Devising from an image: Narrative approaches

Waiting: an introduction to drama conventions

Acting Shakespeare: Monologues from A Midsummer Night's Dream

Practising physical and vocal skills

Live theatre responses: Becoming a critic

Narrative structures using poetry: Developing monologues

Who Cares?: A devising unit

Acting Shakespeare: Twelfth Night

Posture, gesture and voice in performance

Live theatre responses: Using social media

Approaching text: Bringing it to life

One text, different approaches

The journey: a verbatim project

Study of text in contemporary, cultural contexts

Live performance responses: Evaluating stagecraft

Understanding roles and responsibilities of the creative team

Commedia dell'arte: an introduction

Using Drama conventions to explore contemporary issues

Drama

Y9 Drama

Key Stage 3

Year 9

UNIT

In this lesson, we will start to explore a play, Refugee Boy, adapted by Lemn Sissay from Benjamin Zephaniah's novel. We will learn about the context surrounding the novel, and be introduced to the main character, Alem Kelo.

Exploring and understanding context: Refugee Boy

﻿Hello there, I'm Mrs. Bradley. Welcome to Drama and to the first lesson, looking at the text "Refugee Boy", the play by Lemn Sissay, adapted from the novel by Benjamin Zephaniah. If you're ready, let's get started. In this lesson, you'll need an exercise book, notebook, or some paper to write on, and you also need a pen. So let's look at what we'll do today. I hope you've already done the intro quiz which will have recapped, maybe some of your prior knowledge of drama. We're going to start today by exploring the context of the play, "Refugee Boy", to help us understand what the play is about. After that, we will be starting at the beginning and exploring the atmosphere in scenes one and two. We will then start to explore our main character, the protagonist, Alem, in more detail. And that will take us to the end of the lesson. And they'll then be an exit quiz to check your learning from today. Our Key words, then, for this lesson. The first one is context. So the context of a play is the background information that helps us understand the play. So it could be the social, cultural, or historical events that surround the play and help us understand when and why it was written. As I said today, we will also be looking at atmosphere, and that's the mood and feeling created on stage that then goes into the audience. And we will be looking at performance skills today. This is a theory unit and you will be doing a bit more writing about drama but it's still really important for us to have a really strong grasp of performance skills, therefore we can write about them accurately. You may have read the novel of "Refugee Boy" but if you haven't, we're going to start with some context. So "Refugee Boy" is a play by Lemn Sissay, and it's adapted for the stage from the novel by Benjamin Zephaniah. It's all about a boy called Alem Kelo, and he comes to England with his father. And they come from Ethiopia and Eritrea. His parents are both Ethiopian and Eritrean, but a civil war breaks out between those two countries over the border. They dispute ownership of towns such as Badme, where Alem's family lived. So Alem's father feels like he has no choice but to move Alem to England where he will be more safe. Alem thinks, at first, that he is on a holiday but then, really bravely, Mr. Kelo leaves him in England to be safe while he goes back to continue to fight for peace. We are going to pick up the story at the start, where Alem and Mr.kelo are in England, and then in future lessons, we'll see what happens to the whole family throughout the play. But first of all, let's read a little bit more about the context. So what I'd like you to do now is if you have a look at the worksheet associated with this lesson, I'd like you to read the information on refugees and asylum seekers, which is from the Amnesty International website. So the worksheet for this lesson contains a link which will take you to that website. There's no need to print anything just follow the link and you can read the information online. As with any external website, please do chat with the parents or carer first, read the information, and then return to the video when you've read this. Great, so I hope now you've got a much more developed understanding of the context of the play "Refugee Boy". Let's check that with a couple of quiz questions. So here's a statement for you, An asylum seeker is otherwise known as a refugee. Would that be true or false? It is false, and the reason is, the two terms do have legal differences. So an asylum seeker has left a country to find safety in another country but has not yet been granted refugee status, which is something which has to be applied for. So seeking asylum is a human right. Is that true or is that false? The information from Amnesty International states that everyone should be allowed to enter another country to seek asylum. And finally, do you remember, from the article on the Amnesty International website, how many refugees are there globally? Did you get that right? The answer is 25.9 million. So that's a lot of people, isn't it? We will start now reading scenes one and two. So now we understand the context of the play, we can explore the opening scenes and this will give us a much better understanding of how these scenes that should be performed because we know the context behind them. We're going to read scene one and part of scene two, and the keyword for the section is atmosphere. I want you to really focus on how the atmosphere changes between these two scenes. Here are some words which we can use to describe atmosphere as we go through these scenes. Atmosphere is the feeling generated by the actors on stage and through design effects as well, and that atmosphere is felt by the audience. So the atmosphere, we could say, is tense, calm, panicked, spooky, relaxed, jovial, fun, distressing. There's lots of other words we could use to describe atmosphere, but here's a few, in case you want some help with your terminology today. Feel free here, just to pause the video and write down a few of these words but if you're ready, we'll have a look at scene one. Let us read the first scene. So this is how the play opens. In the grey box I've provided some information for every scene that we read, which will help us understand what the scene is about and also give us some questions to focus on. So here, Alem and Mr Kelo have just arrived in England. It's nighttime and they are looking up at the stars. At this point, Alem thinks he's on holiday. So what's the atmosphere in this scene and how do you think Alem is feeling? That's what I'd like you to focus on as we read the scene. I'll read it out loud and you can read along with me. It is the North star. But where are the other stars? In England the stars have to sleep. They take it in turns to save energy. No. Yes. Because if they shine for too long they get tired and when they get tired their power goes out. The North star decided he would always shine because he is more powerful than the rest, okay. Can I come? Please, please. Can I? Can I? So at the end there Mr kelo is going out for a walk and Alem wants to go with him. So, just before we move on, just jot down what you think your answer is to what the atmosphere is in the scene and how you think Alem is feeling. And then what we'll do is compare this to the next scene. Okay, so here is scene two. So it's now the next morning and Alem wakes up to realise his father has gone. What I'd like you think about as we read this scene is what's the atmosphere now? How is Alan feeling now? And how is this different to scene one? So what you can see on the screen here is stage directions. So this scene starts with all of these stage directions before we get any dialogue. So I'll read these out loud and you can read along with me. Alem wakes. He gets out of bed. He tries the door of the bedroom. It's locked. He asks for his father in Amharic, "Father". Alem is tired. He looks out of the window. In Amharic, "Father". He checks the door. In Amharic, "Father". It's still locked. He puts his ear to the wall, to the floor. He tries the door again. His panic grows. In Amharic, "Father", he goes to the window again and shouts in Amharic, "Father, Father, Father". The door bangs. Bang! Bang! Bang! A muffled noise comes from outside the room. Alem is silent. Bang! Bang! Bang! Silence. The sound of a door unlocking. Alem backs away. The door swings open. So before we have any dialogue we've got a lot of stage directions, which tell us a lot about how Alem is feeling and what the atmosphere is now. So what do you think the atmosphere is? And how do you think Alan is feeling? Just jot down a couple of ideas before we move on to the dialogue of this scene. Okay, so here is the dialogue and now another character has entered. Mr. Hardwick is the landlord at the small hotel where Mr. Kelo and Alem have been staying. So it's now the next morning, we've just had all of those stage directions and then Mr. Hardwick has entered. Right. What's going on here then. We'll have no noise in here. Abaten yet alleh. Where is my father? Where's Mr. Kelo then? And wherea did he put that elephant? In the bathroom? Mr kelo? Abaten yet alleh. Where is my father? Do. You. Know. Where. Mr. Kelo. Is. So we get a little bit of dialogue there which helps us understand, again, how Alem is feeling. And we can really compare how this is different to scene one. So this is really helping us understand at the very start of the play, what the context is and therefore, what the atmosphere is in this scene. 'Cause if we imagine we are a 14 year old, we're going to be quite frightened if we've been left on our own, in a strange country, without knowing where our father is at this point. So, let's explore Alem's role here in more detail. In scene one, you could describe the atmosphere as relaxed and Alem is excited to be on holiday. And we know this because of the line, "Can I come? Please. Please. Can I? Can I?" He's clearly excited. He asks questions. He wants to go out on a walk with his father because he wants to explore this new country. And so you might've described the atmosphere as relaxed but you could have used another word as well, which would have been fine. However, in scene two the atmosphere definitely changed. We now get a sense of panic and fear as Alem realises he's not alone. And we can see this in the stage directions that we're given, "His panic grows." So here the text really helps us understand what the atmosphere should be. We can see this as well in the repeated lines, "Whereas my father/Abaten yet alleh?" Which is in Amharic, the language of Ethiopia. So the question that I'd like you to consider is if you were performing the role of Alem, how would you perform these lines to create the right atmosphere for the audience? And what we're going to do is have a look at how we answer questions like this in drama. So, to write about drama and to write specifically about performing, we need to use the right terminology. So here I've got three categories, vocal skills, physical skills, and interaction. What I'd like you to do is pause the video here and have a go at making a list of words that you would think of, to write about each of these categories. So you can set this out like a table or you can just do bullet point lists under each category. What words do you know which would go under each of those headings? Pause it and have a go, and then I'll show you some example answers. Okay, let's see how you got on. So for vocal skills, you might've written words such as pitch, pace, pause, tone, volume, emphasis, hesitation, or stutter. There are just some examples. What you could do now is add to your list with some of those words, because this terminology list will help you with the tasks we're going to do today. Physical skills. You might have included body language, facial expressions, posture, gesture, gait, and stance. Again, it's okay if you've had some different ideas but you might want to add these to your list now. Interaction is how we interact on stage with another character. So here, you might've thought about eye contact, use of space and physical contact. So what you could do now, if you want to, is pause again while you add more of these terminology words to your list but if you're ready, we'll move on and look at how we answer a question. Okay, here we've got an example question and an example answer. At the top, in the black text, you'll see the question. Imagine you are playing the role of Alem. In scene one, how would you perform the line "Can I come? Please. Please. Can I? Can I?" using your performance skills in order to create an appropriate effect for the audience? So appropriate means it's suitable, suitable for that scene, and the effect is the desired outcome. It's how we want the lines to come across. So here is an example answer for this question. Playing the role of Alem, I would want to create the effect that I am excited and intrigued to be in England. And I really want to go on a walk with my father. So straight away, the answer sets out what we want the effect to be. To achieve this, I would use an upbeat, excited tone, fast pace and loud volume to sound enthusiastic. I would be sat on the bed, but would jump up on this line, making eye contact with my Father, and would pull quickly at his sleeve, showing how excited I am to be there and how I want him to involve me. So in the pink text, we've got the vocal skills and in the green text, we've got the physical skills. And also the eye contact and the pulling at the sleeve is also intercation with the father as well. So this answer perfectly answers the question because it states what the appropriate effect would be and it gives clear, specific, vocal and physical ideas to achieve that. So that's a really good example of an answer. Using that now, should we have a go at your own? I'd like you to pause the video here to complete a question. So using the model answer, which you've just looked at. Using the terminology list that you've written, have a go at writing one paragraph, answering this question here. Imagine you are playing the role of Alem. In scene two, how would you perform the line "Abaten yet alleh/ Where is my father?" Using your performance skills, in order to create an appropriate effect for the audience? So you've got the terminology in front of you. You've got the model answer, which you've just looked at. If you need to look at that again, you could go back, but pause here and have a go at answering this question and then we'll resume when you're ready. Okay, well done. Good work. We're going to now move on and explore Alem's role further, and we're jumping now in the text to scene five. So here's a quick plot summary of what's happened so far. Mr. Hardwick, who discovered Alem was alone, called social services and then Alem was placed in a children's home. There, he meets Mustapha, who becomes his friend and another boy called Sweeney, who was an older boy who bullies the others. Mustapha and Sweeney are also separated from their families for various reasons. Sweeney antagonises Alem because he's new and because he's different. He threatens him and forces Alem to call himself "Refugee Boy" Mustapha is there, but he doesn't stick up for Alem. And after this aggressive confrontation, Alem runs away from the children's home. So that's what's happened so far and that's where we're up to in the play now. Here is an extract from scene five and this is a monologue from Alem. So at this point in the play, Alem is on onstage, on his own. He's run away from the children's home and the school he'd started. What we're looking for here is Alem's feelings and how they've developed. And how his character has developed from when he first arrived in England. I'll read the scene for you and then you can read along with me. I am not running away. My home is not broken. I throw my shadow at the moon so you may sense my spirits, so you can say my SON. My SON. I am coming. I shall not speak to the police, not a word. They will tell you I have run away. They will tell you that I am a bad boy, a refugee boy. I am not a run away. I am not a refugee boy. The policeman asks if I have drugs in my pocket, asks where I'm from, asks me who I am, asks for my parent's address, asks my name again, asks me my father's name and my mother's name and asks me where I am from. Says he'll call the social services or the refugee council. Asks who I am again, asks me where I'm from ... I didn't run away. I was searching for you. I only wanted to be found. Okay, so from that monologue, there's some questions here to consider. So who is Alem talking to in this monologue? If we look back at the words again we can answer that question. Where is Alem at this point? What actions or movement could he be doing in this monologue? How is Alem feeling? What key lines stand out to you which you think is significant? And what effect would you want to create if you were performing this scene? So to explore the scene in more depth, I'd like you to pause here and answer these questions. So if you can pause the video, and if you want to look again, at Alem's monologue, you can find the scene in the worksheet for this lesson. You don't have to print it, but you can look at it while you also answer these questions. So pause here, answer the questions, and then we'll move on when you're ready. Okay, great. So we've thought already about this monologue in more depth. We've considered where we are. We've considered who Alem is talking to. And the answer is, he's talking to his father. We've thought about what thoughts and feelings, and how we would use our performance skills to get those across. So let's do this in more detail now, and let's annotate the monologue. You've got a couple of options here. If you are able to print the slide with the monologue on, you can do, from the worksheet. If you can't, you can either write out this extract and annotate around it, or you can simply bullet point your ideas. just on your paper. So what I'd like us to do is annotate the monologue with your ideas for how you would perform this if you were Alem. Here's a couple of examples of how we might do this. So we might start by facing the audience, being centre stage, running on the spot, breathless, and then he stops. So maybe Alem is running away from the police and he stops to talk to the audience. As well, perhaps we add extra emphasis on the words "not". I am "not" running away. Maybe we use a defiant tone, a determined facial expression, a furrowed brow, and a frown. On the words, SON, it is capitalised, so maybe there, we can shout this with a loud volume and a desperate tone. Maybe he places his hand on his chest, on the word "son", 'cause he wants to feel the closeness to his father, perhaps. Finally, maybe at the end, he starts to run again, at a fast pace, but then he realises he doesn't know where he's going and he stops. He sighs deeply. So you can see some examples there and they're very detailed. So I'd like you think about this and do this in as much detail as you can as well. Don't forget you've got the terminology list, from earlier in this lesson, that you can refer back to. Pause here then, and annotate the rest of Alem's monologue with your performance ideas. There's no wrong answers here. It's exactly how you would choose to perform it. Whenever we write about drama, it's always a good idea to have thought about how we would perform it first. So give ideas, for how you would use your vocal and physical skills on every line, to create the right atmosphere and effect. When you've completed a task, we'll restart the video. Okay, well done. That brings us to the end of this lesson but I've just put an extension task here for you if you have a bit more time and you want to challenge yourself further. If you can, complete the paragraph in response to this question here. How would you perform Alem's monologue from scene five using your vocal and physical skills, in order to create specific effects for your audience? We've already set up to answer this question by annotating the monologue. And we've got our terminology list from earlier in the lesson. So if you want to, have a go at this question before you leave today. If not, really well done, you've done a huge amount of work today. We've explored the context of the play. We've learned a lot about asylum seekers, refugees and migrants. We've explored three scenes from the play.

In this lesson, we will learn what a character interpretation is, and we will interpret some of the characters from the play, and learn how to use motivation and subtext to develop a character.

Developing character interpretations and using subtext: Refugee Boy

In this lesson, we will focus on designing and directing the play. We will learn some design terminology, and apply this to some key scenes, and consider what a director needs to think about.

Design concepts and directing: Refugee Boy

Unit Overview: Study of text in contemporary, cultural contexts

Lessons:

Exploring and understanding context: Refugee Boy

Developing character interpretations and using subtext: Refugee Boy

Design concepts and directing: Refugee Boy