play made me think about how many more chances we have in life if we were upper class and had money and power.
‘MY MOTHER NEVER SAID I SHOULD’
