In our next session we studied Let him have it this was a 1953 true story set in London England. It was about a young man who had a learning disorder was killed wrongly for killing a police officer. The director of this film gave Derek a kind and gentle character that was trying to turn over a new leaf because of his wrongs in the past. Derek was not a bad person he had just made friends with the wrong crowd one of these people being Christopher Craig. Christopher Craig is a sly and quick characters his movement and sometimes child like behaviour gives him the image of the big man in town. Christopher Craig used his wit and conniving tricks to get Derek to break into a shop window, however the plan failed and they fled onto a roof were they were surrounded Derek gave up but Christopher Craig wouldn’t, without thinking of the consequences he shot killing and injuring two police men. The characters were different in many ways and we used class tasks to learn more and understand our characters.
We used this film for some exercises the first being we misinterpreted, two improvised drama scenes in were a random person would say ‘let him have it’ in his or hers groups on way. Our group consisted of five characters that created a stereotypical bully and his group of friends picking on a boy for his lunch money, but when the boy fails to hand them the money the bully shouts let him have it, we then stop in a freeze frame to capture the moment. This exercise showed the audience the particular significance of the moment, and also taught me to understand the issues that the characters experience making acting easier and more realistic. The final exercise we did was when I was in a group with four other pupils rein acting a scene were me and my friends convinced a pupil using various techniques (similar to the ones in Macbeth) to steal a crate of milk while the shopkeeper is not looking but to his disadvantage the boy was got caught leading to his misfortune. Our group did this task to the best of our ability, however after watching Macbeth we realised not enough facial expressions, body language and emotional techniques were used to persuade Derek, so we redone our performance using various persuasion devises to improve our work.
Our last task we looked at was ‘Our countries good’ this is a play also set in Australia about two men and women who committed a serious crime and were sent to a prison in Australia. The two people that were sent to Australia helped me to emphasise through improvising a convict, I discovered that the character regretted crime because of the awful and dreadful conditions of the prisons they were cramped in small spaces not feed often and often beaten by the soldiers every time they stepped out of line. This helped me to understand how dire capital punishment can be. It also helped me how to understand prisoner’s points of views and what triggers their behaviour.
Judging from this play it still did not change my final decision on capital punishment that it should be legalised but only for severe crimes that are defiantly for prisoners that are 100% guilty.
SECTION TWO
When writing this section I am going to write about various characters and how they feel and are coping with the different circumstances under capital punishment. The first task I am doing is Chris Craig with his physiatrist.
Physiatrist: come in please Christopher
Christopher Craig walks in and looks around the physiatrist office
Physiatrist: please take a seat Christopher
Christopher Craig jumps on a chair and puts his feet on top of the Physiatrist desk
Chris Craig: call me Chris!!!!
Physiatrist: ok certainly and you can call Mary
Physiatrist sticks out her hand waiting for Chris to shake hands Chris sticks out his hand and dumps chewing gum in her hand.
Physiatrist: pleasant, ok so Chris lets get started what was you’re childhood like?
Chris: stupid question
Physiatrist: excuse me
Chris: stupid question innit didn’t you hear me is u deaf or something
Physiatrist starts writing in her note pad straight away
Physiatrist: so how is your family does your dad work?
Chris: of course he works and if you must know he was a soldier in the army for many years
Physiatrist: did this affect you in any way? was he not around a lot of the time?
Chris: ha don’t bother me sometimes I even go and play with my dad’s guns when he’s away
Physiatrist: ok interesting…… Do you have any hobbies?
Chris: guns I love guns!!!!!! If I had a gun now I would BANG
Startles the physiatrist.
Chris laughs
Physiatrist: yes…….. Do you have a lot of friends or even a girlfriend?
Chris: course I have, I am in a gang and we run this town and if I wanted a girlfriend which I don’t at this moment I easily could, when I snap my fingers they’ll all come running
Physiatrist: ok and you won’t miss youre friends if you end up in jail
Chris:
Physiatrist: no? Not even you’re family
Chris: naaa Chris Craig don’t need any body
Physiatrist: ok so chris what is your relation to this Derek Bentley I am hearing about.
Chris: ah he is a nobody and I would never hang round with that scumbag, did u no he has spent half his life in the slammer then he thinks he can get me into his trouble
Physiatrist starts writing in her note pad straight away
Physiatrist: ok and finally do you have any hopes or plans for the future?
Chris : yea I do and I am not scared of going to prison all I ever wanted was to be in a bloody battle and die heroically by taking out as much pigs as I can, that is my dream
Physiatrist: pigs?
Chris: police inn it
Chris gets up and stares steadily out the window
Chris: and one day that will happen and people will no me around hear as the saviour yea the saviour got a nice ring to it don’t you think.
Physiatrist looks shocked
Physiatrist: ok….. well that’s about all the time we have this week. I will be wanting to see you on a regular basis now is this ok Chris
Chris doesn’t answer he leaves the room with a sadistic smile on his face and walks out laughing
I Used Christopher Craig as a very hard to explain character and as shown in the film his ego can sometimes get the better of him. Chris Craig odviosly dosent care about the consequences of capital punishment or maybe he is trying to cover up his true feelings. To keep the script in accordance with time and place, I decided to makethe character of the psychologist a very direct and straight to the point man.This is because a session with a crime psychologist in the 1950s would havebeen more like a police interview.
If I was to perform this script to an audience I would keep the setquite simple and make it accurate to what it would have been in real life. Iwould of also used dark lighting to give a sense of the atmosphere.
This next task is about a general soldier for the tailbone pleading for his wife’s life because she is about to be killed for a minor crime.
To whom it might concern,
I am writing this letter to plead for my wife who is being killed for the law against wearing make up in public. I am the one and only general Sudan labz and I understand the crime my wife has committed, living in our country Afghanistan under the capital punishment laws, she should have abided by the rules. I understand that you must feel strongly about this topic and you would not like other citizens of our country to follow in the footsteps that my wife has done. However after working hard for this country and fighting for everything I believe in and leading my troops to victorious victories and fighting my own share of battles for this country, I think that I deserve the gratitude for my wife’s wellbeing.
If you let my wife free I will be forever grateful and it will be to my families discretion. I will also show my wife never to disobey the talibanian rules as long as she lives. But I am afraid if my wish isn’t granted I will resign my position as general soldier to the Taliban army this means all my troops will have no leader and your army will be down one victorious soldier.
Sudan labz
This is now a reply from the leader of the taliban social advisor.
To Sudan Labz
I am the social advisor from the taliban, these are the words from my superior. Your letter that we recently received was a plead for you’re wife’s life. We have never received a letter quite like yours before we appricate the work you have done for the Afghanistan army and we are gratified for your hardwork and dedication. However I am sorry to inform you that the law will not change for anybody.
You of all people must understand the rules we live and abide by and unfortuantly everyone must pay the prise. The information you know about our army is nothing to be taken for granted and if you will not keep anything you might know you too will pay the prise. If you choose to leave we Bid you fare well, and I appreciate what you have done for our country. The death of your wife will take place tommrow morning along with everyone else that disobeyed the rules
Your regards
Secretary for the Taliban
The first letter from Sudan Labz portrayed his anxiety for his wife to survive. He used lots of techniques till his wish for his wife was granted he even sacrificied his job even his life by writing the letter in the first place.
I am now going to explore“Let Him Have It” by writing an in role letter fro, Derek to his family whilehe is in prison waiting to be executed. I hope to explore and understandDerek’s emotions at this time.
Dear family,
How are all of you, I hope you are all well. I am well. I am at the wardens they are treating me good. My prison cell is nice and big I stuck up a big poster of marlin Monroe and I have a family picture next to my bed, I often play scrabble with some of the officers most of them are nice except for officer Barbary he is mean but I take no notice. I am being fed today I had beans on toast. I often speak to the prison priest he is funny and he tells me everything that happens outside, as I am not aloud to mix with any of the other prisoners. He is a kind man and we often share jokes together. He tells me that God understands what happened and I will be forgiven in heaven as he can tell I am truly sorry for the incident.
Dad make sure you look after the family and mum take care of your self tell my sis I love her.Thank-you for your efforts to free me. Every week I am told of a knew appeal to get me free and I am keeping my hopes up. I can only tell you how sorry I am for what happened and how sorry I am that I have let you all down. However I want you to understand that I never wanted anyone to come to real harm on that night. If I could I would turn back the hands of time and change everything. I love you all, and I look forward to your next visit. I love you all.
Love from Derek
Xxxxxxx p.s don’t forget the fish and look after all the animals
I used simple language to keep in role as Derek was illiterate and used simple language. The fact that he was illiterate means that he would of narrated the speech to a police officer so that he can write it down. This would be helpful because it means that the scene were Derek is dictating the letter could be used to demonstrate Derek’s feelings.
However if this were in a piece of drama I created, I would probably use it as a piece of in role narrating as I feel it would be more effective. I would have Derek reading the letter aloud to the audience and have his family all looking over the letter. This would be useful because it would show his family’s reaction to the letter. It would also give tone to the letter making it seem more meaningful.
I would also use lighting to focus the audiences’ attention. I would do this by having dark lighting and two spotlights, one on Derek and one on his family. I would also split the stage into two sets, to show Derek’s prison cell and Derek’s home. I would consider having Derek in between the two different sets to symbolize that he belongs in both worlds.
Section 3
When we started the workshop I felt very strongly about the issue of capital punishment. Now that I have evaluated the whole issue I understand peoples different points and views on capital punishment I understand why it is still in effect in some places around the world and I understand how it can effect peoples lives.
Watching under the veil video it made me think about if a minor crime like this would lead to a catastrophic death what other crimes would people be killed for, for less harmful crimes. We devised a role play in class based on the woman’s arrest and the fear of living in tyranny we created a four stage freeze frame that consisted of me, Lana, Raymond and Charlotte I was a Taliban guard along with Raymond and we had just spotted the two ladies putting on make-up in a restroom. The second freeze frame is when we dragged them away, the third is us holding up guns to the ladies heads in the stadium full of millions people and the fourth is the crowds cheering at the ladies death. My role was unsympathetic to the woman’s situation and to show this I didn’t make eye contact with the victims and yet my character was probably only doing the horrifying deed for money this made me realizes that society can change people. I watched one group who successfully created there under the veil scenes perfectly. They too created four freeze frames similar to the ones my group used but the facial expressions of each character highlighted to me that he really was about to kill a human being.
After we studied the scene we watched Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This scene had many techniques from the woman’s behalf to persuade Macbeth in to killing King Duncan. We used the woman’s slyness to create a piece of drama making the persuasion techniques as of the one lady Macbeth uses. Our group consisted of three people me, Joe and Raymond. We created a scene where me and Joe were in Chris Craig’s gang convincing Raymond who was playing the part of Derek Bentley to rob a crate of milk while the shop keeper had turned away. We used various techniques for Raymond to achieve his goal we made fun of him ‘ you a man or a mouse or what ’, we used reverse physiology ‘ fine were leaving if your to chicken ’ and we tried forcing him ‘ c’mon your not with us anymore you baby’. Eventually Raymond felt trapped and stole it, on the moment he stole the milk we had thought tracking from Raymond to describe how he was felling this highlighted the whole moment of the play and built up lots of dramatic tension, but to his adversity he got caught. A similar group used a different approach to represent there point they were a pair that tried persuading there friend to graffiti on a wall but the techniques didn’t work quite as well and before it was not to late decided to do the right thing and ‘bail out’. This activity signified to me what peer pressure can do to you and a lot of people that expierance Capital punishment go through peer pressure before committing a crime
‘Let him have it’ was a film about unfair trials. This made me think about capital punishment, if you get wrongly blamed and put to death for a serious crime, but later evidence is found that you are innocent there is no way to bring back the dead. Let him have it also helped us with lots of our drama exercises. It linked in with a task we did, were having created the drama we had to stop at a specific time and say ‘let him have it’. Our group was at a court and when the plaintiff was found guilty the judge ordered silence, went quiet for a couple of seconds to build up apprehension and with a loud gasp she shouted guilty to the relief of the jury. A group we watched using the same task did a totally different story about three boys playing a computer game at a sleep over and in the middle of the game one of the boys shouted ‘let him have it’ to highlight the victory in the game.
Capital punishment is still a big part of many cultures today. After studying through this issue I have many different point and views for and against it capital punishment. I understand how it can effect people physically and mentally, peoples thoughts and views on it, why people commit crimes e.g. peer pressure, why it was banned in Europe and how it ca affect peoples lives. The message is still clear that people want it back in the United Kingdom and also why people don’t want it to be brought back. Although it is still not part of Britain I wonder how it would of effect my life if it was here and I wonder would crime be decreased, but neither less it is a very important issue and one that should be analyzed carefully.
Colin Finnerty