UNIVERSE PRESENTATION

Bassett

James Graham

INDEX

Repatriation & Wars

the play

Themes

Character analysis

ProceSS

Secondary role

Evaluation

reflections

logs

1.About the play

What is the play about?

The play begins with Student from Wotton Bassett School (Leo, Rachel, Kelly, Zoe, Graeme, Jonathan, Lucy, Shanti, Joane and Amid ) in a lesson with their supply teacher Miss Kirmani, The teacher ends up leaving sas the students were messing around and locks them inside rhe classroom while a repat is happening outside in the streets. On this day the coffin of one of their old pupils Charlie is being flown back, which led to students having mixed reactions about the repat, as some had a deep connection with Charlie which will later be revealed as the play goes on.

What else has he written?

who wrote the play?

• Dear England - 2019
• This house - 2012
• Boys from the Blackstuff - 2023
• Quiz - 2017
• Labour of love
• Finding Neverland - 2014

and a couple others.

James Graham is a british playwright and screenwriter, he is famous for his work that has been all over the UK and internationally at theatress such as Royal Court Theatre, National Theatre, Soho and many others.

where is Wotton bassett?

Royal Wotton Bassett or formely Wotton Bassett is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire. The town is famous because of its role in the early 21st century for funeral repatriations which passed through the town. The town paid tributes during military repratritation funeral processions which passed through the town and these processions attracted a lot of media attention

What are the main themes?

• War & Conflict
• Struggle of Young people
• World after war
• Trauma of war
• Discrimination and different points of view

Why is it relevant?

This is relevant because the play talks about war and mentions it quite a lot, as the play also includes different views that the charcters have and what their opinions are on war and the repat as some have a positive view but others have a negative view, and one example of a negative view would be the character of Leo, as he is very eager and has strong opinions in this topic of war, he speaks his mind and tells everyone in the class how he feels about the repat as he says that he doesnt want the repat to end, almost as if he wants to see more coffins go past, almost as if he enjoys seeing the sight of death right infront of his eyes and the thought of other people having to see coffins of dead relatives being carried throughout the strets of Wotton Bassett and having to contain their emotions while something so sad is seen as patriotism and bravery.

2.repatriation & WARS

WHAT IS A REPATRIATION?

Returning an item or a person to their nation of origin is known as repatriation. Both the return of military men to their home nation after a conflict and the conversion of foreign currency into one's own currency are examples of non-human things that may be referred to by this word. It also holds true for foreign officials, expatriates, migrants, and diplomatic envoys (diplomatic ranks). Expatriates -Individual temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of their citizenship. Migrants - migrants are defined as people born outside the UK that come from countries all over the world. dilpomatic envoys - Diplomatic ranks, envoy (meaning title)

Wars in britain:

Since the Act of Union in 1707, Britain has been involved in over 120 wars across 170 countries. Throughout its history, it has faced defeats at the hands of many enemies, including the Americans, Russians, French, Native Americans, Africans, Afghans, Japanese, and Germans.

3.Youth & the idea of war vs harsh reality

The students, specially characters ike Leo, represent youth, idealism, and a slight naivety about war. They join the military or be inspired by it as joining the war is seen as a sign of patriotism, however this may give young people a positive view of war but however as they join and go onto the battle field they will soon realise that there is a much harsher reallity as they are putting themselves in danger and risking their own lives for it to be seen as "patriotic" and a sign of bravery which really isn't as it harms young people's minds and destroys their mental state. The fact that the students are locked away from the repat ceromony serves as a reminder that they are shielding themselves from the emotional truth of war.

As they watch the repat from a far they slowly start to realise and question how can the image of war be even romanticized as the image they have been given in their mind didn't corrolatte with what they were seeing , as this also made them reflect on the true consequences of what they were learning in citizenship class, almost forcing them to acknowledge the gap between the idealistic view of war and the harsh reality of it.

4.character biography

What does she think of other characters?

Shanti- I would say that Lucy and Shanti aren't close but they dont mind each other as they would probably become good friends as Shanti doesn't speak much but she still has an impact with what she says throughout the play. Kelly- Lucy is indiferent to Kelly as sometimes she is a little mean to Lucy and picks on her from time to time because Lucy doesn't speak much, and also Kelly is more of the popular girl but i would say she wouldn't mind being friends with Lucy as she as not hatred for her. Rachel- Rachel is a really nice friend with Lucy even tho they may not be as close, as Rachel is also a popular girl but she is nicer compared to kelly, as she doesn't bother the others and stands up for others if they are being picked on or bullied. Zoe- Zoe is Lucy's closest friend as they seat next to each other in class, and Zoe also defends Lucy most of the time from Kelly or Leo and, Lucy also helps Zoe with any class work as she is the student in class with the best grades and behaviour as she stays out of trouble and is always helping anyone like Graeme, Amid or Jonathan if they need any help. Amid- Lucy doesn't really feel anything towards Amid as he is just a chill person and stays in his own bubble as he doesn't bother anyone, and he is also one of the good students. Graeme- Lucy doesn't really care about Graeme as most of the class pretends like he doesn't exist as he is the nerd and weird quiet kid of the class. Jonathan- Lucy doesn't reallly care about Jonathan either as he is like Graeme, a nerdy student in class that does their work, they also dont have many interactions. Dean- Lucy is indiferent to Dean as he is the weird student of the class and almost half 0f the class finds him disgusting. Russel- I would say that Lucy doesns't hate Russel but rather thinks that he is a funny guy as he is the class clown and entertainer, as he lightens up the mood most times. Spencer- I would say that Lucy doesn't hate Spencer as he is the quioet kid who obbeys the rules, just like her, but from time to time Spencer spits out random histpry facst which make him seem smart for a few seconds before getting dismissed by the popular girls.

Lucy's biography & views

Lucy was born on October 10th 1996 in Wiltshire. Lucy had always been a quiet and reserved child as she had small friend groups and did'nt speak much has she had developed speech problems at the age of 7. lucy was also an only child coming from a small and reserved family, so she didnt have the habit of making many friends or being a social butterfly, as she mostly spend her time alone with herself and her two pet huskies Nero and Camron. Later on as she went to secondary school she started to come out of her shell, and started to make a few friends in her class, thats where she met a few characters like Zoe,Shanti, Rachel, and Joanne which she trusted as they would defend her agaisnt any form of bullying. She also met Leo a frenemy that she once knew as they had been great childhood friends until she discovered, some dirty secrets about him and started to notice drastic changes in his behaviour, as he is also seen as the bully of the school and the bad guy, with a bad reputation. I would say that the character of Lucy thinks that the character of Leo is nothing but a selfish hypocrite, that only thinks of himself and likes to make fun of others as his brain functions differently, because to him there is no wrong in his opinion and even if he is wrong, he will say whatever comes to his mind and he won't care about what others think which make him selfish and a self-centered idiot. She also knows most of his secrets as she had been part of his past, specially when it comes to the character of Charlie as Lucy is the only one that knows what happened between the two of them, therefore her thinking he is an hypocrite as he talks as if he is the greatest, but when the truth comes to light he becomes quiet and freezes.

5.intentions

What were lucy's intentions during each scene?

Lucy not speaking at the beggining of the play has a significant impact on the play as each scene builds up to what she really has to reveal later towards the end of the play. At the beginning of the play Lucy stays quiet as the caos unfolds in the class as she is doing her work, while the others mess around,until the door is shut and they are locked in class, at that moment she panics a little bit but stays calm, as she just looks around, looking at the others as she is as confused as everyone was at that moment, she does panic and her intentions at that moment are to figure out what's happening as she listen to the others conversations as they decide on what to do next. Towards the middle of the play Lucy's intentions change as she hears the conversations between the others and somehow every conversation darts back to the case of Charlie and Leo as the more Leo speaks the more hate and rage Lucy builds up as she stays silent but glares at him, holding eye contact almost as if it was a threat warning as she was the only one who knew the truth and she could easily gaslight and manipulate Leo if she wanted tobut, she chose not and keep her silence until the right time as she continued to hear the others arguing back and forth. Towards the mid-end when tension starts to build up in the classroom, Lucy's intentions are changed again as at this time Graeme had turned on the laptop and put on the news of the repat as they all watched, some in horror others speechless, and Lucy's intentions at that moment were to see if she finally had a chance to speak she was still in shock from what was happening with the repat but she kept her cool and stayed quiet. When it gets to Lucy's monologue part her intention is to be heard and to expose all the secrets that she had been keeping on her mind all along, as this is her time to shine and get the attention from the class, as she goes on and tells everyone and about Charlie and Leo's involvement which leaves everyone shocked as they never expected that from a egotistic bully, after Lucy is done with her inner monologue she feels proud and relief that she exposed the school's biggest bully. Lucy's intentions during Spencer's monologue towards the end of the play aren't seen much as she has no intention if being heard but she hears Spencer speak and listens clearly as he goes on to talk about the effects of the war and how it has impacted brittain leaving Lucy and the other characters emotional as they remain quiet only listening to Spencer's monologue.

6.Inner monologue

Lucy's thoughts throughout the play change as me playing I kept on thinking on how am I going to make this character stand out and what skilss i would apply to each line, such as tone, pitch, breath and other skills that would help to define this character and make it seem understood, I also thought of thinking more like my character and think about what would Lucy do and how would she react to certain scenes and for that I thought to use my body to show emotions of fear, shock, disgust or stiffness depending on the emotion portrayed, and to use my face to make reactions bigger and better and to make it easy to read. I also tried to erase other thoughts about myself and become the character and be able to come out of my comfort zone and play around with intentions of what the character would be thinking during scenes that im speaking and the scenes where im not, which is from beginning to the middle of the play as i have small interactions with other students, and with those small interactions I try to play it off as the character and embody the emotions

7.logs

In the beginning of lessons my character that I played Lucy wasn't fully develop yet, as when we first did our read through i read as the character of Shanti which is completely different to my character as this character is more outspoken but still gets shoved to the shadow a bit as the she is targeted by Leo anytime she wants to say something. After that lesson I went home and read through the play again as i really enjoyed and loved the play, as it had a mix of trouble, caos, funny moments and a few life lessons. As we began to look at the play in more dept we started to form ideas about what it could be about, as some ideas i got at first were that the play is set in a school and students were locked inside a classroom, but as i read over and over it again i started to slowly understand the play and see it come together as at first i had no idea what a repat was until I searched it and found out that it was when coffins from soldiers that fought in war were brought back to their country, and this was something new I learned, I also found out that the Nazi simble had a name which was Swastika, as it isn't only a Nazi simble but this simble is also used for other religions such as Budhism and Hinduism. With this I began to do more research on the play to fully educate myself and for me to have a rough idea of what it is about and for me to be able to summarise it. As the roles were finally assigned I was finally able learn more about the character of Lucy and get more help from my tutors as they gave me all the help that i needed in order to play the character's intentions really well, also when it came to making her biography I did more research about the area the school was located which was Wotton Basset and picked a city near it where Lucy would be born in which was Wiltshire. While on set for me to be able to remember where my character was stood or sat it wasn't very difficult as my character didn't move much as i stayed sat during the begin and middle of the play but i made sure to adjust my position and look at someone whenever they were speaking making sure to not make the character get lost in the audience's eyes as i focused whenever we rehearsed and outside of rehearsals i made sure to go over my lines and figure out how to make my character's intention be seen, even towards the end as i decided to keep a still sad facil expression during Spencer's final monologue.

8.production role

The production role i choose was Costume design as i have a passion for fashion and i also did art GCSE and in parts of my course i exolored fashion photography and the fashion industry as i really love to put outfits together and make them come to life. For the next part i decided to use pinterest to help generate more ideas for the outfits as we wanted it to be a non-formal uniform style, and for this i made a pinterest board with the colors and other outfits to get more inspiration, to then execute the plan of putting the outfit together.

Me and Rhyss who played Russell first began with sorting out the main color that suited each character and matched their personality as we used The notes app and another app called Color Gear for shade ranges as seen in these images:

9.Bassett outfits moodboard

10.Reflection of rehearsals

In our rehearsal I was able to reflect on how to portray the character of Lucy as I used to go over my lines and link it to parts of the play that had a hidden meaning or that were foreshadowing to what was happening in each scene, for example in Lucy's monologue she mentions how Leo should stop bullying other people, as they are all growing up and learning and all have questions, this goes back to how they are still secondary school students learning about citizhenship and life as they are still growing up and don't know about the real life out there, for characters like Leo the example of a real life out there would be to fight in war or witness the repatriation as he quotes "I want it go on and on and on till im able to get out there", meaning that he still believes in the patriotic beliefs of serving yout country with loyalty and that dying for your contry is seen as a sign of bravery. I would also say that with all the rehearsal time I was able to get advice from my Teachers and collegues and I was able to apply skills like voice projection, use of facial expression, blocking and many other valuable skilss that helped me develop my character and helped me ensure that I would play the character well with ease.

11.EvALUATION

Today was our performance and I would say that in my opinion we were nervous as the first time we performed it there were a few queu's missed due to people missing their lines or stage fright, but after we were done with our first performance we discussed it backstage, me personally I was feeling very overwhelmed as it was my first time actually doing a long play and this caused me to overthink about it and feel even more nervous as I even broke down, because of how nervous i was, but luckly I had my friends that helped and encouraged me that I would be able to do better, and I was able to do much better in our second time performing our play as I was able to get my lines out clearly without any queu's being missed or forgetting any of my lines, as I felt more confident as the scenes went by as I tried to have fun with the character, as I explored my character's inner monologue, and I was able to get into character and embody it fully as i played the characters intention of wanting to be heard, having something to say, and i kept thinking about how i was going to present those intentions clearly in Lucy's monologue.

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