Roses Of Eyam

After we had read the book Roses of Eyam by Don Taylor in drama class we did some practicals to help us with the understanding of the play and to work on our acting skills. Roses of Eyam is about The Plague and home it came to the small village of Eyam in Derbyshire. In the play The Plague killed many of the characters such as; all of the Sydall family, Edward Thornley and William Torre. The first lesson of practicals consisted of us doing sound tracks and still images.

We were placed into groups to do these. A sound track is when you put together sounds o do with a specific topic, this topic being Roses of Eyam, and create an ongoing sound until you reach the finish. A still image is what when you get given a subject to make a picture out of and you freeze into that picture and the audience have to guess what the still image is of. Some groups were better than others in doing the sound tracks.

What worked well: the repetition of key facts, certain words were said altogether by the group, which gave it a more dramatic effect, the contrast some groups had between happy and sad with their emotions while speaking, the level of oise because as you increase the level of noise the more suspenseful and dramatic the sound gets. What didn''t work well: for sound tracks you must get the beat right for all of the words to it together and if not it Just sounds Jumbled up and it doesn''t work well. Still images are fairly easy to do so there was not anything wrong with the still images.

What worked well: in some groups they had the different stages of death, how the plague killed people, height levels, with more people low and only a few high it shows the audience who has the authority and power in the still image, and lastly ll groups had a clear understanding of what they were portraying in the still image. In the second lesson of practicals we worked on role-playing. We were in groups of three because we were working on three specific characters: Mopessson, his wife Catherine and Mr. Stanley.

We were instructed to act out specific scenes and act them in our interpretation of what it would look like. What worked well: the intensity in some scenes, the expression, both facial and emotional, the connection with the characters, the flow at which everyone spoke, the volume of peoples voices and eye ontact with the audience. What didn''t work well: some people begin to laugh while acting and some improvements could have been made to make the scenes more intense and emotional. On the third lesson we acted out our impression of a scene from the past.

The scene was about Unwin and Merril fghting over their first love, Jane Dunnet. Both men loved Joan Dunnet and even proposed to her but she ended up marrying a butcher. It was brought up in one of the scenes whilst they were talking to Mr. Howe. What worked well: many groups had lots of humor in their scenes and did very well to ntertain the audience however with humor comes distraction and laughing during the scene which did happen, some groups had placed their characters well enough so we could see who was who and it was not confusing and lastly one group had accents while pertorming.

In lesson four, we role-played Unwin and Merril''s characters how they are portrayed in the book. All but one group had difficulties and struggled to play old men however some worked while others didn''t. We did quite a lot of work on Unwin and Merril because they are very significant to the story because they are the oldest men in the illage and they had survived the plague.

What worked well: most groups knew that Unwin and Merril do not really get along therefore they put a lot of attitude into their acting which was very good, some people connected with their characters and people had practiced their scenes very well so they knew when to come in quickly to interrupt each other and have a witty conversation. What didn''t work well: some peoples body language didn''t work because they weren''t crouched over like an old man would be and they weren''t walking slowly so they didn''t really recognize that

Unwin and Merril are old men so you have to act like old men, some people were blocking while doing their scenes which makes it hard for the audience to see, and some people were not focused and were either forgetting their lines or laughing while they were acting. And finally on the last day we did some more research into Mompesson''s character however we did it differently this lesson. Instead of Just acting what we think is him we acted out a nightmare Mompesson wouldVe had about the people in Eyam and/or his family.

This consisted of making him feel scared because he wasn''t going to be here for his family or he would be unable to help the people of Eyam because of the plague and so on. What worked well: some groups ended very well because they ended it with suspense and drama, having a low tone of voice is good in a nightmare because it creates more suspense, the intensity levels, facial expressions, also whoever was acting out Mompesson had to have a lot of emotion because it was a nightmare and it was scary to him. What didn''t work well: some groups ended up blocking therefore the audience couldn''t see.