Treasure Island

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The Evacuees

Working with the year 9 class from Old Moat Primary School, I devised a play based on the childrens knowledge of WW2 from their history lessons and experience from visiting Stockport's air raid shelters.
The piece was composed of different styles of performance; acting, singing and dancing. This made it easier for me to make sure each child had a fair amount of performance time and was able to perform in the area they felt was their strength.
The play began with a WW2 siren wailing and a stillness swept the hall. All the children and adults were unnerved by the noise. The evacuees entered wearing gas masks, with minimal movement they placed themselves into straight lines waiting to begin. The introduction was spoken by the cast in character, and explained to the audience that they were evacuees waiting for a train that would take them to Devon, safe away from the bombings that were happening in the city.

A physical drama section then followed as a small group of the children created several tablos showing soldiers in different war scenes. The exercise was developed from looking at photos of soldiers in regimental lines, soldiers in battle, soldiers looking fatigued at the end of the war. The children were most mature about this and produced very emotive tablues representing these pictures. In the performnace these tablos were accompanied by the main theme music from "Saving Private Ryan" (recording: The Band of H.M Marines). Moving from image to image with slow graceful movements the children reflected the seriousness and solemness of this tragic piece of history, many of the teaching staff commented how impressed they were by the level of performance skills within this scene.

The children to contrast the previous serious scene, using only their bodies and voices created the effect of a long steam train, clattering down the tracks, full of excited children, complete with loud "tout tout" from the train's whistle.
Year 9 had a very mature understanding of the emotional trauma that the evacuees must have felt, being forced to leave their families and loved ones behind. They felt that the song "White Cliffs of Dover" sung by Vera Lynn was the most appropriate song to express the sadness of the evacuation process and hope of being reunited with family again soon. The song was a great success, led by strong solos the song built up to the point where entire cast had joined in for the final verse. Several memebers of the audience came to me after the performance to comment that the power and emotion expressed in the childrens voices sent shivers down their spines!
To finish on a more joyous note I created a dance inspired by the Lindy Hop, as the cast was too big for partner dancing, I split the children into 3 groups and each performed a different section of the dance. Lots of bouncing and silly faces made it a great number to end the show on and gave the children a great surge of pride and pleasure at what they had achieved and rightly so, they enjoyed performing it and everyone who watched it enjoyed it aswell!