I prepared for our devised piece by observing members of the opposite sex and practicing their mannerisms because I was playing a man. I also prepared by organising most of the props for our group and bringing in my costume. Our group prepared by scripting the main scenes, by practicing the play and by organising a script for the lighting technicians. I was inspired for my role by anyone I saw who was quite shy and seemed to go along with anything a more dominant character said.
I convinced the audience of this during my moments of hesitation, for example the scene leaving the barracks and in my soliloquy at the end. The strengths of the piece were the way it was set out, with the main dialogue delivered by Louise’s ghostlike counterpart. I thought this worked well because it meant the other characters didn’t have that many lines to learn and it was something that remained constantly throughout the play, so the audience could identify with both actresses of the main part. The other strength of the piece was the typical bachelor portrayed very well by Keziah Calverd, what with ignoring his clearly distressed daughter and concentrating on the football game.
This was a typical example of using the mannerisms of the opposite sex. The weaknesses of the piece were that it turned out to be so short, and that for the actual performance we left most of the props in the new dining area and didn’t have time to go back and get them because we only realised when the performance had started. If I was to perform this piece again, I would make it longer by having Louise fall pregnant after she was raped and then not being able to live with the fact that the father of her child was unknown but that it was definitely one of two men she hates. I would also play a suitable song in the background at the end.
We were going to play ‘ Somewhere over the Rainbow’ by Eva Cassidy but at the last minute, we realised this may upset someone in the audience as the song was played at her recently deceased father’s funeral. I worked well with my group, because we all compromised on things that didn’t work well or that we couldn’t all do and because we were friendly with each other we didn’t argue that much, just had a few disagreements. Our play was different to ‘ Junk’ because the main characters were of a different age and, even though they were both runaways, they were running away from different things. But you could say that that Louise was running away from her father like Gemma was running away from her parents but Louise was more running away from her problems in general. They also ran away in very different ways, with Louise’s suicide much more final than Gemma’s juvenile running away from home for a couple of weeks.
