swed Essays

swed Essays swed Essay swed Essay Student Written Evaluation Document The stimuli for my devised piece is Machinal written by American playwright and journalist Sophie Treadwell and premiered on Broadway in 1928. Treadwell wrote the play based on the true events that unravelled around New Yorker Ruth Snyder who killed her husband in her unhappy marriage and was executed by electric chair; Ruth was the first woman to be executed by electric chair since 1899 which provoked the significance of her story. Treadwell explores the themes of isolation, oppression and female objectification all of which I took on board and intend to include in my devised iece. Sophie Treadwell explores the pain of women in an unhappy marriage and how they coped with their emotions in a male dominated society and in-particular Ruth Snyders story under the strict control of her husband, in the play portrayed as machine like hence the name Machinal meaning machine. The metaphor title as machine reflects the womens role in society at the time to be a machine, to procreate and be housewives throughout their lives whilst men work. Machinal explores how women were sexually objectified and women had to deal with the patriarchal society and position in a marriage. One key area she explores is how Mrs Jones is a victim of marital rape which was legal at the time it was written but more importantly only became illegal in America in 1993, a fact I personally found shocking which evoked me to base my expressionistic devised piece on martial rape to highlight what happens behind closed doors in society and make my audience aware of an issue that still persists today. Treadwell was the first expressionist writer to look at a story of this magnitude from a females perspective and empathises with her rather than immediately persecuting her. Cary M. Mazer said in her article Why is everyone uddenly doing an obscure 1928 play? that only Treadwell and Susan Glaspell depict womens issues from a womens perspective, which confirms Treadwells feminist approach to this play and the political thrust the plot portrays. Firstly I did some additional research into the key elements of expressionism, originally a German theatre phenomenon, to evaluate further Treadwells theatre techniques and directorial decisions. The main characteristics utilised are dream imagery, choral speaking, declamatory dialogue, simplification of characters, physical theatre and heightened intensity. Choral speaking is my favourite expressionistic devise to create a non-naturalistic atmosphere as the layering of the voices creates a lost story theme and a lack of voice from the victims and the dominance of others in their story especially the attacker. I have used all of these drama mediums in past productions and exercises and want to use these in our devised piece to create a coup de theatre for my audience to further emphasise the theme of rape. Treadwell uses expressionism devises to emphasise a females routine lifestyle in a non-naturalistic way an idea I want to use in our piece to portray in a more outrageous way the bjectification of women and their lack of power within a marriage. I also did some further research into rape in society and rape from a male perspective and a female perspective to understand further Sophie Treadwells approach to the stimuli and gain an insight on the psychology behind rape and why the attackers commit the final piece outcome as the monologue material statements from rapists are crude and shocking and will create the effect of realisation for my audience. Beginning our piece with the court scene we have used the technique of multi-role playing that we sed frequently in AS to promote the devises of non-naturalistic theatre. All of us playing multiple roles throughout the piece stops the audience relating to the characters and also reflects rape as something that can happen to anyone rather than a single individual. Also we used Brechtian devises to portray our characters to use our piece to create reaction from our audience rather than Just to entertain our audience on visual level, to introduce a political perspective and an issue of society. Our desired performance outcomes are to shock our audience about the behind the cenes of marriages in the 1920s but also to highlight that the issues displayed in our piece continue today, women are objectified in the same way but do not speak out about it and if they do the aggression become worse. We are including one scene which involves a bar where two husbands are announcing to the crowd that wives are for sexual pleasure and the objectification of women is not something that should be stopped, the wives speak up and take the punishment for it, we use the devise of role reversal in this scene between the two women to display how it is a problem for ll women not Just one individual. Furthermore I think this scene will create an alarming reaction from our audience as the end of the scene we use symmetry between the two couples to show the violence within the marriage and the lack of escape as the stage plunges into darkness. We have emphasised out piece more on rape and tried to display female objectification so as to Justify more promptly Ruth Snyders actions against her husband and support Treadwells view on martial rape as Cary M. Mazer states the Justification of her actions she goes to the electric chair efeated, humiliated, stripped of her power and shorn of her hair nonetheless triumphantly unrepentant. When reviewing the stimuli I decided to pick out the scenes which underlined the themes I wanted to depict the most, I started the performance with the end court scene to emphasise more the persecution women went through in their attempt to bring to a halt the objectification they were experiencing. I placed the woman above the prosecutors as she seems to be in a dreamlike state and it highlights her vulnerability and also shows her strength and self-justification of her actions. As the scene continues there is a dream imagery sequence that I put together to highlight her loneliness, also when she reaches out for her from another female she is aggressively rejected stressing her lack of support from other females and to show irony of how she has made a stand for women and her prosecutor is female. Another scene I picked out from Machinal directly was the labour scene which I found distressing and would be perfect to show the audience the internal thoughts of these women who are objectified as part of married life; I focussed on the monologue and adapted it to be spoken by two females to put mphasis on the element that any woman can experience this abuse. I choreographed the males into this duologue to emphasise not only the internal pain of being raped within a marriage but to also shock the audience by displaying the physical aspect of this too. My second scene features the essential non-naturalistic devise of magic realism and stereotypical two dimensional characterisation of a lifestyle where the male and females are dancing and enjoying themselves. However previously before the dancing begins I added a sense of foreshadowing by having all of my husband and wife characters doing everyday things in a peculiar manner; one an is reading a newspaper upside down and another smoking the wrong end of a cigar, one female ironing her own body and one pouring tea and missing the cup, these aspects of magic realism create foreboding and I enjoyed using this strong expressionistic devise. Eventually as the dancing progresses the music becomes distorted and the dancing becomes more aggressive and abusive until the point where the music ends and the female partners are thrown to the floor. I also decided to feature a proposal scene within the devised piece to show the male and females priorities in relation to marriage in that time and also their internal motions about the arrangement. I used choral speaking and layering to overall portray a tense atmosphere and different perspectives, Firstly the females, she is stood at the front speaking how she should about the marriage arrangements but behind her is an physicalisation of her internal emotions as another girl lays on the floor bleeding and repeating the word cunt getting louder and more distressed as the male approaches. This use of voice is a common theme in Machinal and I wanted to use it in my piece to create gradual climax in a sense and also portray to an udience the confusing nature of a 1920s proposal. Also the blood from the females genitals further emphasises the females vulnerability and exploitation as it has connotations of menstruation and child birth, a pain every female goes through. The scene ends as the male embraces the woman forcefully, kisses her and takes her away as the internal version of herself tries her hardest to stop them she is not visible to them and is hopeless in stopping the marriage between them, this also more broadly highlights how a females feeling and opinions are hidden and not acknowledged in society.