BTEC Drama

We have now begun to revise Act Three. In this section we made small adjustments to my characters vocalisation and body language. At the re-entrance of my character with the line “What’s going on?” we discussed the stance of my character on stage. We found that I came on stage in a very relaxed and feminine way, which was very different to the tense atmosphere of the scene (Katurian is about to be tortured here). One possible way, was for me to stand more upright and distribute my weight in order to mimic the stance of Ariel. This would suggest that my character was trying to gain power over Ariel. The other option was to give the relaxed stance a purpose. For me, one of Tupolski’s key characteristics is that they are largely unfazed by social interactions. I believed that Tupolski did not feel the need to gain power over Ariel because he already believes fully in his position over authority. Therefore, I thought that it would be okay for Tupolski to appear relaxed during this m...

Throughout the story, we are beginning to build a connection between Tupolski at the start and the discovery of his alcoholism. The end of the Three Gibbet Crossroads story is the second time that we have Tupolski stand to get a drink. He then uses it during the line- “ It tells me, on the surface I am saying this one thing, but underneath the surface I am saying this other thing. By gesturing to the “surface” and the “underneath” using the vodka in his glass. Later on in the play, Katurian tells the story of “The Tale of The Town on The River.” When he comes to the line “ and his parents were Drunkards…” we decided to have Tupolski in the middle of taking a drink. This is a more obvious clue for the audience, but it can also tell us something about Tupolski as well. Despite his relaxed attitude so far, there are a few moments where he will react. The mention of “Drunkards” and his decision to stop drinking, shows how he is affected more by his fathers and his own alcohol...

The Three Gibbet Crossroads is a riddle. It makes the reader guess the man’s crime, which is supposedly worse than the two others- worse than a “Murder” or a “Rapist. Katurian believes that the riddle is unsolvable, and even says that “ There is nothing worse”. However in Tupolski’s view the man’s crime is that of murdering children, and is therefore another link into the mounting case building against Katurian. The story is a long section of text, and could be confusing for the audience, so it was important to mark out spaces that could be used to suggest certain characters or places. Therefore we had a specific area on stage to show the other two iron gibbets and also the entrance of the nuns. Furthermore, in our version of the play, Katurian should be representative of the man with the unknown crime.   This is Tupolski’s way of emphasising his belief that killing children is the worst of crimes and that Katurian is guilty of exactly that. This explains the italics on “...

Today we began a revisit of the scenes in order to add another layer of detail to each. This includes building in contextual references, looking at particular lines in more detail and gesture. We started with Scene One, Act One. With Tupolski’s lines we picked out a few in order to add more meaning behind them, making sure we understood the characters motives for the lines. So for example we looked to differ the two lines of “It just looks stupid”. The first we decided should be kinder and have a more light hearted tone. However the casualness of Katurians response leads to a slightly harder and more definite tone which encourages Katurian to agree. There is also a large section where only Katurian and Ariel speak, and so it is important that Tupolski remains active in the scene and doesn’t stop acting simply because he has no lines. We decided that in this section, in keeping with his character, we should have Tupolski analyse Katurian and his reactions to Ariel. I think th...