Research: Ruth Ellis

The trial and punishment of Ruth Ellis became notorious as she was the last woman in England to be executed.

The death penalty in the UK was suspended in 1965 and permanently removed in 1970. Ruth Ellis' family campaigned for her murder conviction to be reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation. Through the Criminal Cases Review Commission they brought the case to the Court of Appeal in September 2003. They argued Ellis was suffering "battered woman syndrome"*. She had suffered a miscarriage caused by Blakely just 10 days before the killing of him.

But the appeal judges ruled she had been properly convicted of murder according to the law as it stood at the time. The defence of diminished responsibility did not then exist. 

*The battered woman defense is a defense used in court that the person accused of an assault/murder was suffering from battered person syndrome at the material time. Because the defense is most commonly used by women, it is usually characterised in court as battered woman syndrome or battered wife syndrome.

Dance with a Stranger is a 1985 British drama film, directed by Mike Newell, telling the story of Ruth Ellis.

Plot - A former nude model and prostitute, Ruth is manageress of a London drinking club frequented by racing drivers, living in a flat above with her illegitimate son Andy. Another child is in the custody of her estranged husband's family. In the club she meets David, an immature young man from a well-off family who wants to succeed in motor racing but suffers from lack of money and overuse of alcohol. Ruth falls for his looks and charm, but it is a doomed relationship. Without a job he cannot afford to marry her and his family would never accept her. When he makes a drunken scene in the club, she is fired and made homeless. A wealthy admirer secures a flat for her and her son but she still sees David. When she tells him she is pregnant, he does nothing about it and she miscarries. Distraught, she goes to a house in Hampstead where she believes David is at a party. He comes out and goes with a girl to a pub. Ruth waits outside the pub and, when he emerges, kills him with five shots. She is arrested, tried and hanged.


As well as the film, I watched the documentary 'Ruth Ellis: A Life for a Life' which was produced in 1999.

Key Information

• Ruth murdered David Blakely with a revolver on Easter Sunday 1955 in Hampstead.
• Ruth and David were lovers for 18 months.
• She was a glamorous model from a poor background and he was an adulterous upper-class racing driver.
•  Ellis admitted to her barrister that she 'had always lived a bad life'.
• The court date was on the 14th of June.
• After the shooting, Ruth no longer bothered about her appearance. The blonde dye was fading out of her hair, no longer wore make up etc.
• Throughout the process, she was completely in control and matter-of fact.
• Wanted to be hung so that she could join him - "him" was never classified whether or not she was talking about David or about her unborn son.
• Ruth Ellis entered a plea of not guilty - the fact that she did actually want to be convicted shows how Ellis just wanted to put out her story that she was prepared to tell. She would let the world know the truth.
• The court was completely crowded.
• Reports say that she came in looking like a cold-blooded killer, not vulnerable how newspapers had previously portrayed her. The prison makeover was the defenses idea.
• The court decided to focus on the terrible way David had treated her.
• 'Mrs Ellis, when you fired that revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?' 'It was obvious when I shot him, I intended to kill him'
• In the eyes of the law, Blakely's abusive behavior was irrelevant, resulting in the Jury in just 14 minutes to decide that Ruth was in-fact guilty of murder.
• Ruth was the last woman to be hung in Britain.

• Ellis grew up surrounded by poverty in South London.
• She had 2 brothers, 3 sisters, a depressed mother and a father who had to give up his dreams of being a musician to gain more money.
• Ruth's father was an angry man and would take out his frustration of his daughters. 
• Ruth's older sister Muriel said that he began abusing her at the age of 10.
• Muriel - "While my mother was away he forced me to sleep in the same bed as him and I used to have my back towards the back of him. And when he got into bed, Id be asleep and I used to wake up because he used to put his urm, what can I say, urm his penis between my legs and press my legs down together tight and then he used to perform". Her father got her pregnant at the age of 14 by tying her to a chair and raping her.
• Muriel also remembers Ruth as a young child telling her accounts of her dad sexually abusing her.
• Muriel told the mother that her dad got her pregnant, however she didn't believe her and didn't step in to help.
• The abuse that Ruth encountered as a child could be a reason for her several encounters of abusive relationships when she was older

• A teenager were war broke out, Ruth enjoyed the arrival of allied troops in London.
• By the time Ruth was 17, she had a illegitimate son by a Canadian soldier.
• Her sister Muriel says that Ruth was in love with him however the soldier had to go back to Canada. From there he sent her 2 dozen roses and messages with I love you on them with promises of his return, however, he never came back to London. Ruth's mother later found out that the Canadian solider was married with 3 children.
• This along with the abuse from her father, probably made her feel like this is how relationships are going to be for her, and that she cant do any better.
• Money and the glamorous life was what Ruth wanted - she was eager for the show business lifestyle.
• To try and support her son, Aundre, she took a job at the OXO factory for a while but she quit after a while as it wasn't good enough for her.
• Ruth began to work at The Camera Club, which had a seedy reputation because it enabled groups of men to take glamorous photographs. Although the club didn't encourage pornography, it couldn't prevent private sessions between models and photographers. This was Ruth's first step towards prostitution.
• Ruth's dad himself owned a collection of her nude photographs.
• She then became a hostess, which was effectively prostitution, at a club called 'Mayfair' where she earned over £20 a week.
• At the club she met an older man, George Ellis. He was a dentist but also a drunk. Nevertheless, Ruth married him but unfortunately when he drank, he became violent.
• According to her sister Muriel, he used to lock her in a room where he would nearly beat her to death.
• George Ellis was treated for alcoholism at Wardingham Park Hospital.
• Ruth was convinced that he wasn't getting treated there and thought he was having an affair. At the hospital she confronted him and caused such a scene that they prescribed her anti-depressants that she continued to take for the rest of her life.
• By 1953 Ruth had left George Ellis.

• After her marriage, Ruth returned to London and took up her old ways of being a hostess but this time at Carroll's Club in 1953.
• David Blakely was a 24 year old ex-public schoolboy when he met Ruth who was now the manageress of the club. His only interests appeared to be women, drink and motor-racing.
• Blakely never won a race, but his wealthy step-father kept on providing him money for cars anyway.
• Muriel describes Blakely's face as being emotionless all the time and never showing any character.
• Before long David and Ruth became lovers and he moved into her flat but this didn't prevent Ruth from her activities with clients. Nevertheless, their affair was deeply passionate.
• They both used each other - she enjoyed him bringing the racing crowd down to the club and he enjoyed drinking for nothing.
• Blakely still chased other girls, a reason for the majority of the couples arguments. She chucked him out a few times but he always came back. David would apologise and say everything he would to get his way and then she would always forgive him.
• David was also domestically violent towards her.
• Extreme ups and downs in their relationships: he would hurt her, then apologise and be really nice and then hurt her again, each time making her hope and then breaking her heart.

Assessment Requirements

Greek Theatre

The ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece from c. 700 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political, and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia, which honoured the god Dionysus. Tragedy (late 500 BC), comedy (490 BC), and the satyr play were the three dramatic genres to emerge there. 

Greek theatre buildings were called a theatron. The theaters were large, open-air structures constructed on the slopes of hills. They consisted of three main elements: the orchestra, the skene, and the audience.

Orchestra: A large circular or rectangular area at the center part of the theatre, where the play, dance, religious rites, acting used to take place.

Skene: A large rectangular building situated behind the orchestra, used as a backstage. Actors could change their costumes and masks. Earlier the skene was a tent or hut, later it became a permanent stone structure. These structures were sometimes painted to serve as backdrops.

Rising from the circle of the orchestra was the audience. The theatres were originally built on a very large scale to accommodate the large number of people on stage, as well as the large number of people in the audience, up to fourteen thousand.

The actors were so far away from the audience that without the aid of exaggerated costumes and masks. The masks were made of linen or cork, so none have survived. Tragic masks carried mournful or pained expressions, while comic masks were smiling or leering. The shape of the mask amplified the actor's voice, making his words easier for the audience to hear as well as the theatre's being cleverly constructed to amplify sound.

7 States of Tension

Inner Backbone Scale

Jacques Lecoq developed an approach to acting using seven levels of attention.

7) Tragic - The bomb is about to go off. Body can't move. Petrified. The body is solid                                  tension.

6) Passionate - The tension has exploded out of the body. It's difficult to control. Like                                         a bomb in the room.

5) Suspense or the Reactive - Crisis is about to happen.All the tension is in                                                                              the body. Concentrated between the eyes.

4) Alert or Curious - A lot of indecisive acts. Walking with caution.

3) Neutral - It is the state of tension before anything happens. You move with no story                                behind your movement.

2) Laid-back - Many live at this level of tension. Everything you say is cool, relaxed,                                        casual throw-away line.

1) Exhausted or Catatonic - No tension in the body. Complete relaxation.

Commedia Dell'arte

Commedia dell'arte is a form of theatre characterised by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century and was responsible for the advent of actresses and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios.

The performers played on outside, temporary stages, and relied on various props in place of extensive scenery. The characters of the commedia usually represent fixed social types, stock characters, such as foolish old men, devious servants, or military officers full of false bravado. Characters such as Pantalone, the miserly Venetian merchant; Dottore Graziano, the pedant from Bologna; or Arlecchino, the mischievous servant from Bergamo, began as satires on Italian "types" and became the archetypes of many of the favorite characters of 17th- and 18th-century European theatre.

Commedia Stock Characters

Magnifico 

A variant of Pantalone, popular in the late 16th/early 17th centuries. Whereas Pantalone is usually of the merchant class, Magnifico is more likely to be an elected official or aristocrat, but on the whole there is no significant difference between the two characters. His name suggests grace, generosity and command, all of which he lacks. 

1st Actress and Actor 
Status - High, but brought low by the hopelessness of their infatuation
Physical Appearance - Young and attractive
Mask - No actual mask, but heavy make-up.  Mascara and beauty spots for both sexes. 
Signature Prop - Handkerchief.  Posy.  Fan for women.
Stance - They lack firm contact with the earth.  Feet invariably in ballet positions, creating an inverted cone.  Chest and heart heavy.  They are full of breath, but then take little pants on top.  Sometimes when situations become too much for them, they deflate totally. Always very proud.
Walk - They do not walk as much as tweeter, due to the instability of their base.  First the head leans the other way to the body sway.  Then the arms have to be used, one above the other, as a counterweight.
Movement - Actors would use the same dancing masters as the well-to-do whom they were parodying in order to point up the ridiculousness of exaggerated deportment.  Movement comes at the point of overbalance leading to a sideways rush towards a new focus, with the arms left trailing behind.  Stop at the new point (usually the beloved or some token thereof) before (almost) touching it.  The Lovers have little or no physical contact.  When there is any, the minimum has maximum effect.
Speech - Tuscan, making great display of courtly words and baroque metaphors.  Well read, knowing large extracts of poems by heart (especially Petrarch).  They speak softly in musical sentences - in contrast with the zanni.  Their sentences are often flamboyant, hyperbolical, full of amorous rhetoric.  By the end of the 17th Century in Paris, the Lovers spoke French.

Pantalone
Status - Top of pecking order.  Money.  Controls finance in the character world of Commedia is therefore his orders are usually obeyed
Physical Appearance - Lean and Scrawny, often short in stature.  Early from often has a phallic codpiece
Mask - Long, hooked nose with bushy eyebrows, sometimes also a moustache.  Pointed beard just forward as if to meet the nose coming down, thuse giving a very dynamic profile.
Signature Prop - Gold chain around the neck with a large medallion and a dagger.  – Rudlin
Carried a ubiquitous handkerchief and a money pouch slung before his genitals. 
Stance - His back bends the other way to the zannis, giving him an old man’s stoop, protecting his purse and his penis and effectively restricting the motion of his legs.  The feet are together, toes apart, knees well bent and facing apart creating a focus on the crutch.  However, early illustrations show a much more vertical basic posture, complemented by an erect phallus nestling next to his dagger.  The legs are also much more muscled with the possibility of sustaining extreme forward positions of the torso or making large strides.  The Pantalone of the zannata.  A genuinely magnifigent figure, but there is no inheritance of how to play Pantalone in this way
Walk - The same as for little zanni, but smaller steps.  He can only walk at one pace:  whatever his feet do his legs cannot go any faster, whatever the motive or stimulus
Movement - Can mimic those of any other character, but only in a form diminished by age.  Sometimes falls flat on his back on hearing bad news (usually financial).  Like a beetle, he cannot then right himself
Speech - The actor who assumes this role should have at his fingertips a complete command of the Venetian dialect with all of its variations, proverbs and phrases

Doctor 
Status - Head of another family.  Pantalone with brains that can be quite annoying.
Physical Appearance - He is grande, even grandissimo:  his huge size comes directly from Carnival and contrasts with Pantalone.  Later French types became lean pedants, reptilian like Moliere’s Tartuffe. 
Mask - Covers the nose and forehead only.  The actor’s cheeks are thus revealed and often reddened to show Il’ Dottore’s fondness for the bottle.  According to Goldoni the mask itself has a bibulous orgin:  ‘the idea of the singular mask which covers his face and nose, was taken from a wine stain which disfigured the countenance of a jurist-consult of those times
Signature Props - Book and a white handkerchief.
Stance - Weight back on heels, belly forward, hands gesturing in front.  The later French pedants is more dapper and leans forward from the waist. 
Walk - Walks peripatetically in figures of eight, using tiny, mincing steps.  His walking posture descends while he thinks (out loud, of course) and rises up again on the solution of the problem.  The later French version walks like a lizard, leaning forward, using his head.
Movement - Relatively static in front of the audience. 
Speech - ‘Parps’ like a trombone.  Pronounces ‘S’ as ‘Sh’.  Speaks a mixture of Bolognese dialect, Italian and Latin, known as minestrone.  Later French types fussy in their elocution. 


Columbia
Status - Personal Maid to one of the lovers
Physical Appearance - Initially strong and attractive like a circus artist, later petite and pretty.
Mask - she often wears a mask that usually just covers her eyes
Signature Props - Usually has an apron, a basket, and a tambourine
Stance - One knee bent, the other leg extended.  Slight forward tilt from the hips to show best features.  Tiny waist and wide hips.
Walk - Little flick of the foot at end of grand zanni walk.
Movement - All zanni movements, in any combination.  Movement continues during speaking, shifting balance from one foot to the other and moving the head sharply as if searching for someone other than the person being addressed. Fast and nimble in order to escape unwanted attentions or butt in, then escape from a situation. 
Speech - Sharp, gossipy, with frequent variations of pitch.  Originally Tuscan, but could be any other dialect.

Brighella 

An ill-tempered but intelligent zanni, he is known to be dangerous and may even commit murders or other violent crimes. He is selfish and opportunistic -- as is the case with many of the stock characters -- but unlike the other zanni who are often stupid or at least gullible, Brighella is cunning and can manipulate circumstances in ways that would be beyond the other characters; any failure of his schemings will usually be due to bad luck on his part, rather than any real problem with his plan. He traditionally shows no real sense of honor, and will rob his dearest friend if he finds the chance; and only demonstrates loyalty to others if he discovers it to be to his own best advantage. His name comes from an old Italian word that means "brawl" and so in English his name could be rendered as Brawley. His costume was usually white with green trimmings, and his mask an olive-color or (less-commonly) brown, with a hooked nose. Duchartre describes his traditional hat as a toque with a green border, though most illustrations seem to show Brighella with a peasant's bonnet sometimes called a "muffin hat", similar to what most other zanni commonly wear.

Harlequino 

Perhaps the most popular and definitely best-known of the commedia characters. There are many dubious etymologies of his name, often linking him to mythical beings or spirits, but no one can say for sure whence the word originates. My own best guess, based on information available to me, is that it comes from Frankish karalchin, or "little man" (cognate to the names Karl and Charles.) Harlequin's early costume was a kind of unitard or jumpsuit decorated with patches, meant to indicate a garment so ragged it was more patches than real material. Over time it evolved into the diamond or triangle pattern that has come to distinguish him. Later versions show him in a two-piece outfit made from a shirt and pants. Interestingly, his outfit has always been belted around the hips, instead of at the waist. Harlequin is traditionally portrayed by a physically agile actor and makes use of slapstick and stunts. His character is often not particularly bright though the extremes to which this is taken vary by the scenario. He wears a dark brown or black colored mask, sometimes with a beard or mustache attached. Old style Harlequins often wore a hat made from a dead animal, though from the eighteenth century on a bicorn or tricorn hat has become traditional. Another attribute of Harlequin is a wooden prop -- usually a wooden sword or a wooden stick (originally a slapstick, but later evolutions show it as just a walking stick or cane.) 

Captain  
Status - A loner.  Il’Capitano is never indigenous to the town where the scenario is set and is able to pretent to high status as a result.  His downfall to the level of actual social standing is an essential part of the denoument.
Physical Appearance - Large, whether physically or egotistically, he is a large presence on stage. Designed to attract attention from women and intimidate men.
Mask - ong nosed crocodile mask. – Fletcher
Long nose, often unambiguously phallic. – Rudlin
The mask of the earliest Captains was flesh-colored, and had a great menancing nose which served as the keynote to their character.  It was also provided with fierce, bristling moustaches, which seemed like vertable iron spikes defending the entrance to a citadel only too ready to capitulate.  The mask, in its general aspect, was intended to emphasize the contrast between a brave appearance and a craven nature.  The war-masks of negro-tribes were designed for the same purpose. 
Signature Prop - Sword that he never actually uses for fighting. 
Stance - Feet planted apart in order to occupy maximum space, chest pushed forward, back straight, hips wide
Walk - Mountain walk:  the heels of his high boots come down first, then the foot rolls on to the ball.  Straight back, unlike zanni.  Big strides.  Step off on ball of foot giving lift and bounce to step.  Feet on ground, head in clouds.  (Rises up with each step so head comes above clouds in order to see!)  The actual steps are small (he is in no hurry to get to war, but wants to do so with maximum effect)
Movement - Slow, deliberate and mechanical.
Speech - Loud basso profoundo, turning to castrato squeak when frightened

Zanni 
Status - Bottom of pecking order. Zanni is that regrettably eternal unfortuante, the dispossessed immigrant worker. 
Mask - Originates in the full-face Carnival mask parodying afacchino, but, with the development of the short plays known as Zannata, with improvised dialogue between Pantalone and various zanni, the bottom had to be hinged and was finally cut away altogether. As with other Commedia characters, the longer Zanni's nose, the more stupid he is.
Signature Props - Temporary custodian of anything (especially bags, letters, valuables, food, etc.) that belonds to someone else.
Stance - as a lowered center of gravity; either because he comes from the earth, or as a result of carrying heavy bags and sedan chairs. Zanni stands with an arched back, with his knees bent and apart and his feet splayed. The support knee is bent with the other leg extended, toe pointed. He changes feet repeatedly while talking or listening within the same position and without his head bobbing up and down. The elbows are bend and the arms half lifted. Vertical sleeping is done standing on one bent leg eith the other foot crossed over to the knee. The support side arm crosses the waist to support the other elbow, the arm of which goes vertically up so the palm can provide a prop for the nodding head. 
Walk -  this is a development of the basic stance, foot changing but taking a small step forward on each shift. The shoulders down, elbows forward, feet pointed. The knees come high off the ground and to the side. Use a two-time rhythm in even beats with the head pecking like a chicken, but still without bobbing up and down. Zanni uses this walk when going somewhere, but with no great purpose.
Movement - Dynamic, exaggerated, the head constantly moving independently of body. The quicker-thinker zanni are more agile and their shorter noses permit them to do acrobatics. 
Speech - Loud, open-mouthed: The coarsened voice of someone who makes an outdoor living by making themselves heard in a market or a busy street.