‘Hoods’ a Drama Production

The performance Hoods by Barking Gecko Theatre Co. is a chat up about two small nipperren, Jessie and Kyle, who create video game style situations to pass the time as they be left in the car by their go. This play was performed at Thornlie Senior High Schools Performing liberal arts Centre on Friday the 1st of April 2011. It was a great honour to have this brilliant play shown to the luxuriously school students as it showed perseverance of the young children. The play was written by Angela Betzien and directed by Leticia Caceres. The actors were Sam Longley and Andrea Gibbs, Sam who played Kyle and Andrea who played Jessie.The style in which the play was performed was presentational although there are some part of realism because situations like these actually do happen. The actors played multiple characters and morphed into each one. The morphing shows plain changes of character. They had great versatility of characters and played each one with passion for the role. The faci al expressions they used seemed to add to the way they acted and make us, as an audience believe their roles much more. Other presentational aspects include the use of direct dish out and poetic narration throughout the performance.Jessie and Kyles mother leaves them and their baby brother (Troy) in the car as she went to the shops. Troy quarter sick and the children are fearful of their situation and go tally to seek their grandmother. Their mother hadnt actually forgotten about them but rather had been caught shoplifting for them and was taken away. The themes for Hoods would be child neglect, poverty and domestic violence. The playwright had the intention of telling these childrens story to the audience. As children they dont have the ability to tell people their situation and get help like adults can.The intentions would be that they wrote the play with the intention of showing military grouplessness, and making the characters feel vulnerable as they are so young and in situ ations we dont expect children to be in, they delivered these very effectively. There are three main parts of the play where they are powerless, when the children are in the car trying to find their mum, when the counsellor has no power to take the children out and treat them and when the mother is powerless against the fathers violent ways. Their costumes were old and shaggy-haired due to their setting being dirty and poverty stricken.They both wore hoods which they either wore on or off their heads, depending on what character they were playing. The set contained very few objects, a box that acted as a car, the fence in and some chairs. This added to the deserted feel of the play. The lighting was dark with the main lighting in the middle, where most of the military action took place. There were also few props, the baby, Jessies magic wand and even though it was clothing, Jessies capital as it was something she never took off, like her comfort blanket. There were different sou nds throughout the performance, such as, cars, sirens, explosions and dogs barking.The stage at the high school was quite spacious giving the actors a chance to use it all, which they did perfectly. I rattling liked the performance, it was interesting and compelling. There was action, comedy and tragedy which all added to the performances appeal. It did start to get slightly boring toward the end but it think that was because it was quite long, but overall very good. I think most of the audience liked it due to the attention they payed and the amount of applause at the end. I would definitely recommend Hoods to anyone looking for a great play to watch.