What Is The Mood Of The Play Gorgon

Gorgon was a play about young man named Lee who loses his best friend in a car crash and his journey about coping with his grief. The majority of the play is set 1 year after the crash, when his dead best friend’s twin sister comes to his apartment and tries to persuade him to go outside for her birthday. The story is portrayed through multiple theatrical elements such as set, lighting, costume and sound. This text response will be analysing two of the main theatrical elements used to directly appeal to the target audience of young adults.
Set was a main theatrical element used. The shape of the set is a major component to the atmosphere being created via the set. The set used in the play, Gorgon, was a set in which the audience is supposedly
viewing the action through the forth wall of the rooms that the play takes place. The two rearrangements of the set for each part of the play provided a different atmosphere that affected the audience and the tone of the play in their own retrospective ways. Having a small bland set allows for the audience to really focus on the individual characters and their interaction, creating quite a tight atmosphere, whereas a large, more open, more furnished set allows the audience to immerse themselves in the overall setting of the play, strengthening the validity of the situation in which the characters of the play have been presented with. The set for the first half of the play was quite small with just a couch in it. Images were projected onto the couch and the grey set behind to portray a number of scenes. The scene in which Lee is playing video games directly appeals the target audience of young adults as the glare from the tv screen projected onto Lee and the set surrounded in the darkness of the room symbolises what many young people do, sitting inside playing computer games with the lights off. In the second half of the play the set is covered in items that young people usually either own or consume on a regular basis. This helped the set appeal to directly to the target audience of young adults. There was pizza boxes and other junk food items such as soft drinks and chips all over the ground, a beanbag, a couch that’s falling apart, clothes on the ground and a stereo. Most young people would own some these items and have a messy room or at the very least, know someone who would, reinforcing the connection to the play. Another theatrical element that enforced the ideology that the room belongs to someone of a younger generation is the music that was playing.
Sound was a good theatrical element used to directly appeal to the target audience of young people due to music being widely listened to especially among young people The variety of music used throughout the entirety of the play was broad but all were fairly modern genres, creating a connection once again between the target audience and the play, and captivating them through association of familiar sounds.
Genres played included heavy metal and rap. In part these were also used to portray emotions of the characters at certain times. In the opening scene heavy metal can be heard playing with Lee screaming silently. This music was also incorporated in part 2 when Lee is visited by Lola and he tries to block her out with the noise. Rap music is used when Maz and Lee are in the car. This music is quite aggressive and upbeat, similar to the mentality of young people, especially young males. This reinforces the appeal of the play for young people. Other sounds used to appeal to young people included the video game sounds from the car racing game that Lee was playing in Scene One. Many young people own and regularly play video games so this was very easy to directly appeal to the target audience of young people. The sound of an actual car driving around was also used in the driving scene, somewhat recklessly, and this appealed to young people as many young people own cars and drive
recklessly.
Gorgon had many theatrical elements that directly appeal to the target audience of young adults. The main ones that were discussed in this essay were sound and set. Sound was used to appeal to an audience of young adults by a variety of music genres and car and video game sounds. This appealed the desired audience as they associated the aspects of their lives that share similarities with the play. Set was also used to appeal as in scene 2 Lees room contained food and clothing items that young people commonly use and eat. This was designed to associate aspects of their lives with the objects in the set.