GCSE FINAL PERFORMANCES
The accomplished work which students presented for their practical exam provided a fantastic coda to the end of the Year 11 GCSE course, writes Kathryn Norton-Smith
With a focus on returning to the women in their lives who must now share the physical and psychological aftershocks of their service, these young actors again fused naturalism with expressionistic physical theatre tropes to skilfully convey that for Arthur, Hads and Taff their journey home is their greatest battle. ‘What are we? Humans? Or animals? Or savages?’ Nigel Williams’ adaptation of William Golding’s iconic 20th-century novel, with all its rawness and savagery, lays bare brutal and serious themes, and – holding the mirror up to nature – reveals the savagery within us all. Yet the narrative is not just about boys who become savages, it’s about democracy, civilisation and fundamental philosophical questions about the world, and the onstage action captivates, as, freed from social restraints, what would normally be every- day playground gang warfare becomes something altogether more tribalistic. In the staging of their extracts, Will Carter, Natey Wil- son, Toby Polli, Derin Sevin and Elliott Seward con- jured a prologue of the plane crash, underwater peril and ultimate fight for survival in a group of school children washed up on an inhospitable desert island. They laid bare the battle raging between civilisation and savagery, unsettling us with visceral depiction of hunting without consequence with truthful and charged performance work. ◎
S tudents staged extracts from Owen Sheers’ verse drama Pink Mist and Nigel Williams’ adaptation of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Pink Mist illuminates the effects of the devastating conflict in Afghanistan and the human cost of modern warfare. Lord of the Flies is the classic story of survival, superstition and immorality, tracing the inexorable journey from the survivors’ first dream-like awareness of their situation to a demonic nightmare. All three groups integrated a densely detailed language of athletic movement and physical theatre techniques with deft and nuanced char- acterisation, to outstanding effect. ‘Who wants to play war?’ Owen Sheers’ verse drama takes its name from a mili- tary term for the spray of blood that mists the air after a sniper or roadside bomb attack. Inspired by interviews with returning soldiers, it confronts uncomfortable truths about the realities of war, including blue-on-blue inci- dents and what happens when a six-foot-two man loses his legs and is reduced to four-foot-three, but is still determined to stand tall. It confronts the cycle of love and grief and revenge that fuels war, the desire of boys to try to be men in whatever ways they can, and the mental scars that never fade. It also heartrendingly articulates the experience of the mothers, wives and girlfriends who pick up the pieces.
Three young friends from Bristol (Arthur, Taff and Hads) join the army and are deployed to Afghanistan. They enlist to escape from home and dead-end jobs (‘what’s next after Next?’), but none of them returns in one piece physi- cally or psychologically, and the women left to pick up the pieces are themselves casualties of war. In the first iteration, staged by the ensemble of Wilf Patten, Xavier Wild, Rufus Angel, Calum Skinner and Frank Gibbons, we witnessed a prologue of playful war games in the playground, through to an obsession with video games and finally to Camp Bastion and armed combat. Their skill at shifting mood and atmosphere had us on the edge of our seats from the downbeat. The ensemble employed naturalistic techniques to inhabit their characters to believable effect, and also wove in height- ened physical expressionistic movement to make manifest inner feelings and play the shifting locations, including the relentless beats at the Thekla club, a desolate spot on Clifton Suspension Bridge, and the panic and chaos of combat in the field. This was ensemble playing of the highest dramatic order, displaying a maturity beyond their years and showcasing some highly impactful and daring lifts and physical theatre. The quartet of William Bradley, Saverio Jones, Henry Yang and Yanis Djemai also presented extracts of the three young Bristol men deployed to Afghanistan, highlighting in their choice of extracts the mental scars that never fade.
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THE ALLEYNIAN 711
DRAMA & DANCE
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