Emily Positive and Work Positive

Emily Positive

We decided that we would flow straight from the club scene into the montage of Jack and Emily’s relationship, helping to separate them through the use of a music and lighting shift into to create a distinction between the two. We thought that a montage would be the best way to show the development of their relationship and build a connection and understanding of their relationship with the audience. By doing this we thought we could make the audience more invested in the relationship so that in the final scene, the argument and ending of the relationship would have more of an effect on the audience. In this way they would be able to empathise more with Jack. We picked out key moments that we could use to make repeating motives, such as the meal and Christmas memories where they both shared a drink together as well as the engagement and the final scene where Emily would give back the ring.

Work Positive

We wanted to develop Nasifa’s character and also change the positioning of the scene. We decided that we would place Nasifa on the highest point on the stage to give an immediate suggestion of her having a position of power over the other workers. We worked on introducing her character by giving her moments of interaction with the other workers. We decided that it was unrealistic to make her a mean and terrible boss and we didn’t want the audience to resent the boss for eventually firing Jack but rather see that Jack had caused his own problems. Therefore we wanted to show moments where the boss had positive and friendly interactions with the other characters, for example a friendly wave hello and a small conversation with each one.

We also wanted to introduce Jacks alcoholism into the first scene. At the start of the play, we wanted to show more the positive aspect of alcohol from Jacks point of view. We introduced movements when he would take small sips from a flask. Each time he took a sip we would turn on music, and each time the music came back it would become louder and eventually the other workers would join in with Jacks dancing. We thought that this would help reflect Jack getting drunker- the workers dancing would seam surreal and therefore hopefully support the idea that the scene was from Jacks perspective rather than accurately portraying the actions of the real workers. Whilst for everyone else work would stay the same, for Jack it was becoming increasingly more interesting and therefor easier to manage. It seems that in this instance Jack is using alcohol as a coping mechanism for getting through a boring day- he much prefers the excitement of nightlife and music which comes with being young.

In my opinion, Jack is reaching a point in his life where he is starting to transition from youth into adulthood. He hovers on a point where he still remembers what it’s like to have crazy nights out but the life is moving on. He has the responsibility of a job, the turning point of becoming engaged and friends who are transitioning across this divide alongside him and no longer want to spend every night out. It’s at this point that alcohol becomes something else, rather than simply being a part of life, it becomes a way of keeping him from crossing this point and therefore remaining in his youth. For this reason it becomes a problem, he brings it into the adult aspects of his life, such as his job, where alcohol should not be involved.