SPA- 1984 -3

In todays lesson we broke off into groups of two and then all read and staged from half way down page 43 till page 45 in which Winston and Julia are having a casual conversation about various goods such as real coffee and chocolate (that all have rations and are usually of poor quality) that Julia has gathered from her links with members of the party. Yet more importantly in this extract that we ran through we discover what Winston's biggest fear is, Rats. It is interesting Winston's biggest fear is revealed to us as this is what would be in room 101 if Winston to were to ever end up there. I worked with Oliver K to work through this extract and after reading through it we agreed that it were to be played naturalistically but couldn't derive much else from what we had been given as this is the first time we got a chance to learn about these characters. After reading through the stage directions we decided that Winston although older than Julia is definitely the one who has more input throughout their relationship, due to her having to look after him and reassure him. Oliver played Winston to be not necessarily scared but more paranoid and on edge whist I played Julia to be loving and concerning but at the same time, in a world of her own. As me and Oliver were the last to perform out of the class, we got to listen to the others pairs feedback which prevailed to be to play the characters more mature as they are supposed to be in their thirties, however me and Oliver decided to play them as we had rehearsed to as we felt that from the information we had, we played them to fit that as accurately as possible.




We then broke off into groups of two or three again to work on different passages from the play. I worked with Katya on the prologue that comes from the 'Voice'. As we were working on the opening to 1984, which is already known to be a conglomerate play we wanted to have a homogeneous feel to it, as the opening for such a captivating play should be just that from start to finish. We started with our backs to the audience and both said the opening line: 'In that moment, it became real' and then spun to have intense derisive eye contact with the audience whilst saying a line or two each but both saying certain words, we decided to emphasize the following: death, watched, particular individual, all the time, faltered, pin down, no difference, the Thought Police, he had committed,  Thoughtcrime, concealed, get you, wiped out, denied, forgotten, unpersoned, future, unborn, doublethink. We decided to put intensity on to these words as although we don't know how the play ends we feel that all of the above will be significant and add to the feel of the play. We also looked at each other when saying these words, in a cunning / knowing way to allow the audience to know that although we are telling a story, (due to it being based on individual perception) they cannot be prepared for what they are to witness.