Unfortunately, our lovely teacher wasn't able to teach us Theatre last Thursday, so we were taught by Mr Worden, nonetheless, we read through the script that is 'East-End Tales'!
I have never seen or read a script that unique before. I'm used to the traditional: 'Character - "Line"', but this didn't have any of that, it was more like a monologue, could even be considered a poem! I found the layout of this script very intriguing because it made me really think of different ways to perform it. An example of one way to perform EET could be for someone to play as the 'narrator' and read the lines while people mime the actions to bring the story to life. I also found the script very deep and emotional and the topics that were talked about were dealt with very well, some parts were quite upsetting! What I loved about reading the script was, there were no roles, so we came up with a way for everyone to read, if they wanted to. One person would start reading, and when you thought that you should read, you just jumped in, the person reading previously stopped and let you read. This worked very smoothly and I felt much more confident with myself because I jumped into read three-four times!
The play itself is, obviously, about the east-end and the everyday occurrences and thoughts that commence there. The script has been split into a prologue, 8 tales, and an epilogue. The tales vary in size, from half a page to three pages! The stories in the play have been influenced by photos and articles from local papers in the East London area.
My favourite tale has to be 'Tale 4' because it's about a young teen who helps an elderly woman go to the shops in the rain. I like this one as it shows that no matter what generation you are, anyone can be there to help and the stereo-typical rude teenager isn't true. It also shows that people can be kind wherever you are, just because the east-end is known as rough doesn't mean that it doesn't have helpful citizens. This tale shows one of the many good sides of East London.
One of the activities that my classmates and I did was to try and create a scene of the east-end of what we know without research. Mateo and Jake were spectators of our scene because they are from the east-end, so they were observing us to see how accurate we were. A summary of our scene: Smokers, thugs, annoying women on their phones, druggies, spitters, lots of rude people and just downright commotion! Mateo and Jake looked unimpressed! They explained to us that the east-end wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Sure, it had it's fair share of druggies and smokers, but they said that lots of people are friendly with each other, kids play in the streets, wealthier businessmen and women left, right and centre and happy communities in the estates. So what I learned was, 'EastEnders' is nothing like the real east-end!
Everyone was split into groups of three-four, my group consisted of Sherene, Alabama and myself. We were asked to focus on 'Tale 6' which was about a young boy who was in a pub, recounting what happened when a woman accidentally spilt her drink down the front of a young man. Our task was to quickly re-enact a part of the tale to the rest of the class. Quite simply, we did what I said as the example earlier. Alabama was the narrator and picked out the most important lines to say while me and Sherene acted what she said in mimes, occasionally cutting in with our own speech. I think it worked well because every group's interpretation was slightly different!
I am really looking forward to learning more about this play and putting on a performance about it!
- Matilda ^_^
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