http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0wycVPR_nI

This is a link to the war time song 'Pack up your troubles' which we use in our piece just after the men leave for war.

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,

And smile, smile, smile,

While you've a lucifer to light your fag,

Smile, boys, that's the style.

What's the use of worrying?

It never was worth while, so

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,

And smile, smile, smile.

The song was written in 1915 and was a very popular marching song that was used to boost morale during the war because of its up beat cheery tune. Knowing the context of the song we are singing and what it meant to people at the time is important when attempting to perform it in the way it would of been as we can understand the thoughts of the song at the time and their attitude towards it.

The end of the war

In the final section of our piece we see the men arriving home from war to all their families and friends, in this section people are waving flags, cheering and being reunited with loved ones. to make my performance more realistic and to allow me to engage more with how my character and those around me would be feeling.

This image shows a scene very similar to the one we are attempting to create, we can see a mixture of men and women on what looks like a public street waving flags and smiling in anticipation. By studying the people in this scene I am able to see the reaction faces and postures of people which is something I can take on board when creating my own character for the scene.

The women of WW1

For my piece with Eleanor and Alice I wanted to research women of the time in order to create an idea of what we may have been looking like in our scene and where we may have been. I researched images of women such as this one showing a group of women sitting on a wall:

I thought this image was useful as unlike all the other ones I found it showed women in a very casual way not at work or in propaganda. looking at images like these really helps me in performing a scene as I find it extremely useful if I am able to picture my surroundings as it allows me to go further into my characters frame of mind.

This is an example of a letter written from the trenches to a loved one back home. I researched letters like these as I found having a clear image of what they looked like and what they might have said as well as the language that may have been used really helped me to develop the way my character was feeling in the sequence towards the end of the piece when all the men read out their letters to the women. reading these letters allowed me to put more emotion into my movements as being able to picture what I was looking at or hearing is something I find useful in developing a character.

This is a piece of propaganda produced by the government that is encouraging the women in britan to join the women's land army labeling it as 'national service'. This image is useful to us as we can see a stereotypical image of a women at the time and get an Idea of what they would have worn which we can take into account when creating scenes and working on physicality. The image also highlights how important religion was at the time which is useful when writing scripts as It is something we could include and also helps us when thinking what would have influenced people's views at the time. 

WW1 rationing

Rationing was introduced towards the end of World War One, it became compulsory in February 1918. At the beginning of the war people began to panic buy fearing there would be good shortages, however calmed down quickly and the issue of food wasn't brought up again until much later in the war.

Rationing was introduced by the government when British ships carrying food began to get sunk by German u boats ( submarines). It meant that the government had to look for alternative sources of food and so came about the ideas of 'grow your own' and 'eat less'.

'Grow your own' was mainly seen in WW2 however was used to an extent in WW1. It encouraged women and children to plant their own vegetables and was a peice of propaganda that presented this in a 'fun' and 'positive' light. 'Eat less' was more commonly used. It was again a piece of propaganda however this time suggested the public cut down on what they were eating. One of the most famous prices of it is 'eat less bread'.

Ration lines were found in local shops and varied  in length throughout the day depending on what was available and where. Each member of the public was given a ration book in which held the amounts of each product they were allowed. They were a very frustrating place to be. Meat ration lines were proberly the most hectic as they didn't determine the type of meat you would receive and it would all depend on what was avalible when you got there.

 

Rationing is primarily seen as a negative thing however it did hugely improve the diet of people all around the country.

All this information is useful to us in our rationing piece as it allows us to acurately display on our faces how the people would have been feeling and what actions they may have been performing. One of the most key bits of information is that it was introuced at the end of the war as from this we know that the excitement of war would have worn off and people would instead be praying for it to end. 

The first world war is often referred to as the first machine war. lorries and tractors were used to pull the weaponry required for trench warfare and tanks were also invented taken from the idea of the steam tractor which introduced 'mechanized warfare'.

airplanes also started to be used for the first time carrying bombs and performing reconnaissance in place of cavalry which used to be 'the eyes of the army'. most casualties were caused by heavy artillery and machine guns which were being used on a large scale for the first time.

there was even an art movement called futurism which depicted the war in the with emphasis on machines even men were mad angular like parts of machines they operated.

an example of futurism showing men returning to the trenches like a train.

knowing about the machinery in the war is useful to the devising process as it allows us to see what the men would have been working with and how we could make it physical on stage. images like this are very abstract and are helpful as they show the war in a different experimental light.