Our Country's Good

During The Common Ground Season, one of the plays I went to was Our Country's is good; and out of the plays I saw, I felt that it was the best one.

The play was about English criminals who had been sentenced to go to Australia and serve their sentence there working to build a 'new world.' The convicts were supervised by officers. The story tells the story of one officer who wants to put on a play; using the convicts as the cast.

The play involved a whole host of characters and every single actor had developed their character and made it their own. For example one actor played a drunk officer who had no lines, all he had was slurred phrases. However I feel that he used that character, with or without lines, and made his actions on stage stick in people's minds. This showed me that no matter how many lines you have, you can still be the 'star of the show.' Every character had their own characteristics and this meant that you focused on everyone, showing also that the cast worked well as a unit; they fed of each other and every single person shone. Some characters also had different accents; Scottish, Devonshire, 'Posh' English and cockney. Everyone with an accent had perfected them and were consistent throughout meaning I wasn't drawn away from the acting on stage.

The set also helped draw your attention to the actors on stage (though you were mainly drawn towards them because of their superb acting.) Downstage was flat and upstage was raised, with the whole stage being the colour of sand. There was a large compass on downstage right which actors used to perform monologues. The set wasn't complicated and it didn't need to be. Other props were brought on and off stage when necessary.

Finally, no matter how good a set is or how good the costumes and props are, a good play needs good acting; and this was a key part of this play. Every character was so unique and refined that no matter who was speaking, I listened. They looked so comfortable on stage, being able to keep up a character and keep up the suspense or humour of a particular scene. I didn't get bored and I was always focused on the story. Each person performed very well and if I can achieve their standard of acting by the time I reach post 16, I will feel that I have achieved something from my time at The Brits.

The only critique I have is that certain scenes should be shorter. Even though the detail was good and added something to the general story line, I feel that particular scenes dragged out and therefore I lost interest slightly, which occasionally affected my view on the next scene. As it was such great acting I believe it deserved full concentration on the audience's part 

Aristotle's 3 Unities And The Link To Our Play

Aristotle's three unities are place, time and action:

Place- a play should only be set in one location.
Time- a play should only represent the happenings of one day; the events of the past are recounted by characters.
Action- only actions and scenes relating to the main plot should be included; any unnecessary subplots should be omitted

However our play goes against Aristotle's three unities.Our play is set in many places: schools, parks, homes, bedrooms and prisons, so this clearly goes against the unity of place which states that it should only be set in one location. Likewise it goes against the unity of time. Our play includes past, present and future scenes instead of being set during one day. Finally our play goes against the unity of action. This is because the plot of our play is unclear. It isn't set in one place and at one time and so therefore it makes it difficult for us to follow a set story line. As it is a physical play I think detail is necessary and also everyone story told by the narrator (James,) is a detail that adds to the overall play.

I feel that Aristotle's three unities do not apply to the play, yet I believe they don't need to be, so the fact that they don't apply isn't a negative; I perhaps feel that it is a positive. The style of the play wouldn't work alongside the three unities. They would hinder the plot and they wouldn't let the story line progress and develop. We must also take into consideration that Aristotle lived in 300BC and theatre then is very different to theatre now. Also I feel that every piece of theatre is different and unities referring to place, time and action can't apply to pieces in general because they all require different details.

My Youtube Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61UnSydowck

This is my video on the Oscars.

The Play So Far

At first the rehearsals for the play were going quite slowly; we would devise a piece as a group, perform and then devise a whole new scene which took up quite a lot of our time. This meant that out of the 20 scenes we needed to complete, we were still completing singular figure scenes. At the time I felt the best course of action was to all come together as one whole group and with Mr Rennison's help, device a scene together, with both input from teacher and pupil. I feel that this approach is being used and that is more effective than the original method. We have the evidence in front of us in the form of the scenes we have now completed. Apart from the method we are now using to complete the scenes, I think that group effort, concentration and contribution was key. If we hadn't worked as a unit the scenes we have now completed may not have been  finished and certainly not to a satisfactory level. If we hadn't all concentrated on the task at hand we would've had to keep repeating the scenes instead of moving onto the next. Also I think is important for everyone to input their ideas into the play because the play belongs to all of us and therefore we have a responsibility to both build the play and to perform the play to the highest standard possible.

I think that if we keep working at the pace we are and performing at the standard we are we will be able to pull of a good performance that will be built from the ideas and hard-work of everyone. I feel that we may need to put in extra rehearsals in our spare time to refine certain aspects of the play, but if we want the play to be the best it can be, that is something we will all have to do.

Evaluation of Another Group

I think that all the performances were good. My personal favorite was Sam's Group. What I liked about their performance was that they put a lot of physical theatre into their performance. This made the performance interesting to watch and it kept me interested. Their group performed nearer the end, yet I felt that I was watching the performance for the first time. Everyone in the group was good; there wasn't one person who didn't put effort in or who let the group down. They kept concentration throughout meaning that the energy was never lost. They changed the levels of energy and emotion which meant there was a constant build of atmosphere. The most memorable part of their performance was their take on the stairs. Two people stood as doors and two people as stairs. When James came home he pushed the two 'doors' open and climbed the 'stairs' with the help of two more people. I thought this was physical theatre at its best. I gave them a D8.

End of Term Performance

For our end of term assessment we had to perform our version of act 2. I was in a group of 6, including myself. This is a outline of what we did for the performance:
So you'd start remembering your dad- we split up into two rows of three, one side girls, one side boys and we were sat opposite a partner, one person representing the dad and one representing the mum. As it was the first line we started with our heads down and then when the line was said we lifted them.
 He was a woman beater- the boy stood up and walked behind the girl. He pretended to lift her up by her hair. To do this the girl puts one hand over his hand on her hair and one hand on his wrist. This means they are in control and won't get hurt.
He beat up your mum every day- the boy pushes the girl to the ground. Again, to avoid any accidents, the girl throws herself so she is judging the force used.
From the day they got married- the man walks over to the girl on the ground and helps her up.
Right up to the day they got divorced- he throws her back down again.
He used to beat her to a pulp- each boy walks over to their girl partner. In canon from left to right the boy pretends to kick the girl.
So she stopped working- this time in synchronization the boys kick the girls again.
She wouldn't go out the house- all three girls back away from the boy and come back to back in a small circle.
Cos she was embarrassed- the girl lowers her head.
She didn't want to walk down the street- the boy lifts up the girls face.
With her face all black and blue- he slaps it down.
And you'd remember that your ma didnae want you to grow up to be like him- the girl looks up, with a significant change of expression, and turn to the other girls and hold hands.
She wanted you to be a famous lawyer- they rise onto their knees holding hands.
Or a famous doctor- stand up holding hands.
Or a famous whatever- look at each other hopefully.
And you'd remember that you were poor- girls fall back down.
But you weren't poor poor- girls look up and smile slightly.
Cos your mum still made sure there was a dinner on the table every night- turn to the boy and hands them a plate.
She'd give you her last penny- girls put a coin in the boys hand and holds it.
She didn't care about herself- boy holds mum hands too.
But you'd remember that you never really spoke to her- boy drops the girls hand and walks away from her.
Cos you'd come home from school and go straight up the stairs- boys turn to the right as if turning to walk up the stairs.
James?- girls call after their son and the boys stop moving.
Aye- boys look over their shoulder.
Your dinners out- call again.
You'd come down- boys retrace their route and stand in front of the girls.
Grab the plate- boys walk past their mother ignoring her and pretend to grab a plate.
Thanks, ma- boys briefly look at girls in thanks.
Back up the stairs- walk away retracing the same steps.
So you never really spoke to her- Boys freeze and girls reach out with their hands.

I was quite happy with the performance. On a whole it went to plan. We said all of the lines in order and we remembered all the particular actions that accompanied the lines. I feel that we put emotion into our performance which was important especially in a scene like this as it covered emotional topics such as abusive relationships and the relationship between a mother and a son. However I know that we could've done better. The performance could've been more polished. Unfortunately for the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was ill  and therefore couldn't practice with my group. I feel that with more practice we could've perfected the movement and transitions and made the performance better. I also feel that we needed to make the whole performance flow better and good transitions are key to this. The mark M5 I feel was fair. It wasn't good enough for a distinction but I thought we did try to put on a good performance. We were half way to a good performance so overall the mark reflected my performance; however next time I would like to achieve a higher grade.

Catch A Clap

In lesson we played a new game called catch the clap. This consisted of everyone walking around the room at a steady pace and keeping that pace throughout. You then find someone in the room and make eye contact with them; in this game eye contact is very important when passing and catching the clap because if you want to keep a steady beat you need to be prepared to pass the clap on and not hesitate which would result in loosing the beat. Once you've found someone in the room that has seen you as well, you stretch your arms towards them and clap. Then they catch the clap. They can choose to act like they have physically caught the clap (they may step back and cushion the clap as they receive it) or if they need to be concentrating on the task they can just clap when they receive it. The person you send it to claps when they receive it and then sends it to someone else in the room always keeping the steady beat of the clap; don't slow down and don't speed up.

This game is about collective responsibility which is a reoccurring theme in the games we have been playing this term. This means that everyone must be aware of their surroundings and must be prepared to catch and send the clap. Also when keeping a steady rhythm this helps us when preparing for our play. When performing we don't want to change pace to much because this could result in us losing atmosphere. We want to increase the drama at a steady pace to keep the audience entertained.