Drama coursework: response portfolio Scaramouche Jones
This year in year 10 G.C.S.E. drama we have been studying Justin Butchers play “Scaramouche Jones”. We read, discussed, developed and preformed certain parts of the play and using some of the explorative strategies of drama we gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of the play text that was explored.
Before we began to read the play text we were put into groups of 2 and we were made to perform a one minute piece of a clown show. This sketch was based completely on our own interpretations of a clown act. This helped us to get into the character of a clown for what might have been our first time. For this piece I was put into a group with Stephanie Gorsach. We preformed a classic slap stick comedy clown act e.g. throwing imaginary pies and hitting each other.
After we did this piece we began to read the play text for the first time. My first impression of the play was that it was very odd and was going to be incredibly boring. I was wrong!
The first section of the play we explored was he opening scene. In the first section of the play we first meet Scaramouche Jones. We find out that he is a clown as he comes in from one of his many performances.
Our first piece of performance was a 2 man show. It was the first scene of the play. For this piece I was put into a pair with Tashan Baptist. This piece was surprisingly hard for a first major piece as we had what I thought was a short time of 2 weeks to perform the piece. This was made even harder by the expectations of our teachers and the amount of pressure. This was our first introduction to the character of Scaramouche Jones. This piece helped me to experience the character for myself and after doing the slap stick clown act with Stephanie I could just about imagine how tired he would be at 100 years old.
The next piece of development that we did was the thought tracking process. For this piece we were put into small groups and asked to act out what we thought Scaramouche would be feeling at that moment in time. Unfortunately I missed this lesson but I asked one of my class mates to help me by going over this with me.
Not knowing what this play was about, I went to go see it Wednesday after noon at Holyoke Community College in the Leslie Phillips Theater. I had many mixed emotions about this play. I thought some parts were very funny, but others were a little uncomfortable because of some racia...
In this essay I shall concentrate on the plays 'Road' by Jim Cartwright and 'Blasted' by Sarah Kane with specific reference to use of language and structure of dialogue as examples of dramatic techniques.
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
” Drama for Students. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 21.
Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Pearson-Prentice, 2010. 40-49. Print.
―Fences.‖ Drama for Students. Ed. David M. Galens. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. 180-197. Gale
Galens, David, ed. Drama for Students "resenting Analysis, Cntext and Critism on Commonly Studied Drama" . Vol. Volume 1. Detroit : Gale Research , 1998 .
My least favorite aspect of this play was the ending. The ending confused me and was anticlimactic. It was not funny and not entertaining at all.
Theatre Journal 37.4 (1985): 426-439. Print. Wheeler, Kip. " Literary Terms and Definitions M." Literary Terms and Definitions "M" Carson-Newman University, n.d. Web. 12 May 2014.
The play that we read for this unit is Too Much Punch For Judy, by Mark Wheeller. It is a form of Verbatim Theatre, meaning that it is based on the spoken words of real people. This play is about the story of a young woman who kills her sister in an alcohol related accident. When I first read the play I couldn’t empathize with the story as I haven’t experienced such a shocking event before. In this essay I will describe, analyse and evaluate both my work and the work of other actors in my group, focusing on the mediums, elements and explorative strategies of Drama.
...s killing us!” (p.56). This contrast between the two views enhances the audience’s understanding of the play.
In my opinion Act 1 Scene 1 is the most important scene of the play
The production attempt of displaying things in familiar way that is accurate to life. Costumes give a visual appealing sense of how people were likely to wear. Each character’s costume needs to match their class standing in the society that the people could have worn. Actions that done by the characters as a response because of something that has happened or due to the fact that they have a motive, is important to the play but have to be done in an understandable or reasonable way. Dialogue has to close to what someone say as if they are having a real life conversation. In the production that was so important to showcasing any play is portraying it something with as much accuracy to where it becomes hard to distinguish what could happen versus what is not really likely to happen. The more a production pays attention to details such as costumes, actions, and dialogue and the more the actors can succeed in performing a truthful
Esslin's book consists of eleven chapters each of which touches on a dramatic phenomenon or critical issue. His book is opens with a preface and is appended a general index of plays and secondary resources. There are three explanatory diagrams in the book through which Esslin clarifies his theory on suspense. The book discusses the common definitions of drama in the first chapter, goes over the theories and critical aspects of drama as a genre in the following chapters, and concludes by declaring some statements about the truth of drama in the last chapter. Esslin often follows a pattern throughout his chapters; he undermines a critical thought or unravels a common critical confusion then injects his own notions and critical thoughts.
On stage, these points were, looking at the opinions of a majority of both the audiences and the critics, presented successfully by Brook and the cast he worked with. From the prison guards who loomed in the background, clothed in butcher aprons and armed with clubs, to the half-naked Marat, slouched in a tub and covered in wet rags, forever scratching and writing, to the small group of singers, dressed and painted up as clowns, to the narcoleptic but murderous Charlotte Corday, Weiss and Brook offered a stage production that both engaged and amazed the audience, while at the same time forced them to question their role as the audience; no better exemplified than at the very end of the play, where the inmates, standing menacingly at the edge of the stage, actually begin to applaud the very people who applaud their performance, aggravating and confusing some, but forcing most t...