Comparing The Golden Pathway Annual to Blue Remembered Hills Essay

In the autumn term of 2006 I per runed as Enid and The mountain pass in The flamboyant highroad atomic number 53-year, a bout by arse Harding & John Burrows, for my scripted performance. The discriminate was split into groups of three (which was really satisf workery as in The thriving nerve path carriage yearly most scenes create only three characters, only the odd few scenes had four) and then tending(p) different extracts from the frivol.My group was exception eithery conscious in keeping the props, costumes and especially acting appropriate to the age stop consonant, so some brief enquiry was make victimisation the Internet to give us a develop understanding of, for example, what statuses the give and father would bewilder in relation to apiece former(a), or what costumes should be worn. Obviously, a reading of the entire play was done prior to any rehearsals, so that the scenes that we would be performing made wizard to us. We also read done grisly Remem bered Hills, by Dennis Potter, as a class.The well-heeled parcel of land Annual is almost completely non- representational. The same actor plays Michael, the lead role, throughout all his ages from the age of devil-and-a-half into his adulthood. Also, devil of the four actors play a range of characters, as opposed to one actor performing one character, as they would in a naturalistic play.At out fix glances, Blue Remembered Hills would seem to be a non-naturalistic play. Firstly, the characters be all boorren, whereas all the actors argon adults, similar to The luxurious Pathway Annual, where an adult actor would play the role of the child Michael. However, the scenarios in Blue Remembered Hills are completely naturalistic everything that happens could happen in real life. In contrast, The Golden Pathway Annual has moments, such as the fantasy sequences, where Michael is a dog with members of the Famous Five, which are evidently not naturalistic.The other very naturalistic thing some Blue Remembered Hills is that the play is in real- prison term one incident subsequently another without the imposition or intervention of memory in the form of flash post in Potters words. The play is set in one day, un the like The Golden Pathway Annual, which spans a time accomplishment of more(prenominal) than 20 years at that place is even an casing in the outset where the transition betwixt two scenes indicates the change of several years, where a child had been born and raised to the age of two-and-a-half not naturalistic in the slightest.The emotions in Blue Remembered Hills are very naturalistic. This is because the play shows realistic emotions and how the different characters would react, for instance when Donald dies towards the end, all the characters are badly shaken. If the emotions were non-naturalistic, such as in a comic style, the emotions would portray Donalds death as humorous. The Golden Pathway Annual also has very naturalistic, touching moments, such asEnid Whats going to happen to us?George When?Enid When we die.Enid feels upset and slightly negative now that Michael has left home, a natural reaction for a mother to feel. George, in the following lines, tries to be brave and attempts to convince Enid shes not talking sense an also natural thing for a chief(prenominal)tain to do.A noticeable difference between the two plays is the themes. The Golden Pathway Annual mainly has the theme of expectations, where Michael is insistenced throughout his life, by his parents and by his school. He works hard, barely this is only to find that all he worked for amounted to nothing. The main theme of Blue Remembered Hills is, in my opinion, childhood (other people may conjecture differently it depends on a persons interpretation). The play goes through the emotions and activities of children, with an ending showing how all fun and games can end in catastrophe.Basing the two plays on their main themes, it could be said t hat they are divergent, even the two plays acquit other themes, which do relate the two of them. Nostalgia seems to be portrayed in both of the plays. A sense of looking back can be seen in both Dennis Potters and Ed Thomasons (the director of the first The Golden Pathway Annual productions) introductions every(prenominal) event in the script which had sparked off a personal memory, a moment of recognition for me, would do the same for an audience (Ed Thomason). It is clear that The Golden Pathway Annual was written with the intention of nostalgia and Blue Remembered Hills was written using Potters memories.Both the plays similarly experience the theme of fantasy, however one experiences it naturalistically and the other non-naturalistically. Blue Remembered Hills has times when the children will imagine they are Indians and cowboys, for instance, running through the forest wailing and shooting each other with their imaginary guns. This is naturalistic, as the audience sees the children playing pretend. The Golden Pathway Annual has non-naturalistic fantasy sequences. Michaels fantasies are oftentimes more like dreams the audience views a dream where Michael is a dog or is crowd to createher Bond it is not Michael pretending he is James Bond.Although Blue Remembered Hills was written for television, a successful stage adaptation has been made of it. A hassle posed by this, which is overcome in different ways, depending on the production, is the staging. thither is a section towards the end where there are instant transitions between inside a barn and outside a barn. On television, this is on the loose(p) to do, however on stage this is harder. Therefore, the staging must be abnormal the stage could be split, for instance. This is alike to The Golden Pathway Annual, where the staging is very unnatural such as in a scene I performed a Grannys footsteps scene, where Michaels parents advance on him in the ironic fashion of this childs game. As a group , we decided to stage it abstractly, similarly to the way Blue Remembered Hills would be staged.The Golden Pathway Annual is set during the 1940s and 1960s. Our group established this time plosive in many ways one was the way the two parents related. I performed as Enid in a way that allowed George to be the more paramount character, reflecting on the main beliefs of that time, that men still seemed to be the superior gender. The Golden Pathway Annual begins just after the war, whereas Blue Remembered Hills is set during the war. It is provoke to see that just the two years changes the historic period entirely, make the two plays acted very differently.There is a similarity in time periods between the plays, and that is that the time period is a given circumstance it is set, and cannot be changed. The reason Blue Remembered Hills cannot be changed is quite obviously as it is during the war, and the scene of the play wouldnt make sense without the time period. The time period in The Golden Pathway Annual is essential to the characters, plot and emotions without the time period, the nostalgia of the play would be lost. In addition, the production notes stress the time period heavily.One difference I notice about the style of how the two plays are written is the freedom the writers allow for the production, and what given circumstances there are. Blue Remembered Hills seems to be more flexible with how the play can be performed. Potter gives an option of what Willie can be doing in the first scene, whereas Harding & Burrows take away much more strict given circumstances, where the props, as examples, are much more set the placing of the two chairs (which are the props that create the hallucination of many other items in the play) is stated.bon ton and acculturation is a portentous difference between the two plays. The Peters family in The Golden Pathway Annual is of working class. The family was hard-hit by the war literally their house was bombed an d they lost everything. Society in the times of the beginning of when The Golden Pathway Annual is set had the popular belief that the future would enamor break down, the high hopes due to the late(a) winning of the war. It was also believed that the young generation should make the best of what they have offered to them, a culture reflected deeply into Enid and Georges parenting, which is shown through all the pressure applied on Michael to do well at school and get good qualifications, so he can succeed in life. However, as the play progresses, we see that cultures change and Michael finds that like the pound, his degree has devalued.The class and culture are both very different in Blue Remembered Hills. The children spit, threaten and fight regularly in the play, something that Michael is never known to have experienced. Michael is always made presentable, as his parents believe that they need to fit in with the nightspot. It is likely that the same case occurs in Blue Remembe red Hills, however the culture is different the entire town is likely to be of the lower rural class, working on the farms the way the children behave is normal in the society they are in.It is clear that the upbringing of the children in Blue Remembered Hills is not to get a degree and do well in life and to better themselves, as Michael is in The Golden Pathway Annual the children are parent in a sort of the present matters mentality, in contrast to The Golden Pathway Annual where Enid and George have firm beliefs that it is the future that matters, and that everything is done for a child to better themselves in the future.In conclusion, I have learnt that although the two plays are very different in where they are set and the way the characters behave, similarities still lie in the themes and some of the styles, such as staging.