Torn

My group- Overall I wasn't too happy with the performance. At the start Sean forgot his lines and started saying them out of order or skipping parts of lines which threw me off but I kept going and stuck to the cue lines because I learnt my lines really well but there was some confusion which messed up the performance a bit. We got back on track and the line issue fixed itself and we had a good energy and characterisation. I knew my objectives well and played them. We had a good range of emotion and knew what our characters were feeling and experiencing and I really took into consideration that Angel was there and it was on my mind throughout the performance and having a chair there as an Angel helped focus that attention.  The performance would have been better without messing up the lines but the mishap taught me how to deal with these situations and we kept going in a professional way and got back on track which was good.  After watching the other groups I wished we p...

When I first read Torn I found it very confusing and difficult because I didn't understand what was happening at all, I thought Angel was an actual angel and I only managed to read the first few pages before being so confused I took to youtube and google and watched the trailer for Torn and a few interviews plus read a bit about it, I learned that it is about a family and whether the sexual assault that happened to Angel 10 years ago was true, this information cleared my mind and allowed me to read the play. Whilst reading i still found it such a struggle because of all the broken language and I didn't understand what (/) meant which was constantly used so I was very confused when reading it. I understood most of the family but I wasn't sure who Auntie J and Auntie L were and I thought they were the aunties of 1st and 2nd twin and later found out in class they were 1st and 2nd twins other sisters. I wasn't a huge fan of Torn when I first read it because I was so confuse...

Because we had such little time on contemporary this term most of the lesson time was spent on rehearsals. In my rehearsals it was just Sean and I which I found difficult because there were less people providing creative input to create a devised piece so we were given the advise to keep it to the script and fairly naturalistic and not brechtian because of time and people limits. In the first rehearsal we took time to read the scene through and get an understanding of what is happening and then begin to add objectives and find the intentions in the scene. In rehearsals we would perform the scene in different styles and ways changing things and finding moments we liked to keep for the performance. We also used actioning because the scene is very emotion and action based to figure out what out actions are and how that is presented physically. We worked on spacing and how we can use distance to show our relationship during the scene. Some issues we had was keeping focus as there was onl...

Summary- The scene is a very short scene at the end of the play, it's purpose is to create a resolution for the audience and let them know the truth. Couzin is trying the persuade 1st twin to admit she knew about Steve sexually assaulting Angel all along which she did. She only responds when it's in her favour and when she's getting money out of admitting it. Who? 1st twin, Angel and Brotha's mum. She has neglected her two black children from her previous relationship with Brian because of her current partner Steve and their white children. She stayed with Steve even though he abused her daughter. She is very self centred and manipulative, she only does things that benefit herself. We had a conversation about the mentality of 1st twin in the scene. 1st twin has many stakes in the scene, she wants money to keep her home but to get it she has to tell the truth about Steve and Angel which would ruin her relationship with Angel forever and end any possible future. This...

1- Why write the play for an audience in 2016? I think the play was written for an audience in 2016 because it brings to light that these racial issues are such a huge issue and are destroying families still in modern society. Even when the majority of people are open and accepting and not like the people in the play there are still families like this in real life who need these issues to stop, by writing a play about racial issues it creates a conversation that causes awareness and fixes issues. Another theme in the play is sexual assault as Steve sexually assaults Angel and the play revolves around them learning if this is true or not, this is another large issue in today's society that is seen as taboo and not commonly talked about. 2- Why are we studying this is in the political term? We are studying this in the political term because it is a play with political themes of modern issues that need to be fixed. Themes such as race, sexual assault, family, growing up, neglect...

Today we began exploring the play Torn by creating short performances summarising the key themes and how we feel about the play. Most groups focused on the family ignoring Angel and the control that Steve had over her in a creepy minimalist way. We then had a discussion in the class about race and instances where people have presumed we were a different race and some interesting stories were brought up. This is because we were looking into the family tree from the play and the different races of the characters since it is such a huge topic of the play.