Evaluation of ‘Waiting’ - page 1
Keywords: Drama GCSE coursework
By slashwk on 23/11/2006 17:23:47
Level: GCSE Key Stage 4 (Years 10-11)
Page Number: 1 of 2 pages: 1 2
‘Waiting’ was a piece exploring four characters in a waiting room and their attitudes and feelings towards having to wait, and how they got their in the first place. This waiting room incidentally turns out to be the waiting room for judgement in order for them to either enter heaven or hell.
I thought it was very effective from the very beginning in exploring the concept of waiting, as there was a great silence for a somewhat extended period after the start of their piece which involved the four just sitting there and occasionally making the small frustrated noise from the effects of boredom. This was a successful technique because we were forced into ‘waiting’ along with them for whatever they were waiting for, as well as waiting for the first line of the piece.
Another technique which was employed well in the piece was the way the actors spoke with great pauses in between their lines, so that we can further experience actual waiting for ourselves, and maybe also experience anticipation as well. One example would be the very first line where Charles said ‘waiting…’ paused and then carried on with his sentence. This adds to the effect of the piece on the whole in provoking thought about ‘waiting’.
A noticeable point where we, as an audience, were subjected to waiting was when Lucian’s character with the violin was about to play, but kept trying to get the right note to start on. I thought this was very clever, but maybe should have been made more obvious as there was speculation within the audience as to whether it was purposeful or not.
I think that the actors’ use of props was very effective. As they only used one, solitary box in the middle of the space it doubled the impact of its use whenever it was used. It was also used in a variety of ways, such as a platform, seat, or table.
The actors’ also used their bodies ingeniously in an abstract way when they constructed a motorbike out of their bodies. This was amazingly effective because we could see a definite motorbike connotation, which was considerably accurate considering the way in which it was constructed.
The use of lighting, in comparison to the standard of the rest of the content, could have been considerably improved. They lit the whole stage in pink light (which strangely produced a green shadow!), and never changed the lighting
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