What are the themes of the play - in depth

 What are the themes of the play?

I feel the themes of this play are: The struggle to become independent:

The novel is based around Christopher who is becoming of age, to become more independent which is a challenge for him as he has Asperger’s Syndrome, which means he has trouble understanding people, dealing with new situations (train station/tube (p.68)) and making decisions. If at any time he feels frightened he shuts downs, curling himself into a ball and making noises or counting numbers (p.93) to help him concentrate. Even thou he has this he is a typical teenager who wants to take care of himself and to do his own thing, for example in the play you see him arguing with Ed because he has been lying about doing investigation to see who killed Wellington (pp.33-35). By the end of the play you see Christopher being more independent, planning for college and wanting to live by himself.

Subjectivity:

The book is based on the murder of Mrs. Shear’s dog, Wellington but half of the book is Christopher’s thoughts and feelings on physics or the supernatural. When Christopher finds the letters his mother has written to him, he almost immediately believes that the letters maybe for a different Christopher when he discovers the date on the postmark (p.39, 16^th October 2011), whereas the reader would see that Ed has been lying to him and that his mother hasn’t died. Although he does say “I decided that I would not think about it anymore that night because I didn’t have enough information and could easily LEAP TO THE WRONG CONCLUSIONS” this shows the reader that Christopher is thinking for himself and does not want to get himself into any more trouble than he already is.

Science, Technology and Math Problems:  How do the casting decisions affect your group's interpretation:

Throughout the play Christopher’s life has to be structured and logical, for example at the every beginning when he’s at the police station he empties out his pockets and every item he has with him is for a specific reason (p.7). He refuses to take off this watch as it’s in his nature to know what time and date it is so he can recall on what happens and also gives him a peace of mind “I need my watch to know exactly what time it is”. The scene before he is recalling on the when Siobhan when she says

“I want to do sex with you.’ I never said that.”

“Yes you did.”

“I didn’t use those words Christopher.”

“You did on 12 September last year. At first break.”

Shows the audience just how Christopher relies on his watch and how well he remembers certain issues.

I believe everyone, no matter who you act out; everyone has his or her own interpretation of each of the characters. Some people see Christopher as a rather dumb child that cant understand and cant interact with other people whereas I see him as a very intelligent young boy who tries to become overcome his condition and loves the simple things in life like achieving his goals (A-level Math’s, discovering who killed Wellington and likes learning new facts about science) (p.8 “For a long time scientists were puzzled…”) (p.27 “I’m going to do A Level Math’s next month. And I’m going to get an A*…” and making sure everything is in it’s place.

Even right at the end of the play when he is taking his A Level Maths paper he reads out his favourite question about triangles and Siobhan tells him "You don't have to tell us how you solved it."... "if anybody wants to find out how you solved the maths question then they can stay and you can tell them at the end." When I read this, I can just see Christopher's face light up when this question comes up as he loves knowing the answer and showing people that he can do it. Although when he comes out of the test he questions himself as he believes that he didn't get all the questions right and then comes up with reasons why he couldn't think properly. By the very end of the play he is incredibly happy with his results and feels like he can take on anything.

How are you approaching rehearsals so far?

I believe that I am putting all I can into making this play, the main reason why I love acting this play out is that I feel like my character; Mrs. Alexander suits me really well. I feel like she’s an old lady who doesn’t have many visits apart from when her family sees her on special dates like Christmas, Easter and her birthday. So when Christopher comes investigating she pulls out all the stops to make him stay and chat to her, (p.19 “Do you want to come in for tea”?) (p.20 “lemon squash”, “what about Battenberg”, “Perhaps I should bring out some biscuits instead. Do you like biscuits?”) as sometimes she’s rather lonely by herself with only her dog to keep her company.

What are your individual challenges for this project?

I feel like one of the challenges we have as a group is listening which does sometimes become a problem when we do out of time rehearsals as we don’t dedicate someone to direct us, but this is something we are working on as a group.

My recent challenge is pronouncing my words and syllables with the accent I have chosen for my character. I feel adding this accent/voice has almost created more of a personality for Mrs. Alexander, so every time I do the accent I am immediately into my character, which helps me tremendously.