Q1

How is the material being researched and developed at significant stages during the process of creating drama?

• Main themes that interested the group: Abuse, police misconduct, mental illness and isolation.
• The first stimulus we had was the play 'That Face' in which the diversity of the piece majorly intrigued I and the group.
• Explored various aspects of mental illnesses and abandonment. 
• I was interested in Mia's character as she was forced into a boarding school, this led to me thinking about slavery and how they also have no choice in the matter.
• Many horrific instances of slavery.
• Margaret Garner stabbed her two year old son to rescue him from slavery - emphasises the disgusting conditions of it.
• 12 Years A Slave to understand the life of a slave better.
• Sense of being trapped was also evident in Chicago: a prison full of women who all believe they are innocent but in actual fact are guilty.
• Most of the women were in prison due to fighting back their abusive husbands, resulting in me researching more about abusive relationships.
• 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will be a result of abuse in their lifetime.
• 2 women each week murdered by their abusive partner.
• Domestic violence is the leading reason for homelessness.

Collectively, at stage one in the process of creating drama, we began to devise a mind map illustrated with ideas and possible themes for our play: Abuse, police misconduct, mental illnesses and isolation were the main subject matters that intrigued the group and I, resulting in our focus to be that of imprisonment. Having a leading topic idea, we began to explore and read a script of a play titled ‘That Face’ which contained references to mental health, being an outcast of a family and having a large amount of responsibility at a young age: Henry, the oldest sibling, is left in charge of his mentally deranged mother who relies far too heavily on drink and drugs, in which they share an unnaturally close relationship. He also cares for his younger sister who is a troublemaker at a boarding school her mother sent her to. These are all accounts of metaphorical imprisonment as all of the issues single each character out and made them feel figuratively trapped in their head. The idea of metaphysical imprisonment triggered us as a group to think about whether or not our imprisonment will be literal or symbolic, whether our characters are actually trapped in a prison or just ensnared in themselves. All cases within this play are examples of being part of the minority which led me to explore other instances of this such as traumatic events. From this, I began researching more about slavery and survivor stories in order to enable me to understand the traumatising situations they were put through. By reading a variety of articles on slavery on the internet, I discovered Margaret Garner who killed her two year old daughter with a butcher knife; she would rather do that than see her child return to slavery. This emphasises how torturous slavery would have been. As I wanted to deepen my understanding of this, I watched ’12 Years a Slave’, a film about a once free man who was kidnapped in Washington in 1841 and then sold into slavery. The film depicts his struggle and the disastrous conditions for 12 years until he finally leaves. Taking a more modern approach, I looked at other examples that people could feel trapped, like a slave would have done. By exploring the sense of confinement, I watched ‘Chicago’ to get a more literal sense of being imprisoned. One particular scene that struck my interest was the cell block tango in which the tightly choreographed scene announces how each woman got put into prison in a highly stylised, symbolic manner. The majority of the women became guilty by murdering their abusive partners. This factor and slavery led me to exploring domestic abuse. At first I researched statistics to do with domestic abuse which revealed that 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men will experience it in their life time, that it leads to two women being murdered each week and 30 men per year and is the single more quoted reason for becoming homeless. By reading people’s own experiences, it became evident that domestic abuse caused long-term effects as well, mostly mentally, such as depression, paranoia and anxiety.