Topic 4

The piece lasts approximately for 6' 47".

The three texts chosen are from Matthew Walker's non-fiction book Why We Sleep, Aeschylus The Persians, and Chelsea Terris Like We Wasn't People. The texts are not identified in the transitions. The recording is a little distant with some odd lighting changes but is good quality. There is some occasional background sound. It appears the candidate has chosen a separate area of the stage for each of the three extracts, beginning in the centre and returning to that point to make links in the persona of the first extract character. She adopts the persona of the first extract character to introduce the second and third, denoted by a large pink scarf, as a professor who is giving a lecture about the theme of dreams. This is imaginative in attempting to unify the process of linking the texts together. However, it blurs the distinction between the first extract and the links and is potentially confusing, such that the essential communication of the point of transition from first text to the linking comment is entirely lost. The discussion of the theme, in role, between the second and third extract is well over a minute, which is excessive in discussing and commenting on the texts chosen. In the third extract it is not entirely clear why some of the candidate's focus is given to the desktop behind which she is standing. Wherever a lectern, table or a desk is used, it is essential that candidates do not direct attention to it in a way that could suggest a script placed there.