Final Rehearsals

Today, we had a rehearsal to finish up our piece and to try to get the final thing polished. We both brought our stimuli with us and we were able to have a productive rehearsal, due to what we brought with us and the knowledge we acquired from this research.

We figured out what we are going to both say for the part where we speak simultaneously, and figured out how it will effectively juxtapose what the other person is saying. The idea is that I am getting stronger and stronger as I speak, until eventually the horrors of war that I am talking about overcome the happy and persuasive words of  the radio broadcasts and posters, trying to recruit people to join the army. So eventually, I am shouting at her. I am saying:

The heavy coloured vapour poured relentlessly into the trenches, filled them, and passed on. For a few seconds nothing happened. The sweet smelling stuff merely tickled their nostrils, they failed to realise the danger. Then, with inconceivable rapidity, the gas worked and blind panic spread.

Hundreds, after a dreadful fight for air, became unconscious and died where they lay –with the frothing bubbles gurgling in their throats and with twisted limbs, one by one, they drowned.

Which are just a few lines that I have taken and put together from the diaries that I found, which highlights what it is like to be gassed. It is really effective to highlight the horror of gas.

We then changed and altered "Dulce Et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen, so we have just the lines that are important and vital for describing what it is like to be gassed. We decided to allocate certain lines to each other, so after Nora has read the telegram, we speak the lines. I march behind her, so it is as if I am a soldier marching to war and she is describing what it must be like. We then say the last line together and salute to show that we are soldiers and to show our respect to the soldiers who gave their lives for our country.