Inspiration from sentences and words

Throughout the two days of devising we looked at songs and poems from different extracts from The Lord Of The Rings. We had to either pick a song or a poem that inspired us in creating a piece of theatre that is related back to England. Once our group had found a song we started analysing it, highlight certain words and important sentences that inspired us into creating a piece of theatre. These specific words and sentences influenced us as actors into creating our piece of theatre. Many of us had different interpretations on certain words and sentences however, we decided to create our piece around a mental asylum. Lizzie, who was in our group, remembered a documentary about a mental asylum in England that kept drugging their patients so that they kept thinking they was crazy themselves.

We decided to choose this song from the extract we was given.

‘All that is gold does not glitter’

‘Not all those who wander are lost’

‘The old that is strong does not wither’

‘Deep roots are not reached by the frost’

‘From the ashes a fire shall be woken’

‘A light from the shadows shall spring’

‘Renewed shall be blade that was broken’

‘The crownless again shall be king’

 

When analysing this song there was many things that stood out for me such as the sentence ‘not all those who wander are lost’. From just that one sentence I got a lot of interpretations and ideas on a story that could become a theatrical piece. Straight away from that sentence I thought of hope, ambition, desire, dream, and aspiration. I started imagining a man who had lost all hope but then suddenly he regained or earned back his honour and pride. Because we are exploring fantasy world’s I wanted to try and include king, queens, orc’s etc.

Our theatre piece was about a mental asylum that kept on drugging this patient so that she kept thinking she was crazy, very much like the documentary Lizzie was discussing to us about. However, in our piece we explore the loss of hope and how that affected the character mentally and physically. The doctor/king controls the patient through drugs and mental health issues caused by the drugs. The patient then over powers the doctor/king and kills him but because she is so mentally and internally ill she doesn’t know how to react or what to do.

When watching the other performances I notices that almost all the other groups decided to use the same song from the extract. I didn’t think it was by accident that we all choose the same song however, I believe the song had a lot of importance to it within the words and sentences that nearly everyone decided to go with it. Therefore, I found it even more interesting watching the performances as it was good to see different interpretations and ideas from the same song. I really enjoyed watching everyone’s performances as they were so imaginative and creative it was really enjoyable. Some groups decided to use taboo related themes that was quite theatrical while other groups decided to include a song in their performance which was very fantasy like.