Draft One

The Demons Within

By

Victoria Tullett

Victoria Tullett

vickyt1998@hotmail.com

+44 7714 280876

West Sussex, BN14 0AQ

©2016 V.TULLETT Productions

Scene 1

JULIA

I suck in a breath, cold and harsh, feeling nothing; this is normal, while my head reels and spirals out of control. I’m cold, frozen. The coldness of the world has destroyed me. It drains the light from the soul and the warmth from the now shell of the body. I feel numb, the nothingness taking control. Icy shards piercing the brink of my corrupt brain, paralysing the nerves; the emotions, the feelings, any feeling, cemented by the frost running through the empty case I know as my body. I feel the pain - pain that is so strong it penetrates through the ice cold to the fragile surface. It burns. What a contrast from my frozen corpse. Pain is a feeling, the only one I can experience. Pain is better than the numbness of reality. I can control Pain; I already have, and I carry its leash with me, Pain’s silver sharp leash that I wield in the face of the numbness, the frost. The blood that’s placed throughout my frozen vessel still flows, another element of the body the frost cannot control. I see it flow, trickling along my frigid flesh as I dominate Pain, a sharp sting crawling over my skin. I restrain the shriek biting at the back of my throat; my features remain indifferent, despite being isolated from the world the mask still remains. The mask that makes people believe that I am as happy as ever, the mask that makes them say, “Oh Julia, you are such a content person”, the mask that stops people raising concern because I am just the ‘same old Julia!’ The ‘I’m Fine’ mask. They see ‘happy little Julia’; besides, seeing is believing, right?

Scene 2

LUCY

I’ve been told that mirrors lie to the person in front of it, but why would something so treasured and pure lie to the innocent. No, a mirror never lies. The voices in my head never lie. The results of my actions never lie, yet the scars they leave are permanent. The feather-like lines along my knuckles, the drastic drop in my health and mental wellbeing, but the results are proving that these permanent scars are worth their while. I don’t believe that the scars are permanent, but my doctor insists, he has even given me a food chart and a weekly meal diary. He thinks that I am starving myself, pushing all my food away. But the reality is that I do eat, I binge eat everything I can, but it doesn’t stay there for long. My friends always say that they will come to the toilet with me, so they can go on and on about how Jake was staring at them during maths or whatever, and they always question me when I refuse. They are all naturally skinny, they won’t understand. No-one understands. I’ve got used to it now, the clenching of my stomach, trying desperately to cling on to whatever it can so that my body won’t starve another day; the strain in my fingers being forced lower, and my forearms bracing the toilet seat while my knees shatter on the stain-covered floor of the girls toilets. My eyes never lie to me; besides, seeing is believing, right?

Scene 3

DIANE

Fingers tingling, body numbing, breath quickening. Heart racing, skipping beats, count them, one, two three, four, five … Racing too fast, can’t keep up. Lungs collapsing under the weight. Lips quivering, tears threatening to spill; stomach churning, choking, Fear is lodged in my throat. I can never escape Fear, he always finds me. He greets me as a friend, kind compassionate; then the obsession starts, the yearning to control, manipulate, takeover, corrupt. He squeezes my limbs causing them the tingle, a sharp tingle. Sucks the oxygen from my lungs and the air surrounding me; caresses my throat with his monstrous hands and crushes it like a piece of rubbish and discards me like I’m shit. Yet, I regain composure, and return to my indifferent mask. The mask that hides the pain, the concerns, the Fear. I am no different to the way I was yesterday, so they think. I seem like the same old person I was many years ago; besides, seeing is believing, right?

Drama Lesson Fourteen

Drama Lesson Fourteen
Today was our final performance of our Children's Theatre piece 'Storybox Land'.

The performance we did today was our groups best as in terms of structure, line confidence and instructions given because had had the other performances to learn and adapt from. The placement of the spoon, bowl and cereal hadn't change much due to the children finding them rather easily. We managed to devise the changing from the dragon to the prince rather easily and didn't have to adapt it for any performances because it was the most efficient way for it to happen yet it was affective.

After the performance the afternoon before, we had finalised our placement of the spots and where the children would be lined up before following them to give Daniel his magical cereal. As well as this, we finalised the dance moves for the end when 'Shrek' is playing so that the children have some rough guide to follow so it is less overwhelming for them, we also decided to have a free-style section for the children to dance in anyway they'd like.

I felt that this performance was our groups best because we had finalised positions for certain objects and certain lines to be delivered and all this helped the flow of the piece which made it feel more natural to the actors.

Drama Lesson Thirteen

Drama Lesson Thirteen
For this performance, we have decided to adapt it so that the children would be able to understand it better. I felt that the changes that we made helped to make the stories clearer so that the children became less confused and enjoyed it more.

We decided to move the spots on the floor, which create the path over the 'lava floor' so that it is easier for the children the cross and then they are following my lead rather than jumping onto which ever ones they can reach first; it also helps they cross in a safer way due to the spots being very slippery if the children jump on then, so if they are following me then I know that it is safe for the children to cross because I have crossed it before them.

In the morning performance, we made the children line up in front of me, however, we didn't consider the position of the path when we lined the children up so I had to stop to let the children pass because otherwise I would have walked through their line and then they would have become confused. We changed this in the performance that afternoon, we placed the spots so that they created more of a straight line rather than a long winded on; we then asked them to line up infant of me, facing the start of the spots so that there would be no crossing through the line that they had created. This worked better because they followed me rather than just walking were they wanted and it was all played out very clearly so it was easy for them to follow.

Drama Lesson Twelve

Drama Lesson Twelve
We performed our first two performances to the primary schools. Before the children arrived we preset our stage for the first performance, set out props or had them ready backstage for when they were to be bought on stage for the right story, and got into costume ready for the children to arrive.

Feedback On The First Performance
I felt that in this performance, the children understood the stories and the tasks that we set for them, at times I felt that the instructions may have been unclear or have confused them. In the question and answer session after our performance, I found out that the children enjoyed find the keys in the 'Story-Stealer Story', the orange in the 'Citrus Story' and the riddles answers and Daniel's cereal (bowl, spoon and cereal) in the 'Princess and The Dragon Story'.

Feedback On The Second Performance
I felt that in this performance, the children understood the stories and the tasks we set for them. I felt that they understood the instructions that they were given better than the audience of children from the first performance; this was due to the children previous who didn't understand the instructions given so we took that into account when performing the second time. They also enjoyed searching for different things in each story; they also enjoyed it when the Story-Stealer turned good again and when Daniel turned from a Dragon to a Prince, as well as booing the bad and evil characters in the stories.

Drama Lesson Eleven

Drama Lesson Eleven
In this lesson, we had the whole to rehearse before our adult performance that evening. During the day we all had our technical rehearsals for all the lighting, smoke machine, projections and sound effects; while one group was going over all the technicals they needed, the other two groups were finalizing all the props, set and costumes needed for their performance. If that was sorted then we would rehearse our performance in our group of with other groups that were available at that moment in time.

After all groups had had their technical rehearsal, we performed a full run as the other actors from the other stories as the children. We recorded the run so that we could watch it back and see any improvements that needed to be made before our performance that evening. After this we had teacher and peer feedback to help each group improve performance and to also see what went well throughout the performance.

In the performance that evening, we got first hand experience with an audience, that wasn't the rest of the class, so we could see clearly what worked with an audience and what needed to be improved upon for our performances for the primary schools on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. The only downside to the evening performance experience was that we had not idea of the different reactions from the children because the audience was older than our target audience.

Drama Lesson Ten

Drama Lesson Ten
In this lesson, we decided that our original story plot was not exciting and interesting enough for our target audience; we decided that we would change our plot to follow along the lines of the story 'The Princess and The Frog' but instead would be 'The Princess and The Dragon'. We would keep the same activities (the riddles, lava floor and feeding Daniel the Dragon his cereal, instead the aim of our story is when Daniel eats his cereal and we all sing the 'Dragon Feeding Song' then Daniel would transform back into the Prince he once was before the Evil Wizard Gaz turned him into the Dragon he is at the beginning of our story. We felt that this would be more entertaining and engaging for our target audience (the children).