Have you heard of Lindsay Armstrong?

Lindsay Armstrong, who was 16 at the time was sexually assaulted in Ayrshire in September 2001.

On the first day of the trial in June, the Armstrong’s arrived at court to see the accused standing outside.  “He was the first person she saw when we arrived.” said Lindsay’s mother, Linda.  “We were witnesses so we were in this little room but he had the run of the building.”

After a lengthy, relentless, and brutal cross-examination by the attorney, the rapist himself, who was 14 at the time so for legal reasons his name was never released, was allowed to cross-examine Lindsay- the laws in Scotland at the time actually allowed rapists to cross-examine their victims!  When the defence attorney continued his ruthless cross-examination of Lindsay, she was asked to hold up the underwear she had wore at the time of the attack.  This was supposedly to allow the defence to argue that the underwear had not been damaged, Lindsay was asked to tell the court what was written on them: the words “Little Devil”.

Putting Lindsay through this public humiliation served no purpose other than to allow the defence to try to smear her reputation – it allowed them to suggest that her underwear and the motto they bore were enough the demonstrate that Lindsay was the “sort of girl” unlikely to refuse consent to sex and therefore unlikely to have been assaulted.

Lindsay had been prescribed anti-depressants to help her get through the trial.  Just three weeks later, at 2am on July 16th, Lindsay’s parents found her dead in her room.  She had put on her favourite CD and taken an overdose of the tablets.  She was 17. “It was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody that was playing when we found her.”

The boy who raped Lindsay was sentenced to four years detention. He was put under supervision for a further three years and placed on the sex offenders’ register.  Lindsay however couldn’t take it anymore and tragically took her life due to the horrific situation.

“We were hoping and praying that this animal would at least spare her the ordeal of giving evidence,” said Frank (Lindsay’s father) “but it didn’t happen and she ended up being torn to shreds by his defense lawyer after spending all day on the stand.  They basically said she deserve to be raped.  And that’s how she felt at the end of the day.”

 

 

 

Writing time!

We’ve decided to split our piece into 3 parts, Passive, Punishment and Excuses.  I’m going to focus on punishment in this post.

PUNISHMENT – ‘What happens when girls go of the beaten track’- Tango scene- research about ritual (hood motif) (Freudian analysis), rebirth and sexual awakening.  “The anthropomorphic wolf symbolises a man, who could be a lover, seducer or sexual predator.  This differs from the ritual explanation in that the entry into adulthood is biologically, not socially, determined.

RITUAL – ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ has been interpreted as a puberty ritual.  The girl, leaving home, enters a liminal state and by going through the acts of the tale, I transformed into an adult woman by the act of coming out of the wolf’s belly.

REBIRTH – HOOD MOTIF – Freudian analysis that shows how fairy tales educate, support and liberate the emotions of children.  The motif of the huntsman cutting open the wolf, he interpreted as a “rebirth”; the girl who foolishly listened to the wolf has been reborn as a new person.

SEXUAL AWAKENING – ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ has also been seen as a parable of sexual maturity.  The red cloak symbolises the blood of menstruation, braving the “dark forest” of womanhood, or the cloak could symbolise the hymen.  The wolf threatens the girl’s virginity.  The anthropomorphic wolf symbolises a man, who could be a lover, seducer or sexual partner.

SEXUAL ATTRACTIVENESS – The song “How Could Red Riding Hood?” by A.P. Randolph in 1925 was the first song known to be banned from the radio because of its sexual suggestiveness.  The 1966 hit song, “Lil’ Red Riding Hood” by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs takes the wolf’s point of view, implying that he wants love rather than blood.  The story may also serve as a metaphor for a sexual awakening.  In Angela Carter’s story “The Company of Wolves” the wolf is a werewolf and comes to the newly-menstruating Red Riding Hood in the forest in the form of a charming hunter.  He turns into a wolf and eats her grandmother, and is about to devour her as well, when she is equally seductive and ends up lying with the wolf man, her sexual awakening.

Little Red Riding Hood

After deciding on our theme of women we made the choice to centre our piece around fairy tales.  Many fairy tales show how women are ‘supposed’ to behave.  They are expected to be passive and their main goal in life is to find their ‘prince charming.’  We decided to show the ugliness of fairy tales and I was given ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ to research.  I looked into the Grimm Brothers version of the tale and the dark versions of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

As we are showing the ugliness of fairy tales, we decided to make our scene quite sinister with the intention of showing what happens when girls apparently stray off the beaten track.  For the ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ scene we decided to have a tango in it to represent the wolf and ‘Little Red’s’ relationship.  It is a sensual, staccato like dance and it presents their relationship clearly as you see the wolf (Connor) lead Little Red (me) quite forcefully.  Towards the end of the tango we have the idea to finish it with a choreographed struggle as Little Red tries to get away.  The issue we might have here is keeping it entertaining for the audience without turning it into a farcical piece.

To write the scene we took lines from songs and movies we felt fitted well to create the scene.

Woman’s Hour

Women’s Hour – 9th Sept

So far we have looked briefly at Berkoff’s aesthetic, focusing initially on his use of the chorus in his work.  We watched a little bit of Berkoff’s 1991 production of ‘The Trial’ and after watching ‘Woman’s Hour’ by Shit Theatre we discussed women as a theme and the concept of in-yer-face theatre as an ispiration for our work.  We also made links between Berkoff and in-yer-face theatre.

Use of make up and costume in Woman’s Hour

Long ties suggest phallic imagery.

Painted on moustaches and the choice of costume (men’s white boxers) suggest that women are not taken seriously.

White painted faces (Berkoff technique) – mime like

We were able to make connections and understand the message and intent of ‘Woman’s Hour’ despite the crude, graphic and confrontational nature of the production.

Berkoff

The very first decision we made was what Practitioner we were going to use to inspire our piece.  We decided on Berkoff and began by studying his use of chorus/ensemble.

I visited Iain Fisher’s website on Berkoff aesthetic and went to a chapter  on Berkoffs use of chorus.

In productions with a large ensemble the chorus primarily creates psychological and physical environments while multi-rolling.  Productions with smaller casts have actors who play defined characters and take part in the chorus.  The major function of these choruses is to comment, illustrate and clarify the other characters actions

The actors create the whole environment physically.

All props are mimed or physically embodied by part of the actors body.  “I despise naturalism, a good actor should need no props.” Berkoff.

Berkoff’s aims is to use every actor on that stage to the maximum of their ability and to express something to the utmost of its potential so you can go no further with it.

In class we were given an exercise to do in which no words were to be used, just movement and sound effects that we made ourselves.  This was to help us discover what sound effects we could put into our own devised piece as these are a big part of Berkoff’s work.  We devised a scene where two people were playing tennis and the others were the spectators.  We came up with actions and then sound effects to match the actions.  We performed it for our teacher and were surprised by what we could do with just our mouths.  We then challenged ourselves further and performed the scene in slow motion.  This gave us the chance to really think about our movements and facial expressions and allowed us to explore different speeds and pitches of the sound effects we came up with.  This helped me to better understand what Berkoff is trying to achieve when he gets his cast to make the sound effects of activities they are doing rather than having them on a track.

 

 

SWED

I’m going to use this blog to store information and research for my A2 Drama coursework. (SWED) 3,500 word limit.

• Research and Exploration (questions 1,2 and 3)
• Development and Structure questions 2,3 and 4)
• Evaluation (on research and development and final performance) (questions 5 and 6)

SWED QUESTIONS

1. How is the initial material being researched and developed at significant stages during the process of creating drama?
2. How did you and you group explore the possibilities of form, structure and performance style?
3. How did the work of established and recognised theatre practitioners, and/or the work of live theatre, influence the way in which your devised response developed?
4. How effectively are you personally exploring and developing your role?
5. How successfully did your final performance communicate your aims and intentions for the piece to your audience?
6. How effectively did the social, cultural, historical/political context of the piece communicate to your audience?