A theatrical expedition
Last week Mrs Murphy, Teacher of Drama, led an exciting theatre trip to the West End. Here she…
On Wednesday 11th May, the Lower V, Upper V and Lower VI Drama groups went to see ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’ at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. Directed by Olivier and Tony Award winning Marianne Elliot, the piece is a highly sophisticated adaptation of Mark Haddon’s moving novel which uses physical theatre (devised by Frantic Assembly) and an extraordinary interactive set to tell its story. The piece presents both the challenges of raising a child with a learning disability, as well as celebrating the wonderful talents of children such as protagonist Christopher Boon who has autism and is taking his Maths A Level at the age of 15. Christopher discovers his neighbour’s dead dog and the piece charts his investigation and determination to uncover the killer, as well as his journey back into his own estranged family.
The girls in Lower V will be writing about this piece as part of their Unit 2 GCSE coursework for which they have to evaluate a live performance in 2000 words. Apart from benefitting from developing the analytical skills necessary to write this piece of work, seeing this production has exposed them to possibilities in theatre they may not otherwise see. In the Drama Department and through theatre visits we organise, we aim to show the girls a broad and exciting selection of work in different styles and genres.
The Lower V girls were also lucky enough to take part in a Frantic Assembly physical theatre workshop the following day, which they loved! Led by actress and practitioner Maggie Ann Bain, they learned a series of movement and lifts, as well as putting together their own short pieces, all in a two hour workshop!
Our next GCSE Drama visit will be to see Mischief Theatre’s ‘The Comedy About a Bank Robbery’ at the Criterion Theatre in September. The Mischief Theatre also produced ‘The Play that Goes Wrong’, a big hit with our pupils when we saw it last year.
