Leaving Home Evaluation

We did a presentation on the reason the girl left home taken from the stimulus she is leaving home. We interpreted the song as though she left because her parents were too controlling over her and not allowing her any freedom and fun we enacted these thoughts into the presentation by making the first reason of her leaving one where she is leaving to go to her best friends birthday party when her mother confronts her and tells her that she cant go because its too late the girl tried to talk to her parents and bargain with them but they just don’t listen and so she goes back upstairs.

The ways in which this was done well was that the mother and father didn’t shout or tell their daughter off they just kept on badgering her not to go and came across as sincere yet very arrogant making you feel sorry for the girl who was politely trying to persuade with very fair compromises also when told not to go she didn’t throw a tantrum or storm upstairs she seemed genuinely persuaded by her parents not to go. The second reason was a scene of the girl with her hair loose as a new hairstyle the mother walks in and starts complementing the new style all the while touching it and making it back into a pony tail and saying how beautiful it makes her daughter look in the most nicest manner even though her daughter is trying to say she doesn’t want her hair in a ponytail, the mother keeps on persisting how nice she looks until the girl finally agrees I played the mother I think the character worked well because she seemed like a mother who cared but didn’t realise how much she was manipulating her daughter.

Leaving home evaluation

From the stimulus she is leaving home we had to do our own reasons for someone leaving home, 2 improvisations one positive and one negative I played 2 roles one father who drives his son away due to his pushiness and harsh attitude to school work. And a father who is happy for his so to be leaving for university. We showed the difference between the two by enacting humour in the positive one and adding more tension in the negative one. In the first role I did most of the talking in a provoking and mad with the few occasions of shouting to highlight certain words tone so that the audience new my character straight away and also by my son not saying anything it made him look fed up and used to my cruel attitude I always tried looking into his eyes this made me look intimidating because my son always had his head down. These were the things I thought were done well I lacked in body language and ended up just standing there with my arms by my side a could have made my posture more leaning over him wide to show masculinity and should have been more confident with space

The second role I feel was played much better we both used humour in our voices, tone an speech to create a more happy atmosphere I used gestures such as ruffling hair to show a father figure who obviously got along with his son in my facial expressions I widened my eyes more to show pride and amusement at how great my son was also smiling for obvious enthusiasm I felt I could have improved this role by voice instead of just speaking as I norm would I should have I should have shown my status as an older person by perhaps being on a higher level than my son and not talking in the same tone as his but in a more patronizing one to show wise ness and elder ness .

Testament of youth evaluation

We based our performance was based on the fears of Roland such as his mother dying himself dying in war and his fianc� not waiting for him, we portrayed these fears through monologues. Because we were in a group of three each person got to do a monologue for one of the fears of Roland we chose a monologue in order to give a pattern to the performance and make it onto more of a storyline instead of separate scenes. The first 2 monologues were used in the normal way (one person standing up and talking aloud and the last one in the form of a dream were Roland is at a funeral (because the audience do not know its Roland they assume the funeral is for him) and he then asks what’s happened and someone shouts your mothers dead then another person repeats it and the other 2 characters repeat it in unison until Roland wakes up screaming. The monologue were also used to show clearly what Roland’s fears were coming straight fro the character himself. When I did my monologue is poke in shaky formal voice, shaky- to show the stress and fear Roland was identifying in war and formal to suit the time of when WW1 Was (1915). During my monologue I moved in sharp panicky movements to portray me to be neurotic because I had just witnessed a death.

My scene got a fairly good reaction mainly for my facial expressions e.g. I made my eyes jittery to show signs of panic that I might be next to die. If I could have done something differently I would have added an abstract scene fir variety by perhaps having Roland meet all his fears that would be represented by abstract symbols such as his fiancï not waiting for him in the abstract symbol of a heart with a knife in it. Another groups work was based on one main fear of Roland’s fianc not waiting for him to come back and marrying someone else and Roland coming back as a ghost (yet doesn’t know it) thinking that his fianc had cheated on him and then realises he is dead.

The drama techniques they used were split stage to show the difference of Roland at war fighting for his life and his fianc at home without worries they spoke in formal old English to show they were in 1915. They used every part of the stage at one point or the other and used lots of levels e.g. when fighting they were on the floor and Roland made a lot of shocked facial expressions to show confusion when he saw his fianc with another man. In the last scene we responded very sympathetically towards the ghost of Roland when he sees his fianc� with another man it was done so that when he comes in his fianc looks like she’s running to greet him and instead the other man has come back from work and she hugs him instead. If I could add to that scene I would end it on a happy note by him not being bitter towards his fianc and instead being happy for her.

The topic of leaving home has been very interesting as I have been able to get into very different characters who are all facing the same subject of leaving home yet with very different reasons such as work, war, disliking of home and people who did but had to leave for reasons of study this allowed me to differentiate all the aspects that came into it such as negative reasons like war and positive reasons like university. Due to this topic I have learnt to take a subject and look at it from very different views. I have enjoyed many things in this topic such learning how to build tension which I used in the positive improvisation of leaving home and how to play lots of different characters such as a:

* Mean father (leaving home impro)

* Nice father (leaving home impro)

* A ship worker (The Ben More)

* A sad mother (A testament of youth/war)

* A soldier (A testament of youth/war)

* A manipulative mother (she is leaving home)

Due to all these characters I got to understand hoe to varied certain things in order to suit a character e.g. tone for the mean father I used a provocative tone, for the nice father I used a kind tone, for a ship worker I used a tough tone for a soldier I used a frightened tone and for a manipulative mother I used a persuasive tone. In this topic I disliked the war theme, as it was quite depressing

With all the deaths that were involved.

My key moment was when I performed a monologue of Roland’s fear of dying because I always hated doing monologues and never performed them properly using tone movement facial expressions and gestures and in that particular one I managed to use them all.

My best improvisation was the positive one for leaving, I liked it because my humour was successful (which hasn’t been in the past and I’ve ended up just standing there awkward, and ashamed of trying to get a laugh, with such a weak joke.

My best character was probably the manipulative mother because I got a very hateful response towards her (which is a good thing).

This topic has taught me to always take a subject and look at it from lots of different angles.