In the play it suggests that Slighcarp and Brisket are full of power and authority, not only over the children but over men like Grimshaw. When in reality, it is known that only men of money and property rights could vote. Whereas women could not, regardless of their wealth or position in society.
After doing research into the treatment of orphans in 1832 it is clear that the play was truthful to the conditions of the time. They were treated horribly and made to work in workhouses or orphanages, sometimes being left on the streets. I think this helped us with our play and blocking process as it gave Chloe an idea on how to behave towards the children but also it gave an insight to how things could be developed. This eventually did work out well as Chloe had used characterisation to make her character more evil and grotesque. In the school scene for instance you got to see how badly children were treated because they were orphans. They would get "detention" for the littlest things that someone could pick up on. They would be beaten and even starved of food. This was kept in the play and i think it worked well as it gave people a look at a natural piece of the play as these facts were actually true.
After doing more research into the differences between the fictional 1832 of the play and the 1832 reality, we came up with a list of things.
(A few are below..)
1- As mentioned before, men were more dominant. Meaning women were not out spoken and only spoke when spoken to.
However, in the play it is clear that Slighcarp is very dominant and holds more authority over Grimshaw. He answers to her as she holds the power in the situation.
2- We found that hunting was very popular in 1832 and people would doit very often. But in the play, hunting is not mentioned. If that was so there would be the idea of hunting the wolves and not letting them roam around the place.
3- A big difference is that, the channel tunnel was not even built until 1994. In the play it was opened over a 100 years earlier and thus allowing the wolves through.
I believe that a lot of things within the play add to it and helped us with the process and development of our version.
In the end i think it worked very well, we had included a lot of research into how we presented certain scenes and it allowed us to be more open about things like the beatings the orphans would get.
Some good research here into the time-period the play exists in. You don't say anything about Joan Aiken, though, or the kinds of things her books were about. You could also mention the intended audience for the play.
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