Beth’s delusion consists of her giving a ‘speech’ once she receives the promotion at head office, originally we thought of the idea of her been an American President and giving her inauguration and Tom would be her bodyguard and Joanna would try and assassinate her.  However this didn’t feel quite right and didn’t feet directly into the play and certainly didn’t fit Beth as a character.

We thought of the idea of her been a Queen, we searched for queen speeches and found her speech to the Troops of Tilbury. It spoke of a strong powerful woman, reflected on war, semi mirroring Joanne’s delusion.  This speech allowed us to use yet another form, classical speech. Not quite Shakespearian, but it certainly fits the time and reads in a very similar fashion.

Beth getting the promotion causes Simon to get incredibly frustrated, making him take out his anger on Michael. They have an argument and finally Michael stands up to Simon, causing him to get incredibly angry. He slams his head onto the desk, breaking his nose and making blood squirt everywhere, time quickly reverses and it is revealed all to be in his head. The idea of keeping this delusion short was to try and make the audience believe that perhaps this is real, especially as Simon has been so cruel throughout the play and pictured as a real villain.

The final delusion, is that of Louisa’s. She’s a strong, hard working woman that focuses highly on her career. Unfortunately for many working women, especially in the business sector have to often give up having children and a family. We wanted to reflect this within the piece, without making it a major statement. Simon earlier in the play talks of her past relationship and how things didn’t quite work out, due to her work. She doesn’t get the position at head office, which she drastically wants and needs. Her whole life is devoted to her career and when she falls short she begins to wonder if she had made the right choices in life.

She begins to look at what she would have had, if she’d of stayed in a relationship. Perhaps not the right choice, but it’s a choice none the less. We took inspiration from the American sitcom ‘Scrubs’  where the lead watches a projection of what his future may be like. We decided to do something very similar and use media production as another form in the production. We decided to give it a hand held feel, so it appeared to be a homemade film yet the angles were that of a cinematic production making it feel less like they had filmed it themselves and that it was a ‘delusion’.  Once the film ends, her ex walks on stage. This moment may or may not be part of the delusion, we wanted to leave the audiences questioning that fact.

 

PrimMichael JA (2009) Scrubs Series 8 – My Finale – JD Montage/Vision Of His Future. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=War9m52LrV4 [accessed