Maria Clara Bennett

Candidate number: 3035

Centre number: 12516
GCSE Drama CP 1

1.The 13th century Catalan painting by an anonymous painter, depicted two women in an embrace close together which
I implied a relationship. Instantly I noticed how prominent the eyes were as the heads were rested on one another, one
of the two eyes became one forming an illusion. As a class we discussed how this can be referenced to ‘windows are
the eyes to the soul’ zooming into detail, talking about how different emotions they were feeling could be through their
eyes. This corelated to main theme of perspective. As a group we wanted to take this in the form of portraying the
journey of a character from different perspectives. In my research, there was not much information to be found from
this image, but it is supposedly the religious figures Mary and Elizabeth from the story of ‘The visitation’. Mary
comforts her in her miracle conception. We used inspiration from the story to discuss ideas surrounding support,
dependency, and relationship in our piece where family relates to the story. In Auguries of Innocence’ William Blake
poem explored themes of the power of perception, truth, peace and ‘the bigger picture.’ The descriptive use of nature
elicited a sense of serenity and perfection. Through my research, it was written in the romantic era- writers ironically
used nature to criticise the hidden corruption and conflict of mankind. This changed my perception of the poem but
brought the idea of ways of seeing, loss of innocence and misconception. Our character can be compared to a flower
through her naïve and vulnerable nature. Our intention was to evoke sympathy and realism showing Chelsea’s inner
conflict through her thought processes giving them their own characters and insight to someone mind. The ‘Abnormal
Psychology’ Book by Rosehan and Seligman initiated discussions of mental health themes such as hallucinatory
disorders like schizophrenia. Auditory hallucination is the most common but visual is largely portrayed in the media
we wanted to incorporate both into our piece. Ideas linking to this stimulus was intense chaos, lack of control in
speech, thoughts and communication as a result of visual overload.

2.To further our understanding of the stimuli, my group made mind maps of each stimulus to break down the key
themes shown in them that enabled us to come up with suggestions for a plot. Across the stimuli we could make
connections and interlinking main ideas. Additionally, we each created collages filled with images of abstract and
illusion art, eyes and words which were commonly used in the mind map. This enabled us to visualise the dark
atmosphere, tone and feelings attached to the themes we wanted to convey. We were drawn to the idea of mental
chaos, isolation, delusion of hallucinations. After, we were on a path of constant brainstorming of ideas and using our
spaces to improvise ideas. However, we were initially too literal in considering the stimulus as we began using words
from the poem and acting out naturalistic scenes of everyday life. We wanted to explore how we could physically
demonstrate the themes without speech, more through devising techniques of movement. An exercise that inspired us
was a class practical on the exploration of experimental drama. This involved abstract and metaphysical acting to a
piece of music ‘sketchpad with a trumpet and voice’ by Peter Gabriel. We improvised, listening to the music to
interpret the sound and feelings we heard. This kept us in tune to just be confident and interact with each other with
solely our bodies. We had to be spatially aware of things around us focusing on the music-we could subtly hear a
heartbeat this gave a calming sense of steady pace to our movement. We were connected as a group, feeling close
emotionally and physically in proximities through holding hands and interlinked arms. There was a range of patterns
and shapes such as linear and circular formations. Dynamic movement and variations shown in pulling apart leaving
space between us; graduated levels to create a canon effect and symbol of relationships of abstract beings. Forum
theatre was useful as we observed each other and gave us ideas to use more contrasting techniques to realism in our
piece to highlight and elevate themes such as our hallucination scenes.
 Maria Clara Bennett
Candidate number: 3035
Centre number: 12516
GCSE Drama CP 1

3.Influenced by our perspective theme, we decided to alternate playing the same character of Chelsea to portray the
internal experiences of a girl throughout her life. This gives the audience insight living though the perspective of her
eyes as they witness the changes of her feelings to moments at different ages as she develops. It is practical in evenly
distributing our lines and presenting our roles as an ensemble. Using the Brechtian technique of multi-rolling meant
we had to be aware of varying our performance skills of voice, body language for the audience to differentiate our
roles when playing other characters. An exercise we used to help us in developing this was hot seating. During our
refining, we used this method of asking one person at a time a series of questions about their character giving them a
backstory and intentions to their action. The audience is unaware of this, but it helped in displaying a tone of voice
and interactions with other characters as we could embody our roles while improvising with understanding. Another
significant moment was the decision to add music and perform a well-known ‘candy dance’ that is seen in parties.
This is presented in our party scene, we wanted to generate upbeat excitement, originally, we just congregated
jumping on stage creating an awkward atmosphere. The choreographed dance meant we would all be synchronised
and more comfortable in our interaction. Being more stylised and unified than the chaos represents the control
Chelsea felt she had before the influence of drugs. While presenting to the audience the setting, the scene emphasises
the dark tone of the next scene. As there shows a clear stark contrast of the joyous filled party shifting to Ella’s
hallucination in fear. This gives a sense of unpredictability in the dynamics of pace and tempo of each scene
reflecting on the unstable mindset of Chelsea. We initially planned to use blackouts for transitioning scenes, this was
impractical as we were missing out on devising opportunities for physical transitions such as movement or motifs. It
would have also disrupted the flow of our piece. No blackout during Ella’s hallucination scene at the party projects a
sense of discomfort for the audience as she is left isolated alone on stage literally-the dark only being her
hallucination- but the stage is lit, revealing the darkness isn’t real. They are watching from an outside perspective
which is harrowing watching her version of distorted reality and cannot help her. To ensure safety, we repetitively
practiced our choral movements in the rehearsal space, blocking positions so nobody tripped or collided.

4.Our play is in the genre of social drama showing realism of Chelsea’s life from youth to adulthood in experiences
from family conflict to homelessness. Portrayed through naturalistic style with elements of experimental techniques
such as Brechtian and metatheatre stylistic forms to emphasise the significant aspects like the use of mime, split
scene and mirroring in Chelsea’s hallucinations and the presence of her thoughts. Our piece was built around a
cyclical structure which was considered for practicality and symbolism. Early in our development process, having
established structure enabled us to construct a plot, then able to improvise more comfortably and have purpose in
devising. The structure mirrors the constant entrapment, never-ending pain that resides in suffering individuals like
Chelsea who lose grips on reality-evident in her hallucinations as her mind plays tricks on her. Ending where we
began means the audience would have further understanding as the plot progresses. The abstract pattern of our
formation at the beginning that dispersed creates complexity and chaos which intrigues the audience to ask questions,
why we are that position and its symbolism. As more is revealed they would have different questions and
perspectives on what is portrayed. An important thing we needed to consider was a physical symbol to represent the
character of Chelsea as we are multi-rolling it must be clear for the audience. We discussed the element of having a
motif such as clothing to show this. Considering health and safety we had to use something that is not a hazard when
wearing. We chose a pink scrunchie that is worn around our wrist. It is practical as it is not distracting yet visible and
easy to identify. It is a symbol of Chelsea carrying her past throughout the play. The colour ‘pink’ signifies.
 Maria Clara Bennett
Candidate number: 3035
Centre number: 12516
GCSE Drama CP 1

childhood, innocence, and naivety that deteriorates over time. To highlight this motif, we utilised it as a transition.
Each transition was the pivotal point where each of us alternated in playing the role of Chelsea from her youth to
adulthood. This significant motion of ‘passing’ the scrunchie demonstrates her attempt to control her life and heal
her inner child despite her deteriorating mental state. We use the vocal element of choral speaking, when playing the
role of thoughts to highlight their importance and unification. The volume of our voices are amplified which creates
impact and mimic the process of Chelsea’s mind-loud voices that command and surround her. Use of metatheatre is
present in breaking the fourth wall during our monologues and duologue pieces that further show the innermost
feelings of Chelsea telling her story, interacting with the audience.

5. One of my main ideas that contributed to the final piece was the opening and closing freeze frame. I suggested that
we be in a circular formation, facing outwards with our arms interlinked in a chain to represent the connection of
thoughts depicting her mind symbolically shown on stage. This helped to show the thoughts are reflections and
extensions of Chelsea’s character. Remaining throughout the entire piece, the linked arms became a physical emblem
of identifying the thoughts. During Macy’s homeless scene as Chelsea, I implemented the inclusion of a hallucination
seeing her past self in a flashback. To show this we used the element of mirroring as a way to portray the relation
between her younger self. Macy goes to hug her, oblivious to her illusion and Lois escapes the embrace during the
freeze frame. The still image mimics the Catalan painting and its themes. Lois joins the thoughts to reveal it was only
their distorted perception. This scene allowed us to use a range of techniques heightening the tension by highlighting
her emotions of regret, isolation, losing grip on reality and transition to the next scene. To link back to themes of
perspective, I proposed the use of duologues between two opposing thoughts of Chelsea. They narrate the internal
conflict of her morals between right and wrong. It is perceived her naivety is swayed by the negative thoughts. To
show the contrast of ‘ the good and evil’ to the audience, we stood in distanced proximity inciting a divided debate,
challenging their principles of the ‘correct’ argument.

6.One of the aims of our piece was to display the life experiences of our character. We demonstrated different
perspectives of her life through each of us embodying the role of Chelsea at significant moments at different ages.
Her thoughts and feelings were presented through monologue and the thoughts. We wanted to clearly show the
differentiation and contrast of her ages but also recognise her as one individual that. I believed this was achieved
through our use of motif and monologue, supported by the audience questionnaire responses, they could distinguish
the points at which the character of Chelsea was alternated through transition. Our main intention was to create
awareness and evoke sympathy for Chelsea, who we wanted to be an emblem of the realities and impacts of mental
health, family conflict drug abuse- stigmatised in society – the theme of the truth which is associated with reality
conveyed in the genre of social drama. We were cautious in depicting the dark themes surrounding the sensitive
topics feeling of fear conveyed panic attack isolation impact on those around her pain voiced by thoughts. On the
questionnaire on a 1-5 scale, everyone felt the maximum sympathy for Chelsea character. The audience became a
part of the performance which evidently fulfilled our intentions where they each had their own interpretations of the
cyclical ending based on their own internal perspectives.