Unit 2 – Area of Study 2: Interpreting scripts

Outcome 2

Work creatively and imaginatively in production roles to interpret scripts from the modern era.

Examples of lear​ning activities

• Design and pitch a lighting design for a scene from a play from the modern era, highlighting how you use contrast, e.g. a scene featuring Blanche duBois in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Discuss which pitch was most successful, using the language of the elements of theatrical composition.
• Realise scenes from selected texts from three different periods in the modern era, focusing on the characteristic performance style and its associated conventions, e.g. Meyerhold’s use of circus-style effects.
• Recontextualise an extract of a play from the modern era; justify your choices, e.g. set Melissa Reeves’ Salt Creek Murders in present time.
• Choose an extract from a play from the modern era and draw/describe the production areas appropriate to two different contextual interpretations, e.g. an interpretation of Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera set as written and set in St Kilda in the 1950s.
• Direct an extract from a play from the modern era in two distinct styles; justify your interpretations, e.g. direct an extract of Joanna Murray-Smith’s Honour as a comedy and as a tragedy, or naturalistically and non-naturalistically, focusing on two elements of theatrical composition.
• As a dramaturg, write some briefing notes for the director’s first rehearsal of a play from the modern era, e.g. Jane Harrison’s Stolen.
• Apply some of the techniques of non-Western make-up to characters from a modern Western play, e.g. use Kabuki make-up for a production of Dorothy Hewitt’s This Old Man Comes Rolling Home.
• Use multimedia to present a play from the modern era entirely through visuals and sound generated through a computer, e.g. tell the story of Matt Cameron’s Ruby Moon using PowerPoint to present stills (scanned, drawn, painted, digitally photographed and enhanced through Photoshop and/or sourced through other means) and/or video/animations (sourced and/or created) and appropriate music/sounds/sound FX.
• Draw up a list of properties from a play from the modern era; describe how each will be sourced or created; provide designs where appropriate, e.g. the properties required for Louis Nowra’s Cosi.
• Use music, sound and sound FX to capture the mood and some of the narrative flow from a play from the modern era, e.g. Andrew Bovell’s The Secret River.
• Select scenes from three plays from different periods in the modern era and for each one, determine one character’s super-objective; explore the ways in which the character establishes their through-line of action; use emotional recall to apply emotion; apply at least three ‘what if’s’ asking ‘What would the character do if…?’; apply this process in rehearsal, e.g. Martha in Act 1 from Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Select a character from a play and choose an animal that reflects the qualities of the character; carry out a detailed observation of the chosen animal, focusing on the characteristics of movement and sound; create a characterisation based on your observations, e.g. Stanley Kowalski from Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.
  
• Select a script or script extracts from the modern era and take on different production roles to explore how the script could be unpacked and interpreted. Using the elements of theatrical composition as the shared language, analyse how these can be achieved from the perspective of the different roles. Run the discussions as a production meeting.
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  Rehearse excerpts from a play/s of the modern era with the intention of performing it to an audience; apply production areas to enhance the intended meaning of the play, e.g. The Doll Trilogy by Ray Lawler and/or The Coming of Stork by David Williamson.
  

 

​​Detailed example

The Doll Trilogy

Students read The Doll Trilogy by Ray Lawler and as a class they select one excerpt from each of the three plays for rehearsal. Working as an ensemble, they apply a range of production areas, choosing two different elements of theatrical composition to apply to each of the three extracts. These may include:

• Acting: develop characterisation based on a specific acting technique of the modern era.
• Direction: develop a specific interpretation that reflects contemporary values.
• Costume: research the fashion of the three periods; find costumes or adapt existing ones for the performance.
  
• Lighting: discuss the mood of the three scenes with the director. Read the script to establish the time of day in which the scenes take place. Design appropriate lighting to suit the three scenes.
• Make-up: research the style of make-up that was fashionable in the three periods (pre-World War II to the mid-1950s) and experiment with the application of make-up to the actors.
• Props: make a list of props required by the actors; find or make the props and draw up a props schedule indicating where they will be placed at the start of the performance.
• Set: interpret the playwright’s directions as indicated in the play by creating set designs and making or finding set pieces.
• Sound: discuss the mood of the three scenes with the director. Design an appropriate sound bedding to suit the three scenes.