Drama

As part of our GCSE Drama course, we read and studied ‘Bouncers’ by John Godber. During our practical exploration of the text we used drama mediums, elements and explorative strategies to enhance our understanding and appreciation of the play. We used the strategies: still image, mime, hot-seating, marking the moment, narration, role play, thought tracking and forum theatre. We also used the mediums of space, levels, movement, mime, voice and speech. During our workshops we were also given the opportunity of choosing a variety of strategies, elements and mediums to respond to the play.

The play was about four bouncers who played the characters of the lads and ladies who made up twelve characters. The play was basically a light-hearted comedy; however, it exposed serious messages such as the exploitation of females, underage drinking and relationships. The message came across in the text as a bit of a humorous outlook on life but it did send out serious messages such as: underage consumption of alcohol, exploitation of young women; these were all illustrated. There are twelve characters in the play; however in most productions four people play the twelve characters. The playwright probably intended productions to follow this format because it’s very funny to see men performing as women.A group that successfullyexplored as another gender was our group when we explored the scene of being in the salon where we had to perform as women; we used body language, voice and gestures to successfully perform as another gender. My general opinion of the play ‘bouncers was very annoying not in sense that it was annoying, but it did not just relate to me because I was born in a different time and I also have a very different approach and view to topics and thoughts in the play bouncers. One reason I didn’t find the play very interesting and didn’t enjoy studying the plays is because I didn’t see it as an actor easy to perform in front of an audience not enjoying what I was