Lis' English Journal

The structure of the extract presents how Macbeth’s state of mind is deteriorating as he starts to lose the structure of his speaking. Shakespeare consistently uses iambic pentameter and rhythm when characters are speaking to show their state of mind and authority in a certain environment. When the rhythm is constant and consistent then it portrays that they are in control of their mind and have good relationships with other characters. However, when there is no consistent rhythm to a characters speech then it portrays to us that they are either starting to loose their mental state or have a bad relationship with other characters, in this case, Macbeth has no iambic qualities to his speech, therefore telling us that he’s starting to lose his mind. The use of repetition is also important as it also signifies how he is going crazy as he is almost convincing himself to think something by repeating it. An example of this is, is when he repeats ” To-morrow, and to-morrow and to-morrow”.

The use of metaphors is also important as it allows to paint the readers a picture on how he feels, portraying the breaking down of his senses. The painting of the pictures through his metaphors allows him to express himself in more detail than literal words can express. An example of where he uses metaphors is in his soliloquy where he says “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player”.

The use of alliteration is usually to draw attention to a particular thing. In this particular extract he uses alliteration where he says “poor player”

Macbeth just found out that his wife has died and is questioning why she died so early.

Macbeth is ready to fight and is angry, the fact that he’s heard that his wife has just died, maddens him more and makes him lose his sense of thought.

The structure of the extract presents how Macbeths state of mind is deteriorating as he starts to lose the structure of his speaking. Shakespeare consistently uses iambic pentameter and rythym when characters are speaking to show their state of mind and authority in a certain environment. When the rythym is constant then it portrays that they are in control of their mind and have good relationships with other characters

We are studying Metamorphisis, originally written by Franz Kafka, and most famously directed by Steven Berkoff.

In the piece that I am going to perform, the character that I will play is Mrs Samsa. Mrs Samsa is 45, and is the mother of arguably the main character, Gregor. Mrs Samsa is forced to adopt the role of the traditional housewife where she cooks, cleans etc. She doesn’t have much say in the house, and is constantly undermined by her dominant husband, Mr Samsa. She has a very nice personality where she’s is portrayed as soft, loving, affectionate to her family. She shows this when she tries to help Gregor as Mr Samsa hurls apples at Gregor.

I intend to play my character with her eyes towards the floor when Mr Samsa is around, to portray and underline her position in the family, and strengthen Mr Samsa’s. When Mr Samsa is not around, I will play her as a more confident character, where she stands up straighter and has more eye contact with other characters, which is showing to the audience that she feels more confident and feels as though she has slightly more power when Mr Samsa isn’t present. In terms of how I present her vocally, I will keep a soft and angelic voice throughout our piece, to show the audience her personality and her feelings when in certain situations. I don’t feel to have an accent throughout the piece, as I believe it does not really add any effect to the performance.

The social, historical and political context that our performance focuses on is to do with what the meaning of family is, what the roles of the members in the typical family are, and how the relationship between a family changes in certain circumstances.

My group has decided to base and relate the ideas on the play to the recent American election which was won by Donald Trump. This recent event closely relates with the deeper meaning of metamorphosis, in the sense that this election has split America apart in the same way that Gregor and the family’s morales started to fall apart and disintegrate. This links to our stimulus, as it helps us unravel our central question which is “What is the true meaning of family?”.

Plot (simplified): One day, Gregor Samsa, a sales man wakes up to find himself transformed into a beetle. His family notice immediately that something is not right, as they know that he is very punctual when going to work. His family ask him to come out and ask him whats wrong, but he is hesitant to reveal what happened and they start to become worried. In the midst of the havoc in the house, the Chief Clerk of his firm entered the household and forces Gregor’s bedroom door open, only to find that Gregor had turned into an insect. In fear, the Chief Clerk runs out of the house, generating even more fear into the heart of the house. Greta (Gregors sister) and Mrs Samsa (Gregors mum) are adamant to be helpful towards Gregor, and show compassion for his situation, whereas Mr Samsa (Gregor’s dad) is willing to abandon Gregor, as he is ruining the family name, even after he has been providing for the family. As time wears on, even Greta and Mrs Samsa start to forget about Gregor, and are not bothered anymore. They started off treating him like he was still human, an example of this is how they left his furniture so that he feels more normal and feeding him with a plate, whereas towards the end of the play they start to dump food and furniture into his room and treat him more like what he physically is.. a creature, they don’t care about how he feels. Eventually the family completely forget about Gregor who is locked away in his room.. helpless and with no support. The family leave him to starve and rot to death while they carry on with their life as if he never existed.

Introduction to the Working Record

Playwright of Metamorphosis, Steven Berkoff was born in East London on the 3^rd of August 1939. His family was Jewish and originally of Russian and Romanian descent. His father adjusted their original name of “Berkoff” to “Berks”, he done this so that their arrival in England was more fitting in the new community they were being part of. Berkoff had passionate political views on Zionism, where he openly expresses his belief that Jews are owed or are yet to own a long lost homeland (the Gaza strip in Palestine).

The Social context of the play his based of Franz Kafka’s life (the writer of the original novel), and how he was neglected by his father as a child growing up. This is expressed through the letter he wrote about his feelings towards his father, (which was never published until his death) and his emotions as a child whilst enduring these “torments”. This is associated with Gregor’s position in the play, as he is constantly mistreated by his family, just as Franz was in his early life. His intentions were to reflect his experiences with his father to the audience and what it was like to be an outcast to society.

The similarities between Berkoff and Kafka, are that they are both Jewish which is significant, as they both know what it is like to be an outlier in society. This helps to strengthen the interpretation of the play through their experiences.

The main theme of the text is questioning what family really is, in theory, family is unity, love, looking out for eachother etc. However, Berkoff and Kafka contradict and reject this idea, by using past experiences to show that family is more than what most people think.

What intrigues me about the play, is how they use a beetle to represent how the stress of providing for the family, forces him to take the form of a creature. Another interesting factor, is how the family start off treating Gregor’s situation with compassion and understanding, but as the play progresses, their compassion and understanding turns into disregard and not bothering to carry out fundamental actions, like feeding him. On the other hand, what I find upsetting about the text, is how Gregor Is unable to communicate to his family how he feels being trapped in an insects body. As a member of the audience, I find it particularly frustrating that he struggles to communicate to his family his wants aevolves around ideas on human society and communication between individuals or a group of people. If we put this in the context of the play, there are two reactions portrayed during periods of difficulty, as Gregor has a more optimistic outlook on the situation, whereas his family find it harder to tolerate and cope with these times of hardship. There is a link between how there was a time when Jews could not access rights, and were not socially accepted to how Gregor was not so kindly received by his family, which adds emphasis to this concept of lack of social acceptance included within Berfoff’s play.

In the play, the female characters are displayed as traditional women of that period in time, and are given the stereotypical house wife role. The opposite is done with the male characters because on the other hand, Mr Samsa does not provide the money for the family, but still demands the same level of respect and treatment as the ‘man of the house’. In terms of individual culture, each character in the play is not very well educated, meaning the only culture they are prone to know of is of their own.

In Franz Kafka’s life, he never had a very stable relationship with his father, as they were quite distant, in a sense that Kafka felt he was always held responsible for the things that didn’t go well in nd needs, as it only causes them to do things that they think will benefit him, when in reality it doesn’t. An example of this, is when Mrs Samsa and Greta try to remove the furniture from his room to give him more space, but Gregor attacks them in an attempt to show that he does not want his furniture to be removed, as he still wants a sense of normality and would like his belongings with him.

Something that I would question about the play, is why a beetle was specifically chosen for Gregor to transform into. There are a number of species available, which is why the beetle must be significant to Kafka.

An artistic feature, is the use of the unique personalities, to shape the characters throughout the play, in order to add emphasis to the changing mood in the family, as they adapt to Gregor’s new form.

The genre of the text is Tragedy, as throughout the play, Gregor is brought to ruins and is unable to cope with the unfavourable circumstances. This was portrayed consistently through his neglect and sudden and tragic death, which slowly and painfully progressed, in order to have a more powerful effect on the audience.

In the play, the performance style is abstract and not literal, in the sense that Gregor is usually not actually put in a beetle costume, but is shown to the audience through dance-like actions, and behaviour to give a more engaging look to the audience. Lighting is also used effectively to reflect each characters moods, feelings and personalities. For example, when Gregor attacks Mrs Samsa and Greta, red lighting is commonly associated to represent Gregor’s anger and frustration.

The Central Question that I’m going to explore is: “What is the true meaning of family?”. The reason I want to explore this question, is because being in a family is supposed to be a safe environment, but considering Kafka’s and Berkoff’s life experiences, I wonder whether there is a different dimension to the true meaning of family.

In 1883-1910 Czech Republic was under control by Austria. This may have affected Kafka as a young man, as it can damage a young persons mental state, knowing that your an outcaste to society just because of your religion, it’s a experience which most likely sticks with you forever, and in Kafka’s case, it did.

Kafka had a complicated relationship with his father. His father treated him with “indifference and even contempt”. It’s really important to have a good relationship with your family, as it’s mentally healthy for a young person, however, the reason why Kafka always had a antisocial energy to him was because he didn’t have a lot of social experience as a young child, due to things like having a distant relationship with his family. These experiences were often used as a stimulus in his plays. When writing up a script or preparing the plot for one of his plays, he often uses his life experiences to portray his perspective on the world and how his life was. Much of the time, his plays were strong and deep in meaning allowing the audience to also have a different perspective on the world and generally in their daily lives.

Metamorphosis is especially significant to Kafka’s life, as it portrays how humans can be affected by their families, in this case, how his distant relationship with his family affected him. In his play, he reveals to the audience how too much pressure to a human can lead to him/her becoming stressed and straining into a faze they don’t want to be in, in this case, Gregor being forced into a beetles body against his will due to the pressure on him to work and provide for his family. The use of an insect can represent someone who is more vulnerable and so someone who reacts to various emotions differently and it can tear a family apart. Generally no one likes insesct’s, and throughout the play we get more and more of his family neglecting and leaving Gregor to suffer in a form of body which his family are not fond of.

Macbeth starts off by saying “Is this a dagger which I see before me”. Macbeth has already started to question his mental state and wether this is actually real, it’s showing us how he is starting to ‘lose the plot’.

He then moves onto saying “The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee”. His vision of the dagger has been placed with the handle of it pointing straight to him, almost beckoning him over to go and grab it, like it was supposed to be there at that specific place, time and for a reason. After that, he says “Come, let me clutch thee” At this point I feel like he has been hypnotised by his madness, the witches words and his Lady Macbeth’s manipulation, I feel like he has no control over his body and that he is being pushed against his will towards grabbing the bloodstained dagger.

Towards the end of his soliloquy a bell rings, and he says “I go, the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell” I felt that the ringing of the bell was significant, as it was almost perfect timing of the moment. Again,  the handle of the dagger pointing towards him and the bell ringing is like it was his fate for all of this to happen, like it was set in stone. But who is making this happen? The witches? Or is it his mind playing games and really believing that it can happen without the witches fateful intervention? Whatever it is, its due to spill blood all over the path which leads him to his final destination.

“The Prince of Cumberland that is a step on which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, For in my way of lies. Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires, The eye wink at the end. Yet let that be, Which the eye fears when it is done to see.”

Macbeth is saying at first that to become king, he must kill The Prince of Cumberland (Duncans heir). He then moves onto saying that he doesn’t want heaven/God to see what he is about to do (him killing the Prince of Cumberland and Duncan). He metaphorically says that he should cover his eyes from looking at King Duncan and The Prince of Cumberland being killed with his own bare hands because deep inside he knows that he’s doing morally wrong.

The chill of the wind was biting my skin, as I was walking to the rhythm of my feet crunching against the dead leaves. I could hear a wave of singing, music and stomping thumping against my ears from a distance. It was a sound I was familiar with, something like a wedding I was at in Kosovo. Dancing, singing and a lot of fun. As I approached the crowd I saw a group of women start a a traditional dance called the “Vala”. I saw many people old, young, girls or boys joining quickly forming a massive circle of joy. On the other side of the square I saw about 7 young men lighting red flares. Colours of our passion I guess. There was almost a feeling of community surrounding us and bringing us together, like one big family. The bright sun revealed itself among the clouds and shone down on us, immediately inflicting its power of heat, warming my skull and flowing through my whole body. I saw many familiar faces greet my parents then turning on to me, and smiling in my face then proceeding to picking me up as if I am some newborn baby. I always hated being treated younger than I was, it felt as if I am some toy being shared among others.

Pip finally realises that the man who left miss Havisham on her marriage day (Compeyson) had been Magwitches partner and that he got Magwitch in jail from crimes that Compeyson committed. Pip has a guess that Magwitch is Estella’s father.

ITEM 1:

Introduction:

Our assessment was built and evolved around the stimulus of Aylan Kurdi’s death, and effects it had on his fathers life after. Aylan Kurdi was fleeing with his family from Syria, (due to danger from ISIS like millions of other Syrians) and was crossing the Mediterranean sea, where he was driven in an unsafe boat steered by a smuggler and eventually it capsized. Hours later, he was found dead on a Turkish beach, washed up on the shore, and a journalist took a picture of him being picked up by a Turkish officer and the picture went viral. His death was a real wake up call to the world, and now governments are picking up on these smugglers who are charging these vulnerable refuges a lot of money to be taken across these vicious seas, which are sometimes fatal and devastating.

Since we had been discussing frequently about refugees and Aylan Kurdi’s death specifically, we decided that it would be interesting if we had done our rehearsed improvisation around that idea. We decided to do it on his his dads life after his families death, so that we could give the audience a better idea of how exactly he might have felt, and how he was able to cope with the death of his children and wife on a daily basis.

Our central question was: “Can the father forgive himself for the death of his family?” We decided to pick this as our central question, as we felt that it would be interesting to explore the answer through our acting, and it’s also a question which the audience can think about and can form their own opinion on.

I felt that having the connection between son and their father was a advantage to us, as it caused a great deal of tension in certain scenes. For example, in the scene where the father is asleep and wakes up to his sons being beside him, there is real tension here for the audience, until he finds out that they are just ghosts. This almost created an atmosphere of false hope for the audience, which broke the tension and brought a strong sense of sympathy for the father, which really helped strengthen our performance on an emotional level. So these conflicts of different atmospheres and tensions really intensified our performance.

When we first started crafting our piece, we felt not to have as much of the sons in the act, as we thought it would weaken our play and we wanted to concentrate on the father more specifically, and look into how he coped in his day to day life, however, we found that having more of the sons in the scenes came as an advantage, as it helped the audience understand what the father is going through in more detail. Having kids in our play also helped, as generally, when there are kids in a performance there is a level of sympathy given to the play from the audience, which definitely boosted our piece on another level.

Aylan Kurdi’s dad holding Aylan’s hand (left) and his other son on the other.

We decided to explore the idea of a day in Aylan Kurdi’s dad’s life after the tragic death of his sons and wife. We got this idea, as we thought that this event that occurred, was a turning point in the importance of what refugees were and still are going through in that specific chapter of their journey to safety, and how we, as people who live in more powerful countries, can help out. In the process of making our little play, we had this scene where we wanted Andre (one of the boys) to walk on his knees so that he was at more of a kids height in proportion to when he acting alongside a adult character in the play. We decided to scrap the idea, as we felt it would look a bit strange and unrealistic if we had him walking around on his knees, and it wouldn’t be appealing to the audience.

In our scene, we had three main characters who were: Aylan Kurdi’s dad, and his two sons who performed in a ghost form throughout the play. We decided to have the kids in a ghost form, as we believed it was more effective in creating the notion that he was going mad, by seeing his sons as ghosts, and how no one else can see them apart from him. In the play, we decided to keep the names of the characters as ours in real life, so that we leave the audience with something closer to home, and not something that the media had given or labelled. We wanted to leave the audience thinking about what this play was related to. We also felt that it was important to leave them with the decision of what THEY thought the scene was revealing/referring to. It was important that we made the ages of our characters to be of Aylan Kurdi’s, his dads and his brothers. We aimed to have Aylan around 4 years of age, his brother 7 and his dad 35-45. It was essential that the audience was able to recognize this, as the play would have been made more realistic, so when the two brothers had lines, we put on a small kids childish voice to portray their age, and of course by then, it would have been quite clear that his dad was one of the only main adult characters in the scene.

I found it quite easy to develop my character into a similar kid to Aylan Kurdi. I found it easy as I thought about it like this: Aylan Kurdi was just like any other 4 year old kid, so I had to think: What was I like when I was four years old? What kind of things did I do? This helped me a lot as it put me in his “shoes” therefore prepared me to get into character a lot easier and more comfortably. It then felt more natural in that role, and that’s important as we want it to look as realistic as possible and not so artificial.

As I mentioned before, in order to communicate my role to the audience fully, I needed to polish things like how I moved on the stage, and how I used my voice. In order to fulfill this, I had to put on a child’s voice, to communicate to my audience my characters personality through my acting. An example of this, is in the scene when the dad is asleep, and he hears his sons’ voice whispering “dad” constantly, and it gets louder and louder and the dad wakes up. This was captivating and emotional, as it gave the audience an insight into what the dad was seeing and hearing in his head. It put the audience in an awkward, but effective position as it left them in the dads situation which helped them experience that part of the play, and feel what he felt. My movement on stage was also significantly important, as this would also reveal to my audience what my character was like. To do this, I had to move around stage like a little kid, almost bopping on my step and walking clumsily to signify my child like movements.

I think our piece was successful in communicating our central question which was: “Can the father forgive himself for the death of his family?” I believe this, as we showed the audience how exactly the father felt. For example, in the scene where the father couldn’t even eat when he got home from work. This shows how bad he felt, and how he could barely do simple daily things such and eat and sleep, which are essential in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The death of his children really tipped his life upside down, and I think the audience understood this throughout our piece. To develop our performance, so that we communicate to the audience better, I think that we should add more expression and character into our kids roles, so that we can tell the audience what kind of relationship they had with the father, and what their personalities were like individually and I think that this could possibly apply to the dad as well. This way, the audience have a better perception of what kind of characters they are watching.

In our play, the use of improvisation was key as it added an element of originality, which brought a natural look to the play. It helped the audience understand the play better and also helped us, as actors, as it developed our improvisation skills which would be important if we were to continue into drama as a future career. An example of where we used improvisation, is in the scene where we were walking around the dad while he was asleep, and we had to improvise and think of what questions we were going to ask him about why he didn’t save the children. It’s fair to say that improvisation definitely solidified our performance as a whole to a certain extent, and certainly in that specific scene.

ITEM 2:

The situation that we decided to to explore was, what Aylan Kurdi’s dads life was like at home after a day at work. How he felt, what he ate, how he moved etc… This idea actually came from Item 1, and we felt that developing it further, would give us better material to work with. I had this idea where I wanted my character to pray after coming back from work and piling his clothes. I wanted this idea, as I felt that in his position, religion was a reason to live for, to believe in, and was also a realistic piece of material. I thought that this action would have been important to the play, but since my play was already too long, adding it would have extended my scene too much.

Throughout the scene, there was only one character, and that was Aylan Kurdi’s dad. As I mentioned in Item 1, I felt to have the Dad around 35-45 years for age, as it would have been a reasonable age to go with. We developed the characters physical background by not forgetting his age, and how he’s getting a bit older and his emotional state at the time, however, that is a discussion for later in the topic.

I developed the character I played by putting myself in his shoes, by thinking how I would feel if my family died, what I do, how I would walk, how I would talk. This helped a lot, as it put me into character quicker and easier and my scene was more realistic, which bound a strong connection between me and the audience. My character was based on the research I done on Aylan Kurdi and his death, and I found that developing his dad after his tragic death was more interesting due to: him, his life’s position and emotional vulnerability at the time and maybe even right now. This character came from our discussions in drama about Syrian refugees, and I found that exploring this specific event, which was a significant turning point in refugees and there safety, was important part of making our world today a better place.

The way I communicated my character to the audience, was very important in portraying a realistic and emotional piece. How I moved was very important and I communicated this to the audience by slouching when I walked, this portrayed almost no emotion and physical vulnerability, which shows to the audience what state his life was in. My facial expression was also important in communicating my characters mood to our audience. I did this by putting a straight face throughout the play to show my audience that my character was sort of depressed, and had no emotion to show after his life had been turned upside down. When I talked, I used a flat voice in the beginning, but as my character explained to the audience his thoughts, I got louder and my character got more frustrated and showed more facial expression.

Improvisation helped me a lot as when I didn’t know what to do, I improvised. For example, when I killed myself that was improvised, but looking back at it, I would have put a black cloth on me to symbolize death. Improvisation also gave my scene a more natural look than if it was rehearsed.

I think our piece was successful in communicating our central question which was: “Can the father forgive himself for the death of his family?” I believe this, as we showed the audience how exactly the father felt. For example, in the scene where the father couldn’t even eat when he got home from work. This shows how bad he felt, and how he could barely do simple daily things such and eat and sleep, which are essential in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The death of his children really tipped his life upside down, and I think the audience understood this throughout our piece.

ITEM 3:

Introduction to my presentation:

• During this presentation I will take you through ideas for the set of my scene such as: costumes, lighting and sound which I will use to develop my scene and bring it to life.

Design ideas for the set:

• Living room attached to kitchen
• Untidy set
• Worn out brown sofa with a pillow and blanket
• Little coffee table with a few dirty plates on it and a plate with untouched food accompanied by large photos of his two dead sons and wife
• A Small fridge in the corner
• Scattered clothes
• Massive pile of un-opened mail next to the door

Costumes:

• Our main character will wear a white creased shirt, grey boot cut trousers and conservative smart shoes, which represents the visual impact on the audience. This shows the struggle the character is facing after the tragic death of his children and wife.

Lighting and sound:

• In the beginning of the play, the spot light focuses on different parts of the room which are significant in reflecting his struggle after his loss.
• The lighting slowly fades away from different parts of the room, focusing on the main character as he enters the scene.
• The music needs to be “underscoring” all the action taking place. Some melancholic music ,which starts slow, and builds up throughout the scene, will be played. It will end suddenly as he is about to commit suicide to create tension and atmosphere.
  • Red dim lighting will be present throughout the scene to symbolise sadness in his mood.
  • As he kills himself, a quick “snap” in lighting as it turns off.

Conclusion:

• To conclude my aim was to maintain a constant mood when choosing different design ideas in order to bind an emotional connection between the character and the audience.