In my first ever drama lesson at Redlands
we were given sheets on Australian
theatre, the background of it and how it has changed up until the present
day and how it has changed over
time. We read these sheets and made key notes in our books which you can see in
picture 5.
Next we chose our groups and we had to
complete activity 1 on “exploring our cultural images”. The task was to create a short
situation in our group that reflects our perception of a typical Australian
situation. We were encouraged to
use particular Australian locations and language ie surfing or at a barbie and
we were encouraged to emphasize the “Australianess” in our scene. Our group chose to go for the surfing
and the typical Bondi Rescue lifesaving scene. Danny and I acted out being life guards and we talked
amongst ourselves about the “hectic” waves and then had to go save the surfer, Elizabeth, from the shark approaching. We ended this scene with a
freeze-frame.
In this scene I worked with Danny and the
new girl Elizabeth who at first was obviously nervous but as we discussed the
scene and acted it out she became more confident. I think we worked well as a team as we listened to each
other and incorporated our ideas into the scene we acted out.
The focus of the lesson was on “what makes
Australians Australian?”. The
goals of the lesson were to improve on our improvisation skills and working as
a team.
We watched a few groups perform. My favourite group was Jemima and
Rhiannon as they acted out a typical surfer dudes on the beach checking out the
beach babes. I thought the use of
the “bogan” language, accents and their movements portrayed a very comical
scene. I think other groups could have improved by making their freeze-frame
last longer to emphasize the ending of their act.
Even though we didn’t get to show our scene
I think we could have improved on our work by embracing the Australian “twang”
accent which I will put forward to the group in our next lesson.
We successfully completed all our work and
we all felt that improvisation was more difficult than we thought but
personally I think we did improve as the lesson progressed.
To improve our scene it would have helped
to perform in front of a crowd and receive their feedback for next time.
As I have visited the globe theatre in
England as my old school helped rebuild it by founding it, I knew a lot about English’s history of
theatre but I loved learning about Australia’s theatre history too.
I was interested in how the costumes may
have changed over time in Australian theatre so I researched and found some
photos, shown in picture 6 and 7.
Out of the two activities we did today I
found the theory part most interesting as from a young age I have been to many
theatres in London and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
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Day dress, silk brocade, about
1841-1846.
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Mans court suit, silk velvet
and silk embroidery, about 1790-1810.
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| handout 1 |
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| notes i wrote about australia theatre |
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| handout 2 |
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| handout 3 |
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| handout 4 |
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