GCSE Drama, Paper 1, Unit 2, Task 2

For this part of the Development Phase, we have chosen to focus the workshop in which we were devising a particular play. This play is mentioned in the Response phase. It is a piece where the idea was taken from Chinese Cinderella. We used the mediums and elements of Drama to explore and develop the play. This devised piece is an explorative strategy to understand the differences between men and women. We chose this play to be narrative because it helps the audience understand the plot of the play. It also gives the play more impact if a dark, mysterious character comes on stage. He acts as a symbol for sadness and despair.

We had a warm up where we learned the effectiveness towards the audience. Because of this, we decided to use singing in the first scene. We had the girl sing with some music. The music was very soft in order to suggest the feel of the play. This creates a very big impact as the audience is engaged and drawn forth by curiosity. This starts to make them understand on how the play is to be. It creates an even bigger impact if the use of space is applied correctly. We had the girl that was singing walk on slowly from the back to the front of th

There is a very diverse use of language in this play. All the characters except for the girl seem to be angry and happy at the same time. They are all angry with the girl, but are calm with everybody else. This ties in with the fact that women are not as respected men were in those days.

e stage. This creates a sense of despair for the audience. We tried to make her sing over a track of a CD but it did not work very well. We found that it sounded much more effective if the girls had sang alone or with a live instrument playing. This would have created a bigger impact.

The lighting was a very important medium to our play. It created a particular effect at the beginning of the play when the girl is singing. This ties in with the movement of the girl. We made it so that the light only shines at the front of the stage. The girl starts singing at the back of the stage where the light is not shinning so that she is not seen. She then walks from the back to the front of the stage into the while singing. This makes the audience build tension, as they do not expect what is going to happen. Other scenes used blackouts and fading. We did not use many fast blackouts, as this would release the impact, which was something we did not want to do until the end of the play. It was also very effective using slow, fading blackouts since it creates a sense of sadness to the atmosphere.

Some topics in this essay:
Chinese Cinderella, Thrust Staging, Arch Staging, Development Phase, Drama Paper, play play, front stage, impact play, Evaluation Phase, impact audience, play creates, bigger impact, beginning play, sadness despair, girl singing, exits entries,