Thursday 25th February

The first thing we did in today's lesson was we looked at the characters of George and Kinsey and their relationships with every character. We started by looking at there relationship with one another as we believe them to be based on John Venibles and Robert Thompson so therefore they have a deep relationship outside of where they are so we discussed how we believe Kinsey to have control over George however much George won't admit it.
Once we done this we then went on to setting out play using our new idea of having the stage behind us and when we are doing the importance of being earnest then going down onto the floor when were not. We had to make sure that we go down at the right time so that it fits in with the script. Using the stage also give a good use of levels in order to make it look better and make it. When we went through the script we also looked at phrases that were meant to be funny as some people in the group didn't get it and it is important that people knew where they needed to say their lines in the right way in order to make the audience laugh.

Tuesday 23rd February

At the beginning of today's lesson we began by discussing our staging and how it would look as we were having the stage behind us. This is when we decided that when we were doing the importance of being earnest then we would be on the stage and when we aren't we would be on the floor in order to have a clear difference between the 2 in order to make it more obvious to the audience. Once we did this we then started to discuss the proximity between George in Kinsey. I thought how Kinsey should be constantly moving towards George and whenever he get close George moves away. I thought this should be unlying and not obvious to the audience but it would be interesting for the audience to figure out. Where as Kai thought is would be better for Kinsey to sit back and dig at George until Kinsey takes control in their scene. I think these are both good idea as they both show something different about Kinseys character. So we thought this would work well as it would look natural and different. We then started working on from page 18 making every movement look normal and if hes not forced. So in order to do this when people got angry they stood and when they become scared they sat and moved away.
We then worked on the scene between Kinsey and George again in order to remind them of when they move close to each other and when George moves away making sure the switch in power is obvious.

Monday 22nd February

In today lesson we started by looking from the begging of the play and looking at making notes on where we want to sit stand and have reasons behind this. For example I like to sit my character Rose on the floor a lot as children sit on the floor when they are young for assembly, circle time and story times so me siting on the floor with my leg cross shows this. I also thought about making sure that I remain in a childlike ways as this is important in order to keep up the act of my head being in the clouds due to the drugs that i'm taking. While doing this we stopped and started by deciding to change our positions in order for all the audience to see what we are doing at all times. 
We then went and did research for the rest of the lesson in order to work on our knowledge.

Why did Anthony Horowitz give Rose as my characters new name?

While deciding why Rose replacements name is what it is I did research in to the symbolism of roses. The first thing I can upon was that the flower expresses promise, hope and a new beginning. So I believe the reason why the institute gave her the name Rose was to give her a fresh so that she could start again and try and become a better person. The flower also expressing hope that may be what Rose as a character has in order for her to be able to get through her time in there that one day she will be forgiven and forgotten so she can leave and have her life back which is far from what she will ever have. The other symboles of the Rose is its thrones and these symbolies defense, loss and thoughtlessness. Rose I believe was also given her name because of how she suffered loss of her life outside of the institute and lose of the little girl Natty that she looked after. She also has a lot of defense within her characteristic because when it is mentioned about different items that I believe she used to kill Natty she get up tight and defends herself claiming that they are not hers. Rose can also be defensive when it comes to her talking about the rule book that she always refers to when anyone breaks a rule. She was also thoughtless in the acts that she took part in for her to end up being in prison.

Thursday 11th February

In todays lesson we started by discussing what ideas we had for costume and we did this by firstly deciding what normal UK prison uniform was. We then went on to thinking that white clothing is what people in mental institutes wear as its a plan colour which would not be a trigger for anyone. Kai then said in some situations they could wear different colour depending on why they are why there here. So I suggested that we have different colours depending on how bad we think they are.
Once we did this we then started from the beginning again using the table that we had added into our scene deciding how we could use the different levels in the first scene and how this would work in order to set the authority within the scenes.

Script analysis

'or little squares? That's how i used to do them. Natty used to love them. We'd go down to the bottom of the garden and we'd have a little picnic in the daises. Little Natty and me. We'd have little, tiny cups of tea out of a doll's house cup and i made sure they water was never scalding hot or anything like that. I put the knife away. That's why I wanted to do this play, because it reminded me of the picnics... the cucumber sandwiches. and when i imagine them, they're always cut into squares.' 

In this extract I think that Rose shows the love that she had for Natty when she looked after her. When analysing this script I firstly thought this due to the reference of them having picnics in the 'Daisies' as daisies symbolises love, innocence and purity. The symbolism of love I believe is how she feels for Natty and I feel it was because of this great love that Natty was killed. The symbolism of innocence and purity I believe is what Rose believes she is even after what she has done and this is also shown with a line earlier in the play: 'one day I'll be out of here and I'll tell them the truth.'. Rose even thought she is an intelligent girl who is on medication doesn't see what she has done wrong so still believe she is pure due to her psychopathic tendencies. She also could be a reference to what she is like now as her character comes across and innocent so it becomes hard to tell why she is in there.
The next part of the passage which shows how attached Rose is to Natty is how she refers to them as 'We'd' on several occasions. This is because we'd is past perfect tense as it is past tense and had together. This shows that Rose believes what her and Natty had was perfect and idyllic and that everyone should have this. This is strange for someone to think this after doing something horrific however this is what she liked about spending time with Natty as it was like there own utopia and i believe she refers to it as she missed what she had before her 'good idea'.
The next reference I found interesting was how she kept referring to items as being little. I believe Horowitz made Rose do this to act as if shes trying to convince herself that she was only little and didn't understand what she was doing even though she was old enough to baby sit her. On the other hand it could also be seen as she is trying to make Natty seem fragile and small and this is why she felt she need to look after her so much that it led to her death.
The referencing to square sandwiches it as one that makes me think when looking at this extract as she refers to them more then once. I like to think of this as a trigger word for Rose as when its bought up she goes of on a tangent about her past. I believe this may be a trigger word because everything around her are in box/ square like shapes for example the institution room they are in. As squares are enclosed have no gaps i like to refer this to how she is living in a box room with no way to escape. 
The final thing in the passage that I looked at was when she talks about putting the knife down and with her saying that it makes me think about is she killed Natty on purpose. The reference to the knife makes us think also that she has always had this side to her where she is willing to do something in which will get her what she want. This is also why this could have been a crime of passion as Natty stopped her getting what she wanted which could have been being with her.

Research on Lady Bracknell

Below is an analysis that I found on the character Lady Bracknell who is the character that Rose my character plays in 'The Importance of being Ernest'. This analysis helped me to understand Lady Bracknell and what place she plays in society and I want to really show this when I am acting her as she is very different from the character Rose . I want to show the difference between the character firstly so it is obvious to the audience but also so that it acts as a facade for what Rose really is which is simply a psychopath who killed a child. This is the opposite to Lady Bracknell as she is an upper class lady who has no passion or love in her heart where as Rose is a child who has to much love for other children even if this love took her too far. Just like Lady Bracknell, Rose has opinions and has mannerisms that betray and careful and calculated speaking pattern but this is not obvious due to the drugs she is one. So when I play Lady Bracknell as Rose I want her to be posh and sophisticated as if Rose is a good actor to foreshadow that the Innocent sweet girl she pretends to be is not really her it is only the drugs she consumes. 

The most memorable character and one who has a tremendous impact on the audience is Lady Augusta Bracknell. Wilde's audience would have identified most with her titled position and bearing. Wilde humorously makes her the tool of the conflict, and much of the satire. For the play to end as a comedy, her objections and obstacles must be dealt with and overcome.

Lady Bracknell is first and foremost a symbol of Victorian earnestness and the unhappiness it brings as a result. She is powerful, arrogant, ruthless to the extreme, conservative, and proper. In many ways, she represents Wilde's opinion of Victorian upper-class negativity, conservative and repressive values, and power.

Her opinions and mannerisms betray a careful and calculated speaking pattern. She is able to go round for round with the other characters on witty epigrams and social repartee. Despite her current position, Lady Bracknell was not always a member of the upper class; she was a social climber bent on marrying into the aristocracy. As a former member of the lower class, she represents the righteousness of the formerly excluded. Because she is now Lady Bracknell, she has opinions on society, marriage, religion, money, illness, death, and respectability. She is another of Wilde's inventions to present his satire on these subjects.

As a ruthless social climber and spokesperson for the status quo, Lady Bracknell's behavior enforces social discrimination and excludes those who do not fit into her new class. Her daughter's unsuitable marriage is an excellent example of how she flexes her muscles. She sees marriage as an alliance for property and social security; love or passion is not part of the mix. She bends the rules to suit her pleasure because she can. Jack will be placed on her list of eligible suitors only if he can pass her unpredictable and difficult test. She gives him ruthlessly "correct," but immoral, advice on his parents. "I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is quite over." It matters not how Jack finds parent(s), just that he do it, following the requirements for acceptability.

Lady Bracknell's authority and power are extended over every character in the play. Her decision about the suitability of both marriages provides the conflict of the story. She tells her daughter quite explicitly, "Pardon me, you are not engaged to anyone. When you do become engaged to someone, I or your father, should his health permit him, will inform you of the fact." Done, decided, finished. She interrogates both Jack and Cecily, bribes Gwendolen's maid, and looks down her nose at both Chasuble and Prism.

Her social commentary on class structure is Wilde's commentary about how the privileged class of England keeps its power. Lady Bracknell firmly believes the middle and lower classes should never be taught to think or question. It would breed anarchy and the possibility that the upper class might lose its privileged position.

Wilde has created, with Augusta Bracknell, a memorable instrument of his satiric wit, questioning all he sees in Victorian upper-class society.

Monday 8th February

In todays lesson we look at how to really get our characters across in the right way so we started from page 18 when all the characters are on stage and looked at how they liked. I needed to make sure that I picked up child like mannerisms to make me seems as innocent as possible and make sure when my obsessive side come out that it is very obvious to the audience. When we got to Allan's long monologue on his life before he come to the place we are in. We wanted this to look like Allan's character was reminiscing and going of on a tangent and everything else said by anyone is irrelevant so this is why when people interrupt he just carry's on. When we started this Ashley played this by facing towards the audience and talking to them. However we decided that he couldn't be seen by the people in the audience to the side of him and become this was long we decided it was important for him to be seen by everyone as what he is saying shows a lot about his character. This is when we decided to move him so he was leaning on something on the left top corner of the audience. This meant that everyone could see him and the leaning made it seem relaxed and like he doesn't care that much about other peoples opinions. We also made him really slow down his lines using more pauses to carry on the effect of being relaxed and this helped to make what he was saying more dramatic.
For the other half of the lesson we went and did research on the play.

Mary Bell Research

Below is an article from the conviction of Mary Jane Bell after she killed 2 young boys by strangling them to death. I believe that my character Rose is based on Mary because of the way she killed the boys as from the script I believed that Rose strangled the little girl she used to baby sit and then smash her to pieces with a hammer. Mary is described as having a dominant personality and a very wordy attitude and I believe Rose is the same as she can be very dominant and controlling and that is why she has to be drugged to prevent her from using this in order to cause mayhem within the institution. However I believe Rose is different to Mary as I see her being older as she is able a baby sitter but she is 'cunning and insidious' which makes there personalities very similar. Although they have a similar story I dont think that Anthony Horowitz purposely made there character similar I think that he wanted to have aspects of different child killers through out time and put them into a play.

1968: Mary Bell found guilty of double killing

An 11-year-old girl has been sentenced to life in detention after being found guilty at Newcastle Assizes of the manslaughter of two small boys.Mary Bell is said to have strangled the boys, aged four and three, "solely for the pleasure and excitement of killing".

The jury heard Mary, also known as May, was suffering from diminished responsibility at the time and therefore found her not guilty of murder.

Her accomplice, known only as Norma, aged 13, who had been jointly charged with Mary, was acquitted.

Very grave risk

As the verdict was read out, Mary broke down and wept.

Mr Justice Cusack described her as dangerous and said there was a "very grave risk to other children if she is not closely watched".

Mary's mother and grandmother, who were sitting behind her on the benches, also wept when the verdict was announced.

Martin Brown, aged four, of Scotswood in Newcastle was found dead in a derelict house on 25 May. The body of Brian Howe, three, also of Scotswood, was found on waste ground near his home two months later.

The two girls, who were playmates, also lived in the Scotswood area of Newcastle. They denied the charges.

The court had earlier heard Norma give evidence in which she described how Mary had tried to strangle Brian Howe. She said Mary ignored her pleas to stop hurting the boy so she left them and next time she saw Mary she was on her own with Brian's dog.

Jurors were told despite the age difference, Mary was the more dominant personality with a very worldly attitude.

Rudolph Lyons QC said: "For example, when she was being questioned by a detective chief inspector about a charge of murder she said to him, 'I'll phone for some solicitors, they will get me out. This is being brainwashed."

He said she also tried to throw suspicion onto an innocent boy in a "very cunning and insidious manner".

He continued: "Both girls well knew that what they did was wrong and what the results would be."

Home Office psychiatrist Dr David Westbury told the court Mary had a psychopathic disorder for which she needed treatment.

The judge said: "It is a most unhappy thing that, in all the resources of this country, it appears that there is no hospital available that is suitable for the accommodation of this girl."

Mary is being held at a remand centre. It seems likely she will be sent to an approved school where she will be held in a secure unit.

Thursday 4th February

In todays lesson we went back into the hall but we only had the stage space to work with and when we got on to it there was a table in the middle so we decided that it might add something different to our scene by using the table to create another type of level. Once we had discussed this we started to scatter chairs around the table so they are all spread out and in site of the audience.
We then went from where we finished of the last lesson and again worked on levels. When we got to the scene with Kinsey and George on there own we wanted to make this obvious to the audience what they may have own and get the idea of who these 2 characters are based on and these are John Venables and Robert Thompson. So we wanted to show the power shift and who is in control in this 'friendship'. I believe Kinsey to be the one in control and the one who caused George to do whatever he did. As there conversation takes place Kinsey starts of very angry as George keeps control of him and everyone like he has through out the play until Kinsey has a switch which caused him to calm down an as he does this it caused  George to get angry which is where he loses the control of where this conversation and what he wants and I believe this is what happened on the outside world. I believe that George didn't want to do something and Kinsey knew how to push him to change his mind. We also showed this change in power my proximity. At the beginning of the scene George faces towards Kinsey and keep great distance between them. As George begins to lose control his body language changes so he turns from Kinsey as if he is shielding himself from what Kinsey has to say and as Kinsey gains he's control he get closer and closer to George until he is so close that George notices and moves away. I shows how Kinsey wants this friendship where as George refuses to except him again.
once we had done this we discussed how we wanted our stage area to look and if we wanted the area to look relatively normal or to make sure every thing is covered in foam and sponge so it looks like we aren't mentally safe. We decided that we would do some research into this to decide on what it is like in different types of prisons.

Research on psychopathic traits

1. Glim and superficial charm

2. Grandiose self-worth

3. Need for stimulation or prone to boredom

4. Pathologically lying  

5. Conning and manipulative

 6. Lack of remorse or guilt

7. Shallow affect

8. Callousness and lack of empathy  

9.  Parasitic life style  

10. Poor behavioral controls

11. Promiscuous sexual behavior  

12. Early behavioral problems

13. Lack of realistic and long term goals

14. Impulsivity

15. Irresponsible  

16. Failure to accept responsibility for owns actions  

17. Many short term marital relationships

18. Juvenile delinquency

19. Revocation of conditional release

20. Criminal Versatility

While looking at these characteristic I think that my character of Rose has many of these traits and with this she is also very intelligent. This is why I believe she needs to be on drugs as otherwise she would be causing situations within the facility which wouldn't be able to be controlled. One of the characteristic she defiantly has is poor self control and we know this as she managed to kill a child which she didn't prevent herself from doing. However when she is in the facility I believe she has began to rehabilitate as she begins to control what she does as in swearing and how much she talks although I also believe this is because this is the drugs shes on. The next trait I believe she doesn't have is being irresponsible because in a handbag she has the book of rules that she constantly  refers to when people are doing something wrong which I think is in a  way a psychopathic tendency as she obsessing over the rules. She also doesn't have empathy as she when she talks about natty the child she used to baby sit and killed she has no remorse and doesn't care about what she does. She speaks about what she got up to with Natty and tried to convince herself that she didn't hurt her.

Tuesday 2nd February

In todays lesson we decided to set out our play in the actual space in the hall to get a feel for the space we are going to be in. We decided that we were going to have chairs for each person individual and they are only allowed to sit in this chair. We decided this so that everyone had at least one thing that they had to themselves. We then discussed about where specs would be through out the scene and we decided that his prompting chair would be on the stage behind us so that he was higher up from us and so people could see him. We then spoke about where specs would be when he was on stage and we said that he would be in the corner as we though specs is there but never notices so he's always somewhere close to the audience to make it look like he is suspicious. We then started the play from the beginning and started looking how we would use levels in order for our piece to look interesting and as it is simply also using proximity between character to show what they are like. For example we spoke about how Kinsey and George should keep distance through out the piece. So that the levels always stayed different we made sure that whenever someone got up to move then someone else would sit down and vis versa. As playing the character Rose I decided to sit her on the floor as we want the audience to see Rose as a dumb innocent character until they start to realise what she has done so placing her on the floor made her seem small and crossing her legs made her seem childlike.

Monday 1st February

In todays lesson we started by going through the script and looking at the characters in the play and looking into their past by what they say. We started by looking at Ashleys Character Allan. We were looking at the part of the play when Allan talks about his local blockbuster and his love for playing violent video games. As we picked this appart we decided that Allan was insinuating he was abused by the blockbuster owner and that when he talks about getting caught red handed when playing grand theft auto he is not actually meaning this. We believe that he means that he was cause litreally red handed with his hands covered in blood after 'blasting' away killing some kind of animal. We decided that he is disturbed because of the incident at a child off being abused and this is why he goes on to being in the institute. Even though we are unsure what Allan really done we know what he was influenced by the action when he was younger. We then went on to discuss Rose which is my character and we picked apart the piece of the script where she talks about picnics with Natty. From this we decided that Rose is a very intelligent and munipulative character however this is masked by a sweet inicent girl due to the drugs that she has to take to keep this side of her undercontrol. This is why the drugs cause her to be thick and acts like she doesnt know whats going on.