Juno And The Paycock Essay Research Paper

Juno And The Paycock Essay, Research Paper

A Directors production plan for Juno and the Paycock by Sean O Casey. In the production plan, you should explain your general approach to staging your chosen play, referring to any aspects of the play you consider significant. You may consider such aspects of staging as costume, set, lighting, make-up, props, acting methods, choice of venue, etc. Your answer must be supported by appropriate non-written material.

A director s production plan should integrate all elements of theatre so to put across the themes of the play through visual, technical and artistic methods. It is important the design concept fits fully with the production concept; one cannot exist without the other.

Sean O Casey s play Juno and the Paycock is set in the height of the civil war between the newly independent Irish Free State and the Republican Irregulars . The Boyle family is depicted as being very poor, living within a two- room tenancy tenement house.

My overall production plan would aim to show the failure of family life in an already dysfunctional family, the struggle of poverty and the political disillusionment felt through the failure of the nationalist independence movements and the partition of Ireland. O Casey follows the same line of writing as writers such as Ibsen; he writes about political and social, even controversial matters of the time, turns them into a play and performs them to a, then shocked, audience. By presenting the unspoken in society, I see a link between #Ibsen and O Casey. Ibsens A Dolls House tackled controversial themes of its time and was very political, just as O Caseys play I write about is. With this in mind, I am sure the mode of writing is naturalistic. Having decided this makes the design plan come together.

The detailed stage directions and setting also suggest the play falls under the category of realism or naturalism. With this description, you are able to envisage the room where all action takes place.

Although a rough guide, this plan follows the writer s directions. Because the design should reflect the thematic concerns, genres, period and atmosphere of the text, I would like the room to look like a stereotypical image of a poor working class family. This stereotypical image is one of dull colours and shabby furniture. The carpet should in a brown or dark blue, slightly patterned but very worn way. The wood of the units should vaguely match and be in dark mahogany so to look like they once could have been expensive, but they should be unvarnished and worn. The walls should be wall papered with a magnolia, flowered pattern. This shows the family still care about their house as the paper is bright but the tackiness and pattern should show they have little money for something subtler. The light emitted by the window should be limited the cretonne curtain covers the window and half of the bed beneath and should be dull and grey looking, and is held up by a piece of twine.

The play being set in the civil war in Ireland in 1922, I imagine the colours I have chosen reflect the depression felt by the families affected: the Boyles being a good example of this. Johnny has been affected through his war wound and his betrayal towards a fellow comrade. Mary, through a political stance involving labour beliefs and trade union strikes has changed, developed and therefore, been affected by the war. Captain represents a product of the slums . It is said that poverty breeds lack of work idleness and drunkenness. It breeds Dublin men with nothing to do but talk Captain is a perfect example of this! Juno is the strongest figure within the family as she is able to see what is going on around her and does not live in a fantasy world. She exists to survive and throughout the play, she is always working either for money (as Captain does not work) or for her children. The grey, dull and wornness of the room should show the depression and hopelessness felt throughout the play that ultimately contributes to its tragedy.

My overall objective within lighting is to enhance the moods that come and go within the plot, but remain naturalistic and subtle. In act one, the action takes place at noon. The light should seem to come from the window natural light. Because the ,ood ods quite depressing, I would like the stage to be visible to the audience, but seem dim and although lit, dull. This would suggest the weather outside was also bad, so to enhance further a depression in their life inside and outside of the family presented. I would like the audience to feel the room as cold not physically but within the atmosphere.

In act two, the Boyles have gone through a false change through their belief that they have inherited money from a dead relative. The room is full of ornaments bought with the newfound money but I do not believe they should be tasteful. They are said to be vulgar and adorning every possible place. The lights should be brighter but display the garishness of the room. The outside window should emit some light as the action takes place at 6pm. Table lights and the fireplace should emit light to show them as functional props and not just there for decoration.

Act three, the picture is darker. The fire, a lamp on the table and the votive candle beneath the Virgin Mary s picture, are the only sources of light. These should be made prominent. Mary is sitting n