We started by reasearching the woman who wrote the poem. It turned out that the author of it was a little of a feminist and that she came from a place called Samolia where the conditions for women werent very good. From this we had the idea of doing a piece about the conditions for women in poor countries. From that point on we decided to spend our first few hours researching women in different countries. We decided upon Pakistan, Samolia, Syria and Iraq. Each one us decided to show a different country and have another person in our group multi-role.  I was in charge of Pakistan so I endeavered to  research the conditions for woman there and discovered that the condtions there arent good. 

When looking at this research we realized just how bad the conditions were and how people didn’t seem to care about the women and if they are raped. 

When looking at the research we had gathered and our stories of women that have gone through rough times. In our own time we had adjusted several speeches into monlogues however we didn’t really have a monologue in the end because we didn’t want our piece to go on for too long and become predictable so in the end we decided against long speeches and instead decided to have nice quick scenes that show our point. This led us onto a story I found about a girl called Ayesha who was of similar age to us and had been abused sexually. 

It was from this that we came up with a scene where my character would be going to the police to discus what has happened. This would be the part where I would gove a quick summary of the true story. To make our piece more engaging, we had Rachel be my characters mind telling her not to do it. Then at the end of the scene we had my characeter be rjected by the police because they don’t care about what happens to her. 

To follow this we had various scenes where we should the sort of thing that women have to go through by using various different types of scene. So for example we had my scene  where we had the non-naturalistic element of the mind, we had a news report scene and we also had a scene that was more non-naturalistic than before as we had repeat and build of various phrases of the sort of things that people would have told all these girls in different countires about what they can and cant do.  All these scenes were made made because we wanted to show what life is like for women in other countries and to spread awareness of it, as well as develop our skills as actors by playing characters we’ve never played before. 

We rejected some certain ideas such as the idea of long speeches as explained before and we also got rid of the idea of having a scene where we show someone being abused. This is because we felt that it had the potential to be triggereing for some and we decided that it didn’t give the sort of feel we wanted. However when it came to the poem we kept the idea of having all of us recite the poem in turns to show that in a way because we connected the poem by having all of us say it, it kind of showed us connected and united as one. This also helped show that we are all equal and if we stand together, we are strong. This was shwon by s all saying the poem as our characters from around the world. 

Our actual performace went well, however if I could have done it again, I would have re-considered the idea of having a scene showing someone being abused because I felt that it might have had the effect of showing just how serious the situation is and how something needs to be done about it. 

We first thought to decide what our intention and style would be so that we could come up twith an idea that not only wouold link to the house but also to our intention. However we found this hard to think of at first so our style and form came along when we changed our idea for the first time. Our intention was too create a piece of In-The–Round theatre that was entertaining and not too hard-hitting. It was from this we came up with the idea of a mock thriller sort of thing where people go missing but we make sure to have elements of humour and over exaggerated moments to make it light hearted. Our style is therefore a mix of Realism with an element of melodramatic.  

When responding to our stimulus of Dennis Severs House, as a group we were confused and unsure on what to do take from the house to make a good piece of In-The-Round theatre. So we responded by doing something called an ideas cauldron where we all took it in turns to note down thoughts, feelings and ideas we have that stem from the stimulus given. Our responses included such like feeling claustraphobic, confused, ideas of status, abuse, context of the time for when the house was made. It was from this we ended up with the idea of Jack the Ripper. 

Once we had our idea of Jack the Ripper of course we had to research our idea. Whilst researching our chosen topic from our stimulus we decided upon characters for each of us. The girls in our group being a chosen prostitute and the boys being wither a suspect or dectective. I chose to be the third prostitute killed. When lookking at our research, for the girl we looked at more specifically on how they died so that if we decided to had a detective scene with one of the dead bodies, we knew what had happened to them so that we could make the dectectives look like they knew what they were doing. When analysing my character, I noticed that my character was not as mutilated as the others and that the fourth prostitute killed was killed within few blocks away from my character and was brutally mutilated. We decided that this could have the potential for a scene where we hot seat ‘Jack the Ripper’  on what he has done, however we never did this because we had changed our idea to suit something that was slitghly easier to do In-The-Round.

One challenge we found when doing our In-The-Round was just the idea of how could we adapt our idea of Jack the Ripper to make it In-The-Round. We thought at first to do a scene where we recite a poem suspected to be possibly made by Jack the Ripper himself and by making sure that we had an interesting set up for our beginning. At first we had the idea of having people standing inbetween the audience members to make the audience feel involved while the rest of the group stand in the middle facing outwards. The is was ok as an idea but it was very plain and lacked an interesting start to our piece.  Our main challenges overall at the start of this unit and for our first few sessions were: procrastination of doing the work due to confusion of who to do it well and lack of ideas. We overcame our procrastiantion by frocing ourselves to push ast it and by making us do something that wouold still help us if we werent in the mood to do the practical side of it, for example making a script, discussion of scenes and how we could improve them as well our characters. We adapted our lack of ideas by changing our initial idea of Jack the Ripper and replaced it with the idea of breaking into Dennis Severs house. It seemed like a plain idea so that is where we came up with our ideal style and our intention. This gave us the opportunity to mix up how we use the space available when doing In-The-Round. From this we thought up ideas such as when we had our scene where we break into house, we were outside of the circle and free  but when we entered the circle we were in a way trapped in the house and therefore had no escape of what was going to happen. We also had idea of hiding behind the audience at certain points so this helped us expand our idea and give us the opportunity to make our piece more exciting and engaging. 

We developed our ideas by making sure to always link them back to our intention of keeping it light hearted but with an element of humour so that the audience remains engaged. For example we had the idea of having people die one by one however we found that when we went to show it as a dress rehearsal, certain bits were either too serious or too cheesy. As well as this when we showed it, we found that our piece wasn’t very well structured in the way that it was almost too boring at the end and how things were too predicatable. We fixed and developed this by having our piece have a cliff hanger, making the beginning show why the characters in our piece go to the house in the first place and in the middle we had, instead of murders, we had people disappearing. 

We devised our piece by making sure that our scenes linked back to our intention and what we wanted to acheive. However in the beginning we werent sure of our intention and were focused on making a piece to do with Jack the Ripper and how we could make that idea to be In-The-Round. I believe we focused on this point too much and got confused and stuck, this is wy we why we ended up devising our piece where we break into the house. We have devised this by ignoring the fact that it was In-The-Round and just went for it, making sure we tried out everyones ideas so we could make a piece of drama that had been made by everyone and not just by one leader.  We also devised our piece by making structure of scenes so that we knew what to do and what to strive for. 

I’ve contributed ideas on what we can do for  certain scenes and I’ve helped others by writing the script and by looking after any paper work we have. Its important to have a script written because that way you have a structure to follow and lines you can learn so that your performance is not improvised and messy. By looking after paperwork, I’m helping my group because that way I’m showing  that I can be responsible because should our work go missing that would make our work as a group harder and put unnecessary pressure on everyone.  I’ve also contributed to our group by suggesting a way to make our piece better because when we showed our ‘break in’ piece to the class, we found it wasn’t quite structured in the way that we spoke over each other and that it didn’t show off our true potential. So I was the one contributed the idea of instead of murders we had people disappearing and we made our characters more defined and obvious in how they think as well as storyline. This was much more successful and actually ended up being more humourous than our last one which was good because this linked to our intention.

I’ve cooperated with others well as I’ve listened to their ideas and tried them out as well given suggestions on how to improve characeters as well their approaches to certain ideas. I’ve also cooperated with others by making sure that im in so we can have full group rehearsals because if people arent in then it puts all the rest of the group on a strain because it means that they cant do what they need to do. 

I believe my srengths in the sessions were that I usually tried to get everyone back to work because one of the challenges we faced was trying to get everyone focused to come up with ideas or try to get everyone motivated on the work to make a scene. Another strength of mine I believe was that I was willing to do the work and therefore ended up making the script for our group to help them out. A weakness I feel was that at the beginning with our first initial idea of Jack the Ripper, I didn’t contribute much and I let others do the work which wasn’t fair on them and probably was why we lacked ideas for our topic so we ended up changing it. Another weakness I felt I had that came to light during sessions was the fact that I was not always in the right mind frame to do work and did what I had to do because I had to do it, not because I wanted to help or get a good grade. If we could go through this again, I would make sure to be more motivated and contribute ideas because I’ve learnt that for the times that I have contributed ideas, they were a success. 

Westerners usually associate the plight of Pakistani women with religious oppression, but the reality is far more complicated. A certain mentality is deeply ingrained in strictly patriarchal societies like Pakistan. Poor and uneducated women must struggle daily for basic rights, recognition, and respect. They must live in a culture that defines them by the male figures in their lives, even though these women are often the breadwinners for their families.

Quietly, slowly, in piecemeal legal reforms, female empowerment is coming in Pakistan. You meet inspiring women daily here. Sympathetic employers sometimes give protection and assistance, as do other women who've fared better. NGOs and charitable organizations try to help empower women, but not all women take advantage of these resources. They fear their husbands, attracting unwanted attention, somehow hurting the honor of their families, or, often, they simply do not know that help exists. With female literacy at 36%, many women are too uneducated to know their rights. 

A difficult irony for women in Pakistan is that, should a victim speak up about physical or sexual abuse, she is seen as having lost her and her family's dignity. Many rapes go unreported as the victim fears she will become worthless in Pakistani society. Often, women will turn to their employers; families they can trust. It's a typically unnoticed form of charity but one that can be crucial to their survival.’[4] 

[2]
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=k-E_WZn0BoHS8Aexj43QAg&gws_rd=ssl#safe=strict&q=what+is+puppetry+in+drama&spf=1497358738988

[3]
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=k-E_WZn0BoHS8Aexj43QAg&gws_rd=ssl#safe=strict&q=what+is+site+specific+theatre&spf=1497358738991

[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/to-be-a-woman-in-pakistan-six-stories-of-abuse-shame-and-survival/255585/

[5] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/to-be-a-woman-in-pakistan-six-stories-of-abuse-shame-and-survival/255585/

[6]
http://amberjkeyser.com/2015/11/warsan-shire/

[7]
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/action-and-reaction/

[8]
https://www.google.co.uk/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=DsBHWbvILbSn8wfeoY-4Cw&gws_rd=ssl#safe=strict&q=what+it+promenade+theatre&spf=1497874446699

[9]
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/to-be-a-woman-in-pakistan-six-stories-of-abuse-shame-and-survival/255585/

Eat a steak, end up dead

Drink too much, end up dead

That’s the mantra of today, Made to keep humans from pay.

The facts are this, the reapers kiss

Don’t smoke cigars, end up dead

Don’t eat any steaks, end up dead

Don’t drink at all, end up dead.’