Lesson 1 - 6.11.14

EAST END TALES

What did you think of it and why?

I found the play really interesting, especially because of the way it is written. There are no specified names to any of the characters speaking, nor genders given. I also like how it is written slightly poetically.

What is the play about?

The play is written in the different point of views of people living in East London. You get to experience things such as:

Violence
Crime
Money Issues
Weather
What it's like to live there

My favourite tale was number 5. I enjoyed this tale because it was very well written and quite suspicious. It's from the point of view of someone living next to a flat where there is domestic violence occurring. At the end of the tale it turns out that the women who was getting abused next door was murdered but no one tried to step in and help her. Everyone turned a blind eye as it was 'none of their business'.

At the start of the session I knew nothing about the East End apart from the fact that Eastenders is filmed there.
By the end I had learned a lot more than I knew before. I learned that there are many different people with different ethnic backgrounds. There aren't just the stereotypical "Fat, bald, white, West Ham supporter". I also learned that there aren't flat blocks and council houses, there are also big and expensive houses. A lot of the information I learned was from the input of Mateo and Jake as they are both from the East End. By the end of the lesson, a very negative view turned into a very complex and cosmopolitan one.

My group were asked to explore Tale 5. In tale 5 (as I previously stated) it is written in the point of a character (no gender nor name specified) who is living next door to a flat. The character starts to notice strange things going on next door. In the script it specifies "smashing" and "crashing", maybe of a plate? Or a plant pot? Or something along those lines. We were also asked to stage a part of our tale. I was in a group with Aaron and Rory and we staged our tale in quite an abstract way by deciding to stage it in a Police Station. Aaron and I (playing the characters that were next door during the crime) were being interrogated by Rory (who was a policeman) about a recent murder that happened next door to us.