Kaitlyn Whetstone Whetstone 1

Professor Karen Fricker

DART 1P91

December 4, 2019

Critical Analysis

MY GROUP’S PERFORMANCE

My group performed an adaptdation of ​The Shape Of A Girl​ by Joan Macleod

and applied the feminist theory. When originally reading the script I thought the play was

well written but it was a hard topic for the class to read and understand, so I thought our

group could find a way to approach this play in a sensitive manner to help the class

better understand the situations that occurred in the play. While reading the play, ​The

Shape Of A Girl, ​I thought about the feminist theory rather quickly because of the title.

Then while reading it we noticed that the play was directed around females and how

females harass other females. I did research on bullying statistics and made note of

how people are unfortunately bullied in 2019 and this research proved that women are

bullied more often in environments by a higher powered male. We wanted to make our

performance relatable to the audience so they would understand what Sophie truly went

through in the play. We also made sure to approach our adaptation sensitivity in order

to insure the comfortability of the audience but still perform it to its fullest potential so

they would have an understanding of what we were trying to convey. My group chose
the feminist theory because they play was based on a group of girls and we wanted to

show

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a form of equality by changing the bully character to a male. The bully was a female in

the original play but we decided to switch the gender to show how a male can bully a

female without the women feeling that she was targeted because of her gender. We

wanted to show equality between genders because that is what feminism fights for so

we decided to choose the feminism theory because it could be easily applied to ​The

Shape Of A Girl​ with just a few changes. The research we did before beginning our

assignment was making sure that we knew what our critical theory was and how to

apply it correctly to the performance. Our group spent time figuring out how we could

apply the feminist theory in a way that the audience would understand and in a way that

made sense to the feminism theory.

To make the play easier, our group did not give out certain production roles,but

instead we divided up all the work between each member. Due to the fact that we did

not name anyone as director/script writer or designer our process did not go as

smoothly as we had hoped for. Some people were forced to direct/be the script writer

because other members chose to display a lack of interest in finishing the assignment.

During our creation process there was some conflict between members of the group

because of the difference of opinion between one another. Our production was shaped

rather slowly because some group members showed more productivity than others

which led to certain people doing more work than others. Before our final presentation
we realized that we were not as prepared as I would have liked us to be. The

communication between group members was not adequate enough but some members

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brought the group together to try and further our success on this project. Our group

could have benefited from better communication between members to strengthen our

creation process and also have a clear understanding of how to use our time wisely.

Having a better understanding of each other's preferences would have made our

process run smoother and possibly have a better work piece. I personally think that

each member should have been assigned a certain production role to help the

development of our performance by making everyone accountable for their personal

role. Assigning productions roles would have helped us in the making of the script and

overall performance. Our script ended up being all over the place because different

people were adding to the script without consulting the others so it did not flow as nicely

as it could have. I believe if we had assigned one person to do it by themselves or had

the group work on it all collectively, rather than one person at a time, the flow would

have greatly improved.

In our production of ​The Shape Of A Girl​ we chose to apply the feminst theory

so we had to make a few changes to the original play to ensure that the theory was

applied correctly. We decided to switch the bully in the production from being female to

male. We thought this would show a characteristic of feminism where boys do not

always directly harass a woman based on their gender or see women as lesser value

than a man. At the beginning of the performance we took some time to tell Adrian’s
backstory in order to give the audience an understanding as to why he acted the way he

did during our adaptation of ​The Shape Of A Girl​. We decided to show this because in

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the original play there was barely any reasoning behind why Adrian bullied Sophie and it

left readers uneasy. My group took the script and made it our own in terms of the

dialogue and we instead used our own words to describe the play because we switched

the circumstances of the scenes. We changed the original concept to a 2019 version of

the play to help the audience relate to the current day and age. The original was based

on true events that happened, however, these events do not occur much anymore and

we believed we could present it in a modern fashion. We changed the bullying type to

cyber bullying to relate to our 2019 society of cellphones and social media. Working with

the play ​The Shape Of A Girl​ by Joan Macleod gave me a better understanding of

bullying and the true consequences of harassing someone or being the victim of

bullying. In our society people play the role of the bully without realizing the damage

they are doing to people. This is mostly over social media and the bullies can not see

how the victim is being affected. The feminism theory made me understand a little bit

more about how feminism can shape a play and can make people view the performance

differently. Adding a feminist approach can make for a more realtable performance and I

have learned the benefits of using this theory for our adaptation of ​The Shape Of A Girl.
 Whetstone 5

SEMINAR 3’S PERFORMANCE

​ y Morris Panych using the

The group I chose to analyze is ​Seven Stories b

feminism theory. In the original play of ​Seven Stories,​ the main character was called

“the man” and the group decided to change the interpretation to “the woman”. They also

decided to switch Charlotte and Rodney’s relationship into a toxic relationship to show

how the male in the relationship was dominating the woman. The group switched

Marshall to a girl as well and changed the motivation behind why she stays in character

all the time. She stays in character all the time because her husband wants her to be

that way and does not accept who she really is so she pretends to be someone that she

isn’t so they can stay together. The group displayed different types of toxic relationships

and then showed how the women broke free from the man. The group stood up for what

they truly believed in which was showing how they could help “the woman” get out of

her bad situation. Helping the “the women” described the theory well because it was

showing how women should stand together and fight for what is right instead of being

pressured by a man to hold down their true emotions.

In order to add their theory they had to change the script significantly to relay the

right message. They changed the play by switching the characters to girls and having

them fight for “the woman’s” life instead of pushing it aside like they did in the original
play. The group did not edit the play but they rewrote it in a way that applied to their

theory and only kept the main ideas that supported their theme. The group decided to

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stage the play in a way that showed male dominance by having the male attack the

females while they are trying to protect “the woman”. In the presentation they showed

the females trying to surround “the woman” while she is contimplating suicide but the

male was pushing them away to show that he thinks that their opinions do not matter.

Furthermore the females kept trying to voice their opinions because they believe in their

worth as a female and as a human being. Watching this performance gave me a better

understanding of the play ​Seven Stories​ because it showed a deeper side to the already

tragic story which brought a stronger grasp to the entire concept of the play. Having

already used the feminism theory it was easy to tell that the group was applying that

theory to their own interpretation. In the end the performance furthered my

understanding of the theory because I watched the play instead of performing it and this

opened my eyes to seeing how another group was using the feminism theory and why

they chose to use it.