Drama performance portfolio
The following 'performance portfolio' was created for GCSE drama and provides the reflective rationale behind my examination performance. The accompanying script can be found here: Script.
What was your initial response to the stimuli and what were the intentions of the piece?
In my initial response to the given stimuli my group and I began devising a piece centred around an ignorant and arrogant politician who had become corrupted by his pride, the piece was supposed to act as satire of the abundant ignorance and arrogance of many modern politicians. Though, after some reflection and input from other group members, I realised that the piece lacked real vision of what the end result would look like so I decided to take the piece in a different direction. From then on, I developed a character that had been subjugated to manipulation by wartime media through the business of manufacturing pride into radicalisation, which results in him losing his humanity and connections with his family in pursuit of an ambiguous and ultimately pointless conflict.
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Many aspects of the final product were conceptualised in the early workshop lessons, we were shown poems and letters written by real soldiers during and after a conflict. When tasked with writing our own monologues in the style of a letter, I used methods like direct address to enforce the role of an external party that has deeply wronged the character. When placing myself in the shoes of the character I followed the acting method of emotional memory used by the practitioner: Konstantin Stanislavski, I recalled the mannerisms and tone of voice that I use when under deep stress or pressure which mirrored the emotions of the character. An example of where I utilised this method is in the final monologue of the performance.
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Also in the early lessons, we were introduced to a poem called Bad Dreams by soldier, Alex Kockers. I suggested that we create a short abstract piece, based on the poem, where I incorporated some of the techniques used by the Bertolt Brecht such as direct address to the audience, shifts in character and stylised movement. This piece was very successful, therefore I suggested that we feature both the poem and the Brechtian techniques in an ensemble scene in our final piece, this felt appropriate because the lines and themes of the poem, in many ways, reflected the character that I had built.
During the scene, all of the actors intentionally appeared out of character to create an unnatural atmosphere, we also faced the audience to imply their involvement in the story. My intention was to provoke some thought on the subject matter from the audience. For example, when the line “The boy they knew before, is what they’ll never find.” would be read by each character, they would exit the stage leaving my character alone before I performed my monologue. This was intended to reflect my character’s isolation from his family.
What work did your group do in order to explore the stimuli and start to create ideas for the performance?
As well as exploring the materials such as the poem, I recalled a computer game that I played last year that was relevant to the subject matters that we were focussing on at the time, called Spec Ops: The Line. This game went on to inspire many aspects of my character in the final piece. Spec Ops: The Line is an indirect adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella Heart of Darkness; it retains the same story structure and character architypes but brings it into a more modern and relevant context (much like Apocalypse Now did in 1979).
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The game follows the soldier Martin Walker as he leads a small team into post – apocalyptic Dubai to look for survivors. Walker begins as an extremely generic “blank slate” type character, typical for a modern military shooter but, almost immediately, he disobeys his orders and begins ruthlessly fighting through the city against the multiple waring militant groups, much like the player, to fuel his own hero fantasy. After unintentionally committing atrocity after atrocity, the reality of his actions catches up to him, but the guilt that follows is too much for him, so he casts the blame on Colonel Konrad (the stand in for Kurtz). The events that follow are about Walker’s mind torturing him and forcing him to come to terms with the fact that he is a cold-blooded murderer who enjoys killing people, all in the form of Konrad.
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I took heavy inspiration from the way the game handles the guilt that a soldier would feel after a conflict. In scene 5 my character, Tim, attempts to consult his grandfather (a First World War veteran) about how to deal with post-war trauma, the line: “When you came back, what was it like to live again?” is supposed to show his cognitive dissonance between what he’s been told and what he’s experienced, he is in search of validation that his actions were necessary. While Tim was away his grandfather contracted a form of dementia so he never actually acknowledges Tim’s questions, denying him his validation: “I am a good person, aren’t I granddad?”. The emotional distance between the two is also reflected in my decisions in terms of blocking, where both characters are viewed in profile whilst sat back to back, giving the scene a sense of emotional drive and a surreal tone.
Also, in my ending monologue talked about how war can lead soldiers to being desensitised to the horrible violence and become almost dependent on the adrenaline rush that the fighting gives. In lines like: “I’m still anxious, eager, just to get back to the front”, I intended it to suggest that the violence has irreversibly changed Tim’s personality.
What were some of the significant moments during the development process and when rehearsing and refining your work?
As mentioned before, the initial direction for the performance was very much a different piece entirely. I played an arrogant, corrupt, and ignorant politician, who was campaigning for the position of mayor. It would follow his attempts to boost his popularity through cruel means that would be apparent to the audience, but the politician would not perceive the harm he is causing. Though it felt like a decent idea initially, however, as we spent more and more time trying to devise each scene, I discovered that I really lacked a true vision for what I wanted the final product to look like, and also the rest of the group felt confused about the characters that they were playing due to them multi-rolling. So instead, I suggested that we take a similar approach to our piece as we did with the early workshop lessons, which we found to be successful.
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Very early on, I fully wrote the second scene of the performance, which remained largely unchanged throughout development as it was the first scene to really reflect the tone and quality that we all wanted in the final product. The scene had just two characters, two propagandists giving a speech, who never appear again in the piece, so I suggested that two other members of my group should multirole as the two propagandists. The scene was intended to give the audience a glimpse at surreal and unnerving atmosphere of the later scenes, as a form of foreshadowing of the events to come. The duologue is spoken directly to the audience, in a very loud and “in your face” manner, to put pressure on the audience and convey the aggressive encouragement that was used in the past to gain enlistees. Also, the characters in the background robotically repeat the lines of Bad Dreams after the line “repeat after me…”, this adds another layer to the atmosphere and soundscape.
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The most significant moment for the development of my personal performance skills was when I completed my monologue that ended the whole performance. Once I had written the initial draft, I initially felt very pleased with how it sounded so I decided to leave it as it was to focus on refining the other scenes. Upon revisitation months later, I felt that something was missing from the piece, nothing really new or important was being said about my character in my monologue, so I decided to completely rewrite it. In the second draft, I incorporated a more serious and grounded approach to how I wrote and delivered the lines, whilst also adding a whole new layer to Tim, my character with just the final few lines. “I’m still anxious… still eager, just to get back to the front… It’s like… half of me is still there, in the jungle… all alone”. The scene then ends with Tim subtly smirking, directly at the audience. I wanted these final lines to be read as Tim’s confession to himself, that he was not just broken by the trauma but also by how he became so completely desensitized by the violence that he soon came to depend upon it to maintain his psyche and hero complex (as every human has) and therefore avoid going completely insane.
This left him unable to function within a normal society without the constant moral validation from superiors and led to cognitive dissonance. But ultimately it was the military and government institutions that led, easily led people to murder countless others and destroy themselves in the process, sometimes to then be cast aside when they're broken.
How did you consider genre, structure, character, form, style, and language throughout the process?
The concept of “pride” usually connotes to positive feelings of accomplishment and self-improvement, but I felt that style of emotional throughline in a story to be a trifle too generic for my liking, so I suggested an approach more in the vein of the cardinal sin of pride which is referenced in the bible. I immediately knew that I wanted our story to be a cautionary tragedy that would follow our protagonist’s downfall as a result of their pride; this first took form in the performance’s first iteration, as the Politician became more and more corrupt due to his pride in his own political agenda. But in the final iteration, I wanted to show how pride and nationalism manifest in society more than an individual person, and therefore leads to the downfall of the masses.
The reason that I believe this is a superior exploration of the themes of pride is how the central character of Tim is given two dimensions: both a victim of manipulation and an issuer of suffering. Whereas, the Politician was a simply harmful character, meant to be hated by the audience, therefore, losing all emotional impact upon their eventual downfall. Though the character of the Politician and of Tim do share similarities such as how they are both driven by a sense of pride and patriotism and both cause harm to others. However, the Politician would simply commit immoral acts and be hated solely for it but Tim on the other hand is shown to once have a sense of innocence and strong compassion for his family, that is to be corrupted as a result of the societal attitudes towards war. Furthermore, the immoral acts that Tim commits are merely suggested by the final monologue, drawing more focus onto his humanity and more so how it was lost, fitting better into the role of a tragic hero as a result.
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When considering the narrative structure of the performance, I chose to tell the story somewhat non-linearly. This is reflected in the many abstract scenes and also jumps in time, such as the propaganda duologue, ensemble scene and final monologue that neither take place anywhere in particular on the timeline of events. The reason I chose to tell the story like this was to not limit the scope of the performance to the bounds of the time-period that it is set in and to give the impression that similar events could befall upon anyone in the present or future.
How effective was your contribution to the final performance?
At the initial stage of brainstorming concepts and ideas, I was very eager to contribute many ideas and to help tell an interesting story. I quickly became an important member of the group for my ability create and adapt a relevant narrative and have a good grasp on how a scene would play out. One of my main contributions was in the tone and narrative of the piece, I suggested the surreal elements in the later scenes of the performance. I also played the role of director of the characters and line delivery in the scenes to help the group members portray the characters accurately. For example, in the fourth scene of the piece where the main character returned to his home after the war and his mother greets him, I helped guide other group members to show what a significant moment this was for the characters.
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Towards the end of the play I helped guide the set and lighting to create a surreal feel to match the decline of the family’s condition. Actors went in and out of character with blank expressions during the reading of the poem and acted out elements of that line in the poem. I introduced this Brechtian style and helped coordinate it so actors and set worked together to depict this alternative side to the atmosphere.
To improve my contribution, when we first started devising our piece, I could have improved how I communicated my ideas and took on contributions from other group members so that we were closer as a team. This led to some conflict of ideas amongst group members. However, towards the end of the devising process I feel that I improved on this and the group as a whole operated more effectively.
Were you successful in what you set out to achieve?
My intentions from the outset were to tell a simple story with archetypal characters but who had much greater depth as the performance progressed and I feel we achieved this. I also wanted to explore the themes of pride in a slightly more nuanced, creative and original way than the typical overtly positive depiction of pride. The aim was to also educate the audience about how trauma can affect every day life but also how the mindset of a person can be more dangerous than they suspect.
We effectively communicated our message regarding the effects of war and trauma when it comes to the main character of Tim by showing how he moved from his idyllic, happy life before war with light-hearted comedy scenes. That was sharply contrasted by a surreal scene that involved the war propagandists encouraging people to join the war effort as well as the sounds of battle, gunfire and screaming. immediately after this, we showed Tim returning home from the war but the home he returned to felt far different from how it was when he left.
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In our original approach, the theme of pride was explored more on an individual scale as the politician’s increasing pride and corruption eventually led to his downfall. Our intention in changing this and cutting the politician character was to present our theme slightly more realistically where instead of there being a single immoral character that negatively affects all those around him, we had a character (Tim) who is a victim of a militaristic system.
The final performance could have been further improved if we had focussed on the family members and how they were affected. I wanted to include a scene that focussed on them, but the creative flow didn’t lead us there and this meant the focus of the narrative shifted to be more about the character of Tim and his struggle.