A Talk in the Park

1) What are the facts about your character?

Beryl from the script is a young women in her twenties who has recently broken up with her ex-boyfriend because he ended up beating Beryl up and she ended up with a fractured skull. Now, her ex-boyfriend is trying to get her back and wrote her a letter.

2) What does my character say about herself/himself? (Direct from script)

Beryl states that 'normally I don't mind too much' about people coming up to her to talk, which shows how she can be kind and a great listener. However, when Beryl received the letter, she needed to concentrate and decipher it.

Beryl also mentions in her long speech how she has an attitude towards her ex-boyfriend by calling him names during their fight. Therefore, she stands up for herself and is determined to make her point clear and win any discussion.

3) What do others say about my character?

Charles, the guy that Beryl starts talking to thinks that she is a typical young women who always has boyfriend troubles and does not take life seriously. He thinks that she is immature to be talking to him about it. In other words, Charles believes Beryl is a complete stuck-up girl who only cares about herself and her problems.

4) What does my character say about others?

Beryl thinks that Arthur is completely weird because he keeps on talking about his collections and he is annoying her.

Make a Difference Day! - Raising Awareness for Child Abuse

For Make a Difference Day, the Year 10 drama group decided to raise awareness towards Child Abuse and therefore produced a simple scene with the following script to be performed during Lunch time at the Lunch room.

Script:

My name is Chris. And I am three. My eyes are swollen, I cannot see. I must be stupid, I must be bad. What else could have made, my daddy so mad? I wish were better, I wish I weren't ugly, then maybe my mummy, would still want to hug me. I can'y do anything wrong, I can't speak at all, or else im locked up, all day long.

When Im awake, im all alone. The house is dark, my folks aren't home. When my mummy does come home i'll try and be nice, then maybe i'll just get one whipping tonight. Sssssshh, hold on...I heard a car...my daddy is back from Charlie's bar. I hear him curse, my name is called, and i press myself against the wall and try to hide from his evil eyes. Im so afraid I start to cry. He finds me weeping, calls me ugly words. He hits me hard and yells at me more, I finally get free and run to the door. He's already locked it and I start to bawl. He takes me and throws me against the hard wall.

I fall to the floor with my bones nearly broken and my daddy continues with more bad words spoken. The hurt and the pain, again and again. Oh, please god have mercy! Oh, please let it end! And he finally stops and heads for the door, while I lay there motionless, sprawled on the floor.

My name is Chris. And I am three. Tonight, my daddy murdered me.

'life is too short to wake in the morning with regrets. So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said that it'd be easy, they just promised it would be worth it (:'

Lesson 25/08

During my second drama lesson, we learned how to use a few strategies,

We focused on:

- Mime

- Music

- Narration

During the lesson, we paired up and wrote two short scripts. One of them was a phone call between the mother and her friend, where the mother tells about the breakup and then her friend invites her to go out that night. Furthermore, the next script is a continuation of the first, as the mother hangs up, she is trying to make up her mind wether she should go with her friend or stay at home and take care of her own son. In this script there is only mime and narration, telling about her actions and facial expressions which shows confusion and loneliness at the same time.

Cast:

Jen - the mother

Angy - friend

Howard - Jen's ex-boyfriend

First script:

RING RING

(Jen picks up phone)

Angy: Hey Jen! Are you free tonight?

Jen: Umm...

Angy: Whats wrong?

Jen: It's Howard

Angy: Are you guys fighting?

Jen:...worse...

(Awkward silence)

Jen: he cheated

Angy: (Pause) I'm speechless, but how are you feeling?

Jen: It was for the best...I just have to move on.

Angy: You know what? He didn't deserve you anyway...

Jen:...whatever...

Angy: I know a way to make you feel better!

Jen: How's that?

Angy: Let's go out for a drink! My treat!

Jen: I don't know...

Angy: Come on! It will be fun! Just the two of us!

Jen: Fine...

(Baby cries at background)

Angy: Is that the baby?

Jen:Everything's just fine...I'll see you later!

(Phone call ends)

Script two: Mime

Narrator: Jen puts down the phone and sighs, looking down.

She looks at the crying baby in regret, as the baby reaches out to his mother, Jen just stares and wonders off in her fantasy for a while...

Jen suddenly snaps back to reality and starts looking for the bottle to feed her son. As jen fails to find the bottle, she realizes she is a horrible mother and doesn't think she can go any longer as a single mother.

Slowly, Jen falls to her knees and weeps in desperation and loneliness.

Finally, Jen puts herself back together and cleans her tears away as she decides to go out with her friends.

Silently, Jen brushes her hair and gets ready to leave.

Before going out, Jen glances one last time at her crying baby, looks down and leaves.

BLOG REFLECTION !

1. What are your initial thoughts about the poem?

In my opinion, the poem tells a story that is very depressing and emotional. I enjoyed reading and trying to figure out what the poet was trying to emphasize in each part of the poem. Therefore my initial thoughts would be that I liked it as it is differente from any poem I had read before and tells a very intersting story.

2. Give reasons for selecting your key three moments.

"She went out.

She stayed with friends.

She went out drinking."

- We chose this as one of our key moments because it shows that the mother tried not to care about her baby, and to forget her problems, she went out drinking so she wouldn't have to keep thinking about her husband and baby. Moreover, this key moment is also very easy to make a naturalistic image.

"When he went off, this mother changed

from a mother who cared for her two year old baby

into a mother who did not seem to care at all."

- This is one of the key moments because it explains why the mother left her child to die of hunger. Therefore it makes the audience have a little sympathy for the mother as she suffered and then to release the pain from her, she abandoned her two year old baby. It is the moment where the reader understands the mother.

"When love was torn away from her

she locked her love away."

- We chose this as one of our key moments because it resumes what the mother has been through and her feelings of loneliness and sufferment. The fact that she stopped loving the baby was because her husband stopped loving her. This part is very emotional.

3. Make notes based on the RESPONSE section of the given handout.

Lesson 1 - 11/08/2011

- Discussed poem 'stimulus' called 'Saw it is the Papers' by Adrian Mitchell , divided into small groups and highlighted key moments that we think are important.

- We had to make naturalistic and non-naturalistic still images in our small groups.

Naturalistic = Human

Non-naturalistic = Not human (abstract)

-When making still images, concentrate on facial expression.

- Still Image 1:

"She went out.

She stayed with friends.

She went out drinking"

Thaís played the mother and me and Victoria played the friends which the mother went ou drinking. Thais made sure she had a more serious facial expression to show that she was still worried about her baby. NATURALISTIC.

-Still Image 2:

"The baby died of hunger."

We did different stages, showing starvation to death. With sufferment facial expressions and leaning towards the floor. NON-NATURALISTIC.

-Still Image 3:

"There was no evidence of mental instability"

We had Victoria representing a sane person, and me and Thais behind her showing madness with our hands, body and facial expression. NON-NATURALISTIC.

-Still Image 4:

"But the man who promised to marry her

went off with another women"

Victoria was the man and Thais was sitting at a corner looking depressed as he went off with another women (Me). NATURALISTIC.

4. What skills/techniques are you learning and HOW EFFECTIVELY are you applying them to your own practical work?

We learned how to make naturalistic and non-naturalistic images from parts of the poem. First we did an activity where everyone had to make a non-naturalistic image of 'freedom'. By the techniques, I tried to apply what I learned to the main activity to make still images from the poem. However, it is not easy, especially the non-naturalistic ones as it has to be abstract and not human.