Fugee

Fugee addresses the issues and problems revolving around refugee children. It focuses on a young boy from Ivory coast, Kojo who tells his story, Kojo's family was killed by child soldiers who he then was made into aswell, he had rather chosen death than to be made into one of them.

'They have just killed my mother. They have just killed my brother. They have just killed my father. Kill me. Kill me.'

The pain that he is going through of having to accept that his family was murdered in cold blood, and nothing he does will change that, leads him to instantly not want to continue living, as young as he is, he begs to be killed so that he doesn't have to live with such a big burden. This event forces him to mature at such an early age of just eleven. He is showed how to shoot guns and how to use drugs, the damage done cannot be undone and there is always a consequence to these things. The consequence is everything that comes after. Him having to smuggle himself into the UK, being sent to a refugee camp, and then being age discriminated and forced to live in a hostel, with other grown predatory men. In the end, he takes a man's life.

Abi Morgan is a Welsh playwright and screenwriter, famous for her works on television, plays including Fugee. Some of her television works named are sex traffic and The hour, Her films include The Iron Lady, Shame, and suffragette. She was born in Cardiff, Wales and she is the daughter of actress Pat England and theatre director Gareth Morgan, who was the director of the Gulbenkian Theatre in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a child, she and her parents moved around so much that she had moved to seven separate schools.
Before pursuing her writing, her initial ambition was to pursue acting but she decided to change that after reading drama literature at Exeter University. She then took a post-graduate writing course at the central school of speech and drama. Her works were not shown to anyone for five years, probably because it can be private as it is a story coming from you. Her first professional credit was in 1998, with skinned at the Nuffield theatre which is in Southampton.
She's written plays for The royal exchange studio theatre in Manchester and the traverse theatre in Edinburgh, even the Royal court in London. Her 2001 play, tender won her a nomination and recognition for the Hampstead theatre as the most promising playwright in 2002 at the Laurence Olivier Theatre Awards. She was commissioned to write a drama called sex traffic for channel 4 in 2004 about a teenage girl who is trafficked from the Balkans to Britain, which won 2005 Bafta awards for the best drama serial, she's since then written a number of single dramas for television which includes, Tsunami: the aftermath, and the royal wedding which follows the 1981 royal wedding through the perspective of events held in a Welsh mining village. Morgan has written for the cinema which includes Monica Ali's novel, Brick-lane, which was critically acclaimed however it spurred controversy and it was labelled as defamatory which is when someone damages the good reputation of someone else. Her next film was The Iron Lady, which starred Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher.
In researching a television project, Abi became involved with the world of asylum seekers. She visited a London refugee centre, where children as young as 12 were arriving, she instantly picked up on the fact that they all spoke different languages which inspired one of the themes of the play, Chaos. That is meant both physically and emotionally, as there were many children of different cultures and languages mixing together and trying to understand one another whilst also facing the emotional stress of being away from what they know and register as home, and suffering from any traumas. The chaos was created in their desperation to create relationships with the other refugee kids, as they could not understand each other due to the language barrier.

Abi Morgan intentionally focuses on the joy of mixing young children who live together, that is an important tone for the play, even though the play is about immigration, she is intentionally making sure it doesn't appear sombre or preachy. To keep the fun-ness of the play, it has been discussed to not become overemotional when delivering lines, it has been advised by Morgan herself to strip the character back to just delivering lines at times. The best three words described by Morgan to approach the play by is with fun, fluidity an being raw.
Though the play presents many technical issues such as the man freezing mid-fall it is discussed that theatrical simplicity will solve most of those issues so, as the man falls he stumbles and freezes, it's still apparent that he is about to fall. Due to fast moving scenes, the energy must not be dropped and stay consistently high throughout the play. It's also important to not give away the play's ending at the start. The fact that Kojo is not real is fundamental to the play's meaning:' This is a game, the story is told by actors'
The reasons that Abi decided to tell this story are because she wanted to change the stereotypical views of refugees, and the play gives a voice and eloquence to people who do not, she tells this story to point out a civilised country treats children his way and it also addresses a child stabbing an adult - the UK has seen a rise in youth violence.
A message that Abi wants to get through to everyone is that the play was written with the understanding that it has not been performed for those who have suffered similar issues and trauma but for those who haven't. A large majority of children in Britain have not suffered these situations, and the message is to them, for them to appreciate and treasure their childhood. Children have been taught and reminded here in this society that we have a voice and that we should use it, it is what we know so, performing to these teens and children will give them this information about the issues surrounding immigration and refugee children, they now have the information and the voice in society to speak on the issues that they have been informed of.

Youth Violence

Youth violence in the UK is something that has been on the rise and is currently being spoken about. 31st of December 2017 to the 1st of January 2018, in the space of a couple hours 4 young men died due to stabbings, one of them being a close friend of my family proves that this world, particularly this country has morphed into a bloodbath. the deaths brought the number of fatal stabbing attacks up to 80. Since 2016 we have seen an 84% rise! This could be due to the influence of a type of music that is popular within the youth culture called Drill music
Here is a youtube video showcasing the ones that were too offensive that they were banned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogp7-4Y4Q7A
They talk about smoking marijuana, some reference heroin use and killing their enemies.
Kojo was forced to grow up due to being age disputed, taking on responsibilities that he wasn't ready for. He was placed with actual men, some who had bad intentions forcing him to protect himself by carrying a kitchen knife around him, whilst also suffering from PTSD, leading to the man's death, who do we blame? Kojo will be held responsible because he appears like a man to the government, he was the one who held the knife, but all his experiences are truly what drove this story. If he hadn't been age disputed he wouldn't have been in a situation like that, if his family weren't killed by child soldiers he wouldn't have been in a situation like that and if a war hadn't broken out in his country...
People in a more economically developed country may not think this affects them just like that man; that man who was stabbed due to something that started across from the globe.

discussions and activities

A few of us had already been given the play to read, I was actually the first in the class to receive the book. I found the story very interesting that I had finished it within one evening. What I liked was the structure of the play, it wasn't a storyline that went from A to B to C, it went more like C to A to B to C. This structure introduces a puzzle like-theme where you are trying to put the pieces together. When asked as a class what we think of this play, the feedback was positive. The majority of us liked the play for talking about some taboo issues whilst being a modern play, where we've only done more contemporary and classical plays. We discussed the diversity this play provides, the fact that these kids are refugees meaning none of them are from the UK. What I like is that the roles are not strict, you do not need to look like the characters, even though the characters are described with where they are from and their sizes, the point is to point out that we are actors portraying these characters to the audience and for them to actually picture things for the play to work. such as ' I can fold myself up so tight I can fit in a little box. You're going to have to imagine it'. the purpose is to separate the actors and the characters.

feedback

17.05.18
We went through the play and rehearsed certain ensemble scenes where it seemed quite messy.
At the end of the session, the feedback was given. Our tutor suggested that I as Mother should pinch the character Kojo when I tell him to eat his cake because he is too skinny, this will then create a more believable bond that everyone knows as a mother and son relationship. She said that Jeremy's lines ( Who plays Kojo) went a little, meaning there was not the right energy and he seemed to hesitate, making the conversation unnatural. Scene 9 to 10 needs to be quicker and more chaotic, scenes, where fights and arguments break out and people cut each other off, it should be like that, also scene 9 transitioning into the next scene should be more fluid and thought through. She also corrected the way I was pronouncing Eritrea which is important since I am informing the audience about this country. She also recommended that I as Rosa should bother Kojo more and flirt with him, as my character is pretty confident and she is trying to annoy Ara. Scene 13 was slow coming on stage and so was the transition from that scene to the next which was the street scene. Transitions from scene 17 to 18 were great which is where Ara and Kojo are at the cafe and leave to go to the park, however, transitions from scene 18 to 19 could be much cleaner, as some of us are trees in scene 17 and have to transition into a frozen street scene, she instructed that we should not go off stage if we are in the next scene, it will slow the whole process down, which she then goes to say that if you are in a scene and you are in the next scene dont go off stage. She asked Jeremy who plays Kojo to find the truth in his words when he tells us ' I am eleven' so that we can really see him as an eleven-year-old boy, he suggested that he uses emotional memory to go back to when he himself was eleven to deliver that line with belief.
She began to speak about plans for the week coming, she stated that we would continue focusing on transitions and working with props. She made it clear that no scripts would be allowed on Monday to encourage us all to learn our lines by then so that we can focus on the speed of the play and also concentrate on how we deliver our lines. She asked us to look at our scripts again and see if we can see anything we didn't see before involving the character you're playing and events.

It was picked up that one of the girls in scene thirty-five say 'He looks 13, 14 maybe?' suggesting that Kojo doesn't appear to be eighteen and over and that he truly was age disputed.

21.05.18
We were told to play the thought process more and let it be more precise, otherwise, it doesn't appear natural even though the text is a Brechtian style where the characters are aware that they are being played by an actor. We have to snap it on and off when we are addressing this in our roles. One of our directors said to play the moment more and listen and react off of each other and events and to be careful to not clip over cues. He told us to rehearse volume and articulation. He also told us to think about very clearly what we want the audience to feel and experience during the play and highlight lines from the play in which we believe that need to pointed and stressed. Factual points that need to come across and be pushed. The chit-chat between us peers is great but we should harness that energy and put it towards the play. she said this time next week we would be in tech in our costumes prepping for the show. He said we've got a show but it could be a whole lot better in a weeks time if we really devise from this point on. He speaks on how there are a lot of moments and feelings in the text that we were not quite getting yet, so rushing the scenes and slowing down on transitions should be the other way round. We're told to think about where we are on stage because the audience cannot see that they can only see you and what you are able to create. Although the play has many playful scenes the message is serious so it is important to get both messages across to the audience in a way that is respectful to those who have and are going through similar situations, to the writer and to yourself. My tutor states the more we take it seriously the more we allow the audience to take it seriously and the more we can showcase our talents.

23.05.18
30.05.18

Themes

Communication

Communication is the key theme, both in the play and technically. Because the characters in the story go by all means to communicate and understand each other, and actors and the tech team need to be clear on stage directions and timing for scenes to work, whilst also communicating all of this to the audience! With many scene changes and sound effects being used, cues must be clear for the play to move fluidly. The issues that arise from the play due to communication are the frustration that comes with speaking a different language from everyone else and one in which no one understands is an issue that the actors must emphasise and engage with. The issues of having a translator show the challenges of a language barrier. Also, the nature of the play means storytelling is visually important as the text such as the freeze frames that occur the most in key scenes like the street scene where the stabbing happens. This play takes on a touchy subject about refugee and has emotional scenes but it is portrayed in a playful manner, this is to show that we are not preaching to the audience even though it does raise awareness, but it is more about making the audience your friend, creating a comfortable atmosphere where the kids tell the story and just want to be loved.

Chaos

Chaos is a theme that definitely stays throughout the play, from guns and drugs and violence to arguments at the dinner table to creepy men banging on your door, It comes as many of these things. From the beginning, we had the stabbing, which creates a commotion on the street as everyone talks over each other in panic, in other words, it is chaos, everything echoes, you cannot predict how everyone will react and reactions just continue to react off of each other. The catalyst to the chaos in Kojo's story is when his family is killed in the Ivory Coast, and the catalyst for the child soldiers comes from the men who recruited them and so on.

Repetition

Repetition, as they say, history has a way of repeating itself, the same kind of events seem to happen over and over, even though repetition is used for a different reason in this play; it is used as an echo of a memory, there is a clear logical link between what happens to Kojo on the dusty road and the stabbing but it leads back to the quote of history repeating itself as violence from the dusty road has lead to violence in the stabbing.

Belonging

the system

Character development

In order to begin developing my characters, I revolved around myself first. An activity called the 'Map exercise' is where you ask yourself questions such as where was I born, where was I yesterday, where were my parents as individuals born and where would I like to live in ten years, doing this gives a sense of my history and gives you the chance to compare with others too. Doing this for the characters helped bring them off the script, picturing how and where they live and how it is different to me. This also links to Stanislavski's characterisation techniques where if you picture your character at age 6, for example, how would they be? would they be shy at school, the listener or the one everyone always has their eyes on? would they be goofy or would they keep their sweets to themselves and refuse to share? All these characteristics lead up to who this character is today. More exercises for picturing them as teenagers, would be asking yourself questions you wouldn't generally think to ask like, do they suffer from nightmares, do they share a bed or room? what side of the bed would they sleep on? what kind of bed is it? Do they wake up naturally or by alarm or does someone wake them?

Mother appears to have no name because it isn't her story, it is Kojo who tells his story. He is a young boy who like any other boy, calls his mother ' maman' which literally means mother. there is no need for mother, father or brother to have a name in that case (Manager, translator and many other characters). I asked myself questions about mother and this is what I came up with.

Mother was born in Abidjan, Ivory coast which is the capital city with the most heavily populated city in the country as it should be. Being around all the kids, Mother wouldn't join conversations about who had crushes on who, she would keep more to herself and hum her favourite songs whilst drawing patterns in her notebook. She wasn't bullied for this fortunately, the kids understood that that is just the way she was, she just wasn't quite there. She would sit with them at lunch, and some friends would come over for tea at hers sometimes. She met Father in high school, he was a very serious character, always focused on his work and not on the chatter around him, he was always receiving awards for his hard-work and persistence, his best subjects were Geography and maths, she was the opposite, she was great at music, literature and she attended a seamstress club where she learned how to use a sewing machine. It's tragic that these two officially met due to unfortunate events. A civil war broke out and had reached the city faster than expected. Women and children were prioritised and evacuated meaning families were separated from Fathers, husbands, elder sons/brothers. They reached Adaké, a small town north-west of the capital, they set up camp and mother and father finally met, and so did their mothers whos friendship blossomed, they gave each other tips and shared whatever they had left. Mother and father barely spoke to each other but would sit together at lunch and every other chance they got which was many. That night mother woke to scream and chaos from the other side of the camp, the other kids in the tent were already awake and some bawling. Father was there too, their parents nowhere to be seen, shots were being fired and screams of agony echoed across the camp. They were killing their parents. Father told the other kids to make a run for it, he held mother's hand and they ran towards the forest, other kids began to aswell, but some were caught and some even shot. Mother and father ran until their legs felt like jelly and their lungs burned. They found a road and learned they had officially left the city of Abidjan, the sun was rising in the sky as they walked along the side of the road, never saying a word. A truck passed by, A man and his children offered them a ride towards Duékoué, another city in the west, they warily accepted and slept for hours. A couple of days later they arrived at the city and the man offered them a place to stay, which was his mother's house. From there they adopted the two as part of the family. The two remained close all throughout their younger years. As they matured a romance bloomed between the two, Mother began to sing again and sew dresses, Father looked for jobs. Mother would sew her own dresses with African print materials. Father got a job as a Geography teacher, when he had made enough they moved in together and had Kojo who was born on a Monday, and a few years later Tamba too, which means second born. Duékoué is where the second civil war broke out.

This is why Mother is always humming and appears to be in another world at times, and when she speaks she talks as if she saying poetry:

'Kojo, kicking when I was making his bones in my belly, the sound of Tamba kicking the ball'

Roza is from Iraq, she is one of the kids that appear in Kojo's story, even though she is completely fictional her story is not, it can be told just like this. This is what refugee children go through and worse.

Mosul Grand Mosque

Roza was born in Mosul, Iraq, she was an only child, but she had many cousins, aunts and uncles, she was constantly bickering with the older ones because she had a smart mouth, she would be like a big sister to the younger cousins, who looked up to her. They didn't see what the elders saw, a cheeky girl with a mouth on her whose soul is too old for her body, instead, they saw a confident and tough girl, who could stand her ground and tell you what she believes with absolute conviction.
When Mosul fell, Roza's family were crushed due to an air strike, she and her younger cousins were the ones who survived as they were outside farther from the attack, they were taken to a refugee camp and she would comfort her younger cousins by turning a fear into a game:

'we would play games trying to work out where they would hit next'

she was then split from her cousins a few months after and was taken with other children to the UK, that is how she met Hassan, he had a character similar to hers, he is secretly what kept her going after her tragic experiences, what kept her fiery personality alight despite his cocky behaviour.

Production

issues that may arise

lights

sounds

Staging

Due to the structure of the play, the location of the scenes change swiftly, it has been discussed that many worlds can exist on stage at the same time, the best way to do this is to not delve too deep in illustrating one scene. An example is when actors 'break their characters' and begin speaking to the audience and address that they are just an actor and describes how the character they are playing feels or sometimes vice versa e.g, scene twenty-one 'the actor playing me gets really pissed off..' The best way to portray that this is to audience is for everyone to freeze except the person talking to show that time has stopped. We did this whilst also requesting for a white light to be shown on the background to show that time has stopped. It is also apparent that the action of the play moves fluidly, the chaos and actions never end until the very final moment, there is only one true blackout which is at the end so we must move swiftly into our next scenes, ready.

Costumes

Kojos outfits
Kojo is the only person who has costume changes throughout the play as he is the subject of the story being told, he wears Child soldier jackets, A black shirt, a black hoodie and a towel. ripped and messy old shoes to show he does not worry about his clothes but more on what and how he will eat, sleep and brush his teeth.

Mothers Outfit

When I began to think about what mother should wear I instantly thought about what my mum wears that is quite traditional, its a dress that is loose fitted, appropriate for hot temperatures, and has a flowery African print.
I also used a headscarf to project the simple and modest character I perceive her to be. In Ivory Coast or Africa itself, women and men wear brightly coloured African print clothes.

My background story on Mother includes how she learnt how to sew and creating dresses were one of her talents/hobbies. She tailors the dresses she wears.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4yeb2hQHT0

Roza's Outfit

Roza sounds like and originates from the name Rosa/Rose which refers to the flower and colour translated from Italian which is pink. Because of that, It was decided that Rosa's shirt would be pink. The other meaning for Roza is Urdu for fasting from dawn to sunset, the word Roza is derived from the word Roz which means day, Islam is the religion of Iraq, which means that she was most likely named after the Urdu name.

The man who barges Kojo

In scene twenty-four, I play a man who barges Kojo as he is working in the market, I wear a hooded jacket with the hood up, the reason for this is because this character is seen once and is a warning what is to come in the near future, this is called foreshadowing. The market Trader even warns him, 'You'll get a lot of that'. Later on, Kojo is the one who wears the hoodie and is with Cheung when he is barged by a man, which then leads to the stabbing.

Girl #1's Outfit

Girl #1 and girl #2 are not given names just like the market trader or the cleaner who funny enough says 'He was just a kid' when he himself is just a cleaner. I think this is to emphasise how this is Kojo's story, the only people who had actual names were the kids from the refugee ( Roza, Cheung, Hassan and Ara). I decided on wearing black joggers and a tracksuit zip-up hoodie because that's what many young girls who go to Mcdonalds every Saturday are said to wear. In Scene Three, the fifteen-year-old mum explains how she was put in a tracksuit just because she's a kid 'but they put me in this tracksuit', 'just cause I'm a kid with a kid'.

Cheung's Outfit
Cheung is a fiery character, if the story hadn't revolved around Kojo we would have seen more of that, fortunately, there are scenes where this is shown, in scene six, 'He could backflip across here and balance on one thumb', Scene ten ' This is when I kick him with my big toe, send him flying across the table..'. As you can see from these quotes, Cheung has a lot of confidence, I believe that's why red was chosen because it is such a bold colour to match his bold personality. He is also Chinese and red is the main colour of luck in China as well as it is the main colour on the nation's flag.

Props

In the prop room, we found five fake guns, we considered using them, however, they were too small and appeared quite immature so we decided we would mime guns instead. One of my directors, Rob requested the construction department to construct wooden guns, and they created two big submachine guns. As you can see below on the right-hand side of this image

I suggested in the tree scene that we should create branches and leaves for the park scene where Ara and Kojo run through the trees, it was positively received. During the day when we were running through tech rehearsals I saw green tissue paper, I decided to ask if I could use it, I tore some up and handed them out to everyone who was a tree in that scene, and we would hold them in our hands in the scene creating more visual appeal than before.

We used crates for the street scene which is one of the key scenes, the crates were placed in front of two chairs which were the stalls from the market trader, those were only placed that way on the street scene.

Scene 12, Kojo & Father

Music

well at first I suggested blue lights by Jorja Smith which is a song describing a young man who should run when he hears police sirens or sees flashing blue lights. '' You better run when you hear the sirens coming', 'No blue flashing lights'. Blue flashing lights signify emergency vehicles which means that something has gone wrong and help or safety is needed. At first, it seems that she is telling this person not to run because she is convinced that they are innocent, by the end of the song she is telling them to run to safety. I thought this song was relevant to the play because Kojo stabs a man and is told to run by his friend Cheung, to avoid the police.

The song that was chosen in the end is Running (Refugee song), It describes the situation that Kojo is in, where he was forced to run from home due to war. If Kojo had not left when he did, his life would have ended way sooner. ' It was violent and I had to run or die', 'I'm running'. It's a very heartfelt song which is played in the very beginning of the play along with the freeze frame

The song we chose for the Ivory Coast set scenes were one of Africa's most known song called 'Premier Gaou', It is well known by a majority of Africans as it is played at nearly every African based function. It means the 'first fool', the song is based on the saying ' Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me'. Jeremy was the person who suggested this song, the reason I believe my tutor decided to use this song is that there is a presence of African instruments being used. However the song that I think would have been more suitable for these scenes is a song from one of my native countries, Guinea Bissau, the reason for this is because the ivory coast is neighbouring countries with this country in West Africa. The song is called Yaye by Rui Sangara. Rui sings about How he is grateful for his mother, he sings 'I'm thanking you, Mama, you're the one who put me in this world like this, I'm thanking you', 'oh mama, thank you'. He also talks about immigration and talks through his mother's eyes and what she would say to him as her son; 'Immigration is like this, my son...'

A song that mother is always humming when she enters the stage is a song that I chose under pressure when I was told to just hum any tune I want. But it fit her character, it sounds traditional and dreamy which describes mother in my eyes. The song is called O Mare E Tu performed by Andrea Bocelli and Dulce Pontes. The song is sung in Italian and Portuguese. The song is amazingly poetic and speaks on romance, it translates to 'The sea and you'. Here you can see the translation to the song.

Scene 22, Kids on the train with Kojo

background projection

Due to the swift changeovers and structure of the play, we discussed that creating a slideshow with images of scenes would help lead the audience to understand what scene it is, for example, an image of a dusty road in Africa, or a park in the UK. A classmate took responsibility and created a suitable one. However during technical run-throughs, it was decided that we would scrap this idea due to complications, we had many light and sound cues already, and not that many tech members. We decided music and sounds would be what would guide the story into the next scenes.

Evaluation

After a whole term of preparations and rehearsals, we performed Fugee four times in the space of two days, the 30th and 31st of May. Both days were superb, transitions were fast and snappy, energies were high and we did an exceptional job with the street scene where we all worked as an ensemble to create this panicked atmosphere, however, my personal favourite out of the four would be the afternoon performance on the 31st. There are many factors as to why this is.

shall commence by addressing my most preferred performance which is the third of the four. We had all warmed up and had high hopes to match our energies prior to the show. The opening to the play was full of chaos and panic, it was what we had aimed to create, this instantly captured the audience's full attention. The way Jeremy uses his projection and articulation to make sure he was heard clearly was a great tool used to tell the story. We moved around at the right cues that Jeremy would give, such as 'I miss trees', we would change from our street scene to the trees in an instant where everyone froze in a stance that shows the audience that we are the trees, we used different levels, direction and shapes to create this image of trees because as we all know, trees come in different shapes and forms, we used the same method in scene 18 where Kojo and Ara are running around the trees in the park, in that scene we had chairs on the stage already which we used to our advantage, some of us stood on them to emphasise that we are trees and once again come in different sizes.

Kenya who plays the Young woman with the buggy executes her well. I believe she gave the audience exactly what Abi Morgan wanted, Her lines in scene three were definitely Brechtian style due to her addressing the audience and informing that she is an actress and giving her input in the production having her 'dressed up all nasty' but also the way she delivers her lines shows the lightheartedness of the situation. Four out of four times the audience laughed when she delivered the lines 'That's it. My job done. That's all you'll really see of me'. Even though her character doesn't appear as significant compared to the others, every character is there for a purpose, and she may have well easily been some the audience's favourite. This is evident during scene 17, where Kojo and Ara are eating whilst talking, Kenya is seen walking past which contradicts the line she had said earlier where they won't be seeing her, the crowd also begun to giggle from that.

The audience was also able to catch the tension brewing between the Social worker, and the Manager & Translator, Abdul who played the social worker was able to show some sort of annoyance and scepticism involving Kojo's Age, or he is just ignoring the fact that he is a child but is under instructions from higher authorities that they should keep the numbers down. The social worker says ' Just translate, please.' showing his frustration and nin-sympathy towards Kojo whereas the Translator is concerned about his past and the conditions he has been through.

Scene ten was by far my favourite due to it being the scene my character, Roza has the most lines. The audience laughed and reacted off of our performance as we tried to create this atmosphere of chaos and miscommunication. Each of the kids has a chance to charm the audience with their personalities, I believe the chemistry between each of them gave us many opportunities to create moments that were sold to the audience as you can hear them reacting just as we as actors reacted off of other's actions and words accordingly. Ara and Hassan address the issues of being age disputed, Hassan compares the procedures taken for proving your age to being treated like a dog and he then barks making us as the kids laugh and the audience. Gabriel who plays Hassan brings a cocky demeanour to this character which is very much needed, but I would say it makes his character more likeable, I as Roza comment on his remark of being 'the good-looking one' we continue to smartly bounce off each other creating a chemistry between us that has the audience Ooo'ing. The audience has now registered that Hassan and Roza are similar in a sense that they have a smart mouth with use of sarcasm and quick comebacks, one such as, 'ketchup useful'. You then see the rivalry between Hassan and Cheung who throw names at each other, threaten and eventually fighting, during this moment I react in how I believe Roza would, by laughing and mocking them.
Roza begins to flirt with Kojo who is the only timid one amidst the loud table and you can see the jealousy and protectiveness that Ara projects instantly played by Jaychelle who gives Ara an authoritative-like voice in the play 'Leave him alone. He's new.' However, Roza sees this as an opportunity to flirt with Kojo more often to irritate Ara, as she teaches Kojo how to say Pepper, Roza takes contorl by picking up a chip and saying 'chip' to then Kojo responds, and origionally Roza eats the chip, but to create a more provocative scene, I fed Kojo he chip, having the crowd reacting, Ara begins to explain how there are always fights and I use that oppurtunity in the moemnt to coax him into feeding me a chip too, having the crowd laugh and whoop, this gives all the more reason for Ara to say 'Roza, stop bothering him. The next scene also gives the audience a chance to see the same characters personalities when away from the others, Roza shows this first with remarks about the translator's legs being hairier than a gorilla. Throughout the scenes in which Roza is in the same scene as Kojo, I made sure that she always appears close to him or paying attention to him due to her interest in him.

Playing Girl 1 in the street scenes were enjoyable, I am a symbol of those young girls in London who 'chill and sit about and get a milkshake from Maccy Dees' which makes the audience chuckle because it is true, you do see those kinds of girls about, which links to the fact that even though these characters arent real their stories are similar to the real one, we can relate to what we know, which is young girls who ave nothing better to do on a saturday excpet meet friends at a fast food joint. So just because we cannot relate to Kojo, Ara, Roza, Cheung and Hassan, does not mean it isn't real, it is very much real and is happening today around the world, situations just like these. I chose to portray the girl as a tomboy with an attitude, her lines show that she doesn't really care what others think of her such as 'He's gone. Dat man's gone', her improper use of English shows she cares more about being perceived as a cool youth instead of a literate young girl.

When I played mother I made sure to make her movements on stage ghostly and wistful when Kojo would see her. I and Jeremy built a beautiful bond between these characters because we are good friends already, we were able to connect and create playful moments as well as sorrowful moments when looking at the unfortunate events.

In order to improve this play and truly create a better experience, I think props and backgrounds play an important role in storytelling and helps sets the mood and atmosphere we desire. We could have used the background projection that our classmate made just to make it clear due to the play not being in chronological order. A majority of us did put in 100% effort, but there were a few who didn't, it may seem that it isn't a big issue, however, in ensemble scenes if your energy doesn't match everyone else's you will stand out for all the negative reasons, which discredits all the hard work put in by the others. Attendance is what affected some of them, so they didn't know what new changes there were and what the cues were, especially involving the tech group. The tech group were also a bit off on some cues and used the wrong sound effects at times. The most important one being the last moment of the play where I as Mother hold Kojo's cake and tell him to 'Blow', the lights should go out the moment he blows but it doesn't which creates an awkward dead silence of everyone just waiting for something to happen. There were also times where we would come to an end of a scene and we would have to take chairs that are on stage back upstage, and some people run into each other due to light changes, I would recommend on everyone focusing on spatial awareness.

Referring to my proposal I believe I covered a majority of the areas of research and,
We didn't make more than one recording during rehearsals unfortunately, which is something we all should have done more of in order to examine where our strength and weaknesses were. I used all available resources for research. I knew all my lines by the 28th as so did the rest of my class. We received plenty of feedback and used that to better our performance. Our research was independent. We discussed ideas for staging, props and costumes and assigned everyone with responsibilities such as marketing and programming.

A few of my peers complimented my embodiment of Mother and how I carry myself when I become her, they appreciate the special bond me and Jeremy create which is in the way I hold and touch him which is what makes it emotional when she and Kojo are separated. My voice was described as soft and beautiful when I spoke and sang.

Scene 20, Kojo and child soldiers

When I asked a friend of mine who watched the play what she thought of it and she stated that she couldn't stop laughing to herself when she would see me on stage. but when she saw that I was not corpsing and that serious about what I was doing she soon realised she should focus on the message I am trying to relay to her and everyone else in the audience. She had told me after watching the play she had never known about these situations and that it happens especially in first world country like the UK.

I am proud to say that those who gave their all, saw results. After weeks of run-throughs and creating chemistry and moments I was worried that we wouldn't be as polished as we were as some people still had lines to learn, but everyone did their part, everyone took responsibility and we came together and had an energy filled, and attention drawing show! I was glad that everyone left with some kind of impression, learning something so important and tragic that is happening around the world. It was indeed a very informing play and we were able to communicate miscommunication and more of Abi Morgan's conscious message.