National Theatre Connections 2011 by Sam Adamson

Author:Sam Adamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408145685
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

The Present Day

The Setting

Though a production need not be based in East Anglia, the play is defiantly not inner-city and the rural setting is critical to the play. There is a sense of the ‘smallness’ of life, of Saturday jobs and babysitting – things to keep the characters ticking over. There is little mention of wealth or travel.

The Characters

The characters are all in the same year at school, possibly the same class, but they are not a tight group, and there is mistrust.

They are not out for an adventure together. They are together because they want to make a film, and their ambitions for the film have brought them together, not their enjoyment of one another’s company. It is a holiday project proposed by their school. They all have personal motivation for their involvement. For example, Sadie, with her ambitions in the make-up world, is enticed by the glamour and the potential for forwarding her career, while Liam wants to prove himself after the intimated disaster of his previous project, ‘Liam Rayner’s Unsigned Band Project 2010’. There is not a pre-existing status structure to which the characters all adhere but a desire to be older, freer, maybe to define some sense of self and spread wings. The power stutters and slides within the group.

It would be interesting to make decisions on the style of film they are making. There are references to (amongst others) Polanski, Dogme 95 and Antichrist, so are these the kind of films the boys watch and want to emulate or do they want to develop a style of their own?

ALICE

Lives with her mum (a librarian), her stepdad (a carpenter) and her three-year-old twin sisters Lexi and Holly. Her dad, a teacher, lives two villages away. Alice loves going to the cinema with her dad. She is a prolific writer, and often on their drives there they plan stories she will write. She writes a film review after every cinema trip.

At primary school, Alice had a best friend, Becky, but they fell out in Year Five and Becky turned everyone against Alice – which means Alice now finds it hard to make and trust friends.

At home, Alice writes character assassinations of her schoolmates, reads them out to her mum and stepdad (who find them very funny), then files them in a box.

Alice can’t wait to go to university, where she’s told by her mum she’ll meet people like herself.

Alice frequently chooses to be alone. She may have a sense of superiority that contradicts her shyness, a way of being condescending that contradicts her insecurity, and though she may be running scared she can still assert herself. Alice is not bullied but avoided. A loner, she doesn’t need other people.

LIAM

Lives with his parents, who both work for the East Anglian Daily Press.

At primary school, Liam got in lots of trouble for screaming non-stop when he didn’t get his own way, but he stopped doing it by the time he was in Year Five.

Ambitious and out to impress, Liam finds it difficult to take orders.

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