Vera Vera Vera - Scene 4

'Squires focuses on the aftermath of the shooting of a young Kentish soldier, Bobby, while on patrol in Helmand province. He ostensibly died a hero but, on the day of his funeral, we see his siblings and best friend bitterly arguing about the real Bobby. According to his drug-dealer brother Danny, he was a total wimp who, in civilian life, wouldn't even defend his sister Emily; and Emily herself, although dressed to the nines to pay a TV tribute to Bobby, admits she hasn't the vaguest idea why he died or what he was fighting for. Interwoven with this bilious episode are three scenes, set a few months later, between Bobby's 16-year-old cousin Charlie, and her friend Sammy, suggesting that, if the concept of heroism survives, it is on the personal rather than the public level.' - The stage

The political and time context doesn't appeal to me and I had doubts in the first place to this monologue therefore I've decided not to do it.

Debris By Dennis Kelly - The last Chicken

I decided not to do this one because I found I didn't like the context after researching the play.

'A one-act play where a brother and sister try to make sense of their dysfunctional childhood. The pair lie about their past creating new elaborate past stories, the central narrative is of the brother, Michael, who finds a baby who he names Debris trying to keep him a secret and alive from his alcoholic father confiding only in Michelle his sister who is fascinated with their mother's death and gives several contradicting stories of how she died.'

It doesn't appeal to me and therefore I can't act it as well

Precious little Talent

Joey is a young English law graduate, pretty and privileged, who bought into the idea that if she was a good girl who worked hard, went to the right university and got a good degree, the rest of her life would be handed to her on a plate. But the recession has put paid to that. Now, without a job, Joey has fled to New York to be with her academic father George (John McColl) for Christmas. But George's future is crumbling, and he is reliant on the help of Sam (Simon Ginty), a good-natured 19-year-old who is imbued with a sunny American optimism in the wake of Obama's election victory.

Annie's charcacter

Annie:

"Annie, the fragile, ladylike new girl who initially retches at the gutting shed’s

smell"

• 16 years old
• Previously worked in Blackheath in 'Service'
• Was raped by the master and mistresses son
• Fell pregnant - resulted in the still birth of her illegitimate baby
• Was fired
• Became the 'new girl' at a meat gutting shed
• Lives in the home for 'friendless girls'
• Friends with the older girl 'Ellen' - a "bookish union sympathizer"

"The Gut Girls" was first staged in 1988 at the South East London venue: the Albany Empire, Deptford (not a mainstream playhouse- Aston).

Since then it has been performed at numerous venues, most notably the Deptford Dockyards from June 20- July 8, 2002.

Review from 'Impact Magazine', The gut Girls @ NewTheatre'
http://www.impactnottingham.com/2012/03/the-gut-girls-new-theatre/
"A haunted Annie, whose looks often held a thousand words."

Notable things of 'The Gut Girls' in General and therfore Annie's character:

The way of their speaking. –

They are wearing vulgar clothes. –

Their life style and manners. –

They are working under very hard conditions. –

They are treated like one of the animals they have chopped all day long. –

They have no insurance or no compensation for chopping themselves.

Act 1, Scene 5

Example of Annie's Monologue by Emma Selwood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhSsPOueleU

Review - The Space

http://london.tab.co.uk/2013/02/21/the-gut-girls/

The Other Girls:
"Polly is funny, Maggie is strong and outspoken. Kate is the baby of the group but has the foulest mouth of them all and Ellen is the women’s rights enthusiast and, much to the confusion of the other girls, the only “lettuce eater” (vegetarianism wasn’t a term the Victorians were overly familiar with)." - The Space

• Important to see how the girls connect with one another as Annie is confessing her thoughts and past in her monologue to 'Ellen', the 'Woman's rights's enthusiast' and also the vegetarian. What are the dynamics of their relationship? Does Annie trust Ellen more than the other girls in order to spill her heart out to her? Knowing these questions will aid me in what reactions to use in reactions to ellen's as if I were really talking to her. For example: 'I was in service, oh, not round here,' - The second part is in reaction to Ellen's reaction.

"In the space of two hours, we witness five exciting characters transformed by society into drab and unhappy creatures whose most exciting prospect is to one day become head maid or a chief nanny in the service of their ‘superiors’.The Gut Girls is an accurate depiction of the subordination of women in Victorian England. However, given the numerous recent high-profile stories in the news concerning violence towards women and girls, I left the production thinking that perhaps The Gut Girls isn’t so far from our reality either. There was a lot to be learned from this near-flawless production, which was touching, thought-provoking but, above all, immensely entertaining."

• Important to understand the journey in which all five girls go through within the play and therefore within their own monologue too, especially that of Annie's. Starting off slightly contained and becoming more and more out of control with emotions, heart ache etc
• Maybe Annie's heart ache is closer to our reality today that first thought?

First Act:

"The first sees the girls in all of their boisterous glory, bantering and drinking and whilst working hard under merciless conditions. Behind the bawdy laughs, however, lie serious depictions of the vast gender inequalities of Victorian England."

"In the first act, the girls give as good as they get but when they lose their jobs and are forced to train for service, the audience watch as the exquisite vivaciousness of the characters is squeezed right out of them and replaced with mop caps and bad tempers."

Second Act:

The devastation of the second half is intensified by the Lady Helena, an aristocratic woman who truly believes she is training the girls for the good of their lives and their souls. In reality, her training serves only to crush what little spirit society had allowed them to keep hold of. The final monologues, given in quick succession, convey utter defeat and submission.

Deptford and Cattle Market History

History:

Through Deptford began two small communities, one at Ford, and the other  fishing village on The Thames. The two grew together and flourished as one big community.

It is named after a ford of the River Ravensbourne, and from the mid 16th to the late 19th century was home to Deptford Dockyard, the first of the Royal Navy Dockyards (established by Henry VIII). In 1869 the British government introduced the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act. It stated that all imported animals had to be slaughtered upon their arrival at the dockyard as opposed to being sent inland. The purpose of the act was to prevent the spread of disease from foreign countries into England through imported livestock. From 1871 until the First World War it was the City of London Corporation's Foreign Cattle Market. The act also enabled the employment of over 500 women in the slaughterhouses at the Deptford Dockyards in 1871. 

The cattle market at the dockyards boomed for over 30 years until its eventual decline in 1907. In 1912 The Times reported that over 4 million head of live cattle, and sheep, had been landed. Following its closure, it became an army supply depot during both the Second and First World Wars. The dockyard is now abandoned; however, during its heyday the "gut girls" achieved local renown for their heavy drinking, gaudy hats, and colourful language.




[Adapted From Wikipedia] Sources from The Stage

Other images from Deptford:

A cobbled street in a Deptford slum around 1900

Deptford Power Station 1912

About Sarah Daniels

• Born on 21st November 1957
• Wrote 'The Gut Girls' at 23 years old
• 
  

• British
• Lesbian
• Feminist

"the only radical lesbian feminist to have made it into mainstream" may help to explain the source of her notoriety. - Carole Woodis (praise for The Bloomsbury Theater Guide)

She has become one of Britain's leading feminist playwrights. However, her success has been tinged by controversy and, often, by extreme critical backlash.

She admits to over ambition and to leaving issure unresolved in her plots, much to the criticisms of others.

"offer audiences complex theatrical experiences that place the female experience center stage.

-In addition to writing for the stage, Daniels also has written for radio and television, including the popular BBC "

Other Plays:

• "Masterpieces" (1983)
• "Byrthrite" (1986)
•  "Neaptide" (1986)
• "Beside Herself" (1990)
•  "Head-Rot Holliday" (1992)
• "The Madness of Esme and Shaz" (1994)
• "The Devil's Gateway"(1983)

Venue's her plays have been performed at:

• The Royal National Theatre
• Battersea Arts Centre
• Crucible, 
• Sheffield 
• Chicken Shed. 

Other written episodes:

• Grange Hill, 
• EastEnders
• Holby City.

Play Synopsis and Setting

Two Play synopsis' in comparison to each other that summarize in short hand what the play is about, the main themes and issues that are developed/challenged, and the conflicts that are met within the narrative:

Play Synopsis:

*Play Synopsis:
"The gut girls are brash, foul-mouthed, beer-swilling cockneys, mostly from desperate economic straits and dangerous pasts, but full of pride as working girls. When Lady Helena, an erudite widow from the upper class, makes it her mission to tame these girls and find them more ladylike employment -- as god-fearing waiting women -- the well-meaning dowager is as welcome as a temperance speaker at the local pub. Sarah Daniels' play is almost rudimentary in its plot: Of course Lady Helena winds up taking charge of the girls, and of course a shift in abattoir technology leaves the girls jobless, with little choice but to forsake their freedom for a life of servitude. The choices are anathema: the street, prison, marriage, or, worst, assimilation. Of the five girls in this story, each grapples with change to little avail."

*Important

"Set in the grimy slaughterhouses of Deptford in 1912, The Gut Girls places at its centre the relationship between five of the working class women who sift through offal for a living, ankle deep in blood. Whilst this may not sound like the most accessible play, it manages to be thought-provoking whilst maintaining a raucous and irreverent sense of humour. Drinking, swearing and subverting societal expectations, the Gut Girls dominate the Deptford society in which they live. Yet what will happen when the philanthropist Duchess of Albany, through Bible reading and sewing class, attempts to tame the girls, especially when circumstances conspire to force them to reject everything they know?" Review by The Tab, London

What do we know:

• Set in 1912
• Set in Deptford, Victorian London
• Follows the circumstances of 5 working class women working in a gutting shed in a slaughter house
• They have good pay - 'Earning more in a week...'
• Annie is 16
• They are full of pride
• They are looked down upon by other members of society
• But dominate the depftford Society

Setting Research

Blackheath

• It means 'dark-coloured heath land'.
• An urban myth is that Blackheath was associated with the 1665 Plague or the Black Death of the mid-14th century. More Info on History
• Blackheath is an area of South East London, with the London Boroughs of Lewisham and Greenwich. It is located east of Lewisham and south of Greenwich. Blackheath contains one of the largest areas of common land in Greater London.

Review:

• Blackheath Common, to the south of Greenwich Park, is a World Heritage Site. It benefits from a high vantage point beside the Thames so you get some good views over the capital and from Point Hill you can see the three counties of Essex, Kent and Surrey laid out before you. There are four ponds on the site with the Hare and Billet pond having the most natural appearance. Once heathland covered with gorse, the area takes on a more managed appearance although wild flowers are still encouraged to grow.
  
  

For further information on the website:

http://www.londontown.com/LondonInformation/Attraction/Blackheath/5ee1/

• At the mention of 'a beautiful house in Blackheath' in the monologue, I have researched some property houses in Blackheath. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

After looking at the location of Blackheath I feel these pictures really capture where Annie might have worked while 'In Service' as the play is set in Victorian London:

Transverse verbs on Annie's monologue

In today's lesson, we looked at the first three lines of our monologues and applied transverse verbs to them. Verbs such as 'energise', 'compel', 'persuade' are some examples. I learnt that within a monologue and even a short amount of speech (only 3 lines) a character can have many many different intentions to have on the effect of their audience or even another character on stage and by applying them to your speech you give it more 'flavour' and 'content'.

The Gut Girls - Annie's monologue

In last weeks lesson we were given out monologues (all the girls the same one and all the boys the same one) and we're asked to highlight all the punctuation and run it through with different actions for each different punctuation e.g. A coma - a 90 degree turn, a full stop - jump, a hyphen - a leap etc. This made me realise the appropriate time and space needed between the words that are separated by the punctuation in order for the character to have a realistic train of thought and change their intent to match the way they speak their words.