Michaela Spinks-SWED 2
Our stimulus for our devised
piece this year was a Shakespearean text. With this, we were to devise a play
using Shakespeare.
Research:
Each person in my group had
an area to research within the Elizabethan period. The topic I researched was
“Punishments and Crime”. All crimes were met with violent, cruel punishments,
resulting in being witnessed by hundreds of other people. Some of these
executions were seen as exciting days out for the lower class. The most common crimes ranged from High
Treason, Sedition, Rebellion, Murder and also witchcraft. For those people who
were in sheer desperation and abject poverty (otherwise known as commoners)
were known to crimes such as Theft, Poaching, Forgers, Adultery and Fraud.
Those who were the most hated prisoners who had usually been convicted of
treason, was given the most barbaric and dreadful punishment of being Hung,
Drawn and Quartered. This showed the fear amongst the society in Elizabethan
England, as stepping one foot out of line would result in them being severely
punished for something that may not even be their fault. To incorporate this
into our group performance, depending on the play we choose, we can show this
fear from the characters, as crime or rebellion is apparent throughout a lot of
Shakespeare’s plays.
Another form of research was
looking into various practitioners and seeing if their style of work would be
appropriate for our play. We were put into pairs and given a practitioner to
research between us. My pair and me were to look at Berkof, whom I found was a
good choice for my group. Berkof is a British practitioner, who’s known for his
productions in the west end to include Shakespearean slang to create a
complexity nut pairing it with “low” cockney slang and swearing. Berkof depends
on a lot of physical movement to highlight to the audience that they can focus
on the actions to understand the plot.
Once my group had decided on
the play Macbeth, we allocated each other with certain themes to look into that
were apparent in the chosen play. I was given the theme “loyalty and guilt”,
which I believe is apparent throughout the whole play. I found that loyalty
linked to the friendship between Macbeth and Banquo and Macbeth and Duncan, and
guilt comes in through Macbeth destroying that loyalty between them by killing
them both to get him what he wants. To further my research, I looked into the
theme of manipulation, and thought this clearly linked in with Lady Macbeth
encouraging Macbeth to commit the famous murder of King Duncan. Using her
authority as his wife, she persuades him to do the deed with her true
intentions uncovered. I then started questioning whether Macbeth would have
gone through with the murder without his wife’s encouragement, whether he had done
it out if love to please her or even show he has his own mind and is in control
of his own actions. The theme of power also linked in because I feel that
without this vision of how having power would be, would Lady Macbeth be so
willing to go ahead with this crime knowing what the punishments were. I also
think it shows cowardice from her as if she thinks becoming king and queen
would be so goof, why wouldn’t she just do it herself?
