Our Piece is on Chapter two, straight from the beginning. Our Theatre in Education piece was about anorexia and eating disorders. We decided that Pink’s Perfect song would be apt for our piece and so at 0:00:01, Imogen is singing this song as the audience enter.
Imogen commences with her narration at 0:02:07 after the audience is in and settled. My monologue begins at 0:02:34 and the full cast acting starts at 0:03:00. This is where Emily and Courtney come in and notice the dress on the skeleton. At 0:03:06 they take the dress of the skeleton and look horrified. Then Imogen begins another monologue after a short pause of noticing the dress. The actors are in a freeze. At 0:03:30, the children get curious and start asking questions as to what’s wrong and if they can try it on. 0:03:42 is where I begin another monologue. This one is about how I suddenly felt the colour drain from my face, and about how proud of my daughters I am and their amazing and healthy bodies. At 0:04:26 Emily attempts to pull on the dress, she fails and gets curious as to why. 0:04:43 is where I explain about my shame. Then I explain to them how I feel at 0:04:48 and from here at 0:04:58, Emily and I begin our physical theatre set up. The mirror scene and physical theatre starts at 0:05:09. This is a key point in our Performance and many of the audience members explained how they understood and liked this part of the piece. 0:05:28 is where Emily and the jibing begin. She tries to mock me, make fun of me, and drives me to anorexia. During this, Emily begins to chant Fat, Trapped, Alone at 0:06:17 then I join in at 0:06:30 and the break down in tears at 0:06:43. This is the Brecht: Tickle, Slap method.
At 0:06:45 I begin my ‘Diet Diary’. This is where I list all the things I have eaten for the past three days. At 0:07:24 Emily tells me I need to try harder. My diet suddenly changes for the next four days at 0:07:33. Courtney enters at 0:08:07 and I faint at 0:08:12. I explained how I was okay but was in hospital for three weeks at 0:08:22. The mirror scene was over and Imogen’s Narration began again at 0:08:29. Emily, Courtney and I started setting up the performance space back to how it was at 0:08:35. Imogen finished her monologue as I began my last one at 0:09:03. The performance finished at 0:10:09 and we bowed and receive applause at 0:10:10. We introduced the hot seating workshop and I left the room at 0:10:35 and at 0:10:52, they spent a minute thinking about a question to ask me. At 0:12:02, I entered the room to begin the hot seating workshop. At 0:13:19, a child asked a really good question. He asked what I would do if my daughters became anorexic. I really liked this question as it proves he understood the character roles as he recognised that Emily and Courtney were my daughters. It is also nice that he is turning the question and issue round on me to see what I would do as an onlooker of this problem. At 0:16:20, another boy asked what would I do if somebody called me fat now? I also liked this question as it shows his curiosity of the issue and it gives people a deeper background of anorexia. At 0:17:12, we finished the hot seating and started to hand out the questionnaires we set.
At 0:18:27 we began a full group video assessment. At 0:18:33 Chloe said she liked the mirror scene and elaborated on what it showed. This made me smile as it shows that they understood it was a mirror and understood what the scene was about. At 0:21:04, a girl called Bethany said she thought it was good how we sent the message that you can look pretty in your own way and that you shouldn’t worry what people think of you. A girl at 0:24:39 said that she didn’t join in the Fat Trapped, Alone chanting because she felt it was mean.
