BEAUTIFUL THING EVALUATION

 BEAUTIFUL THING EVALUATION

 Beautiful Thing was written by Jonathon Harvey and directed by Nikolai Foster and was first performed in 1993. The modern play explores themes of homosexuality, relationships, lifestyles and many more. With 15-year-old Jamie trying to discover his sexuality, his neighbour Steven (known as ‘Ste’) helps him figure out who Jamie truly is whilst Jamie helps him too. Jamie’s 37-year-old mum (Sandra) is a single mum living in an estate with her son Jamie who she loves. However, Sandra seems to also crave a different kind of love and ends up meets 27-year-old partner Tony in Tesco. With all this love and romance going on in the estate, Jamie’s school friend Leah lives right next door to Jamie; she is the only person at school that speaks to him. Throughout the play, you see how the design of the set, sound, lighting, costume and much more combine together to create a piece so realistic that you forget you’re watching a play.

The outdoor setting and staging was extremely naturalistic. On the set were outdoor sitting chairs, a little block to sit on, flower pots and clothes hanging on a rack outside. The only colourful thing on set was some of the clothes that were drying and the flowers. The rest of the set had dull colours consisting of grey, dark blue and black. The use of those colours had connotations of a dull atmospheric feel. What also added to the atmosphere was that the walls of the estate houses were run down. This indicates that the characters that lived in the estate were not from a higher class and instead were of a working class. The effect the setting of outside had on the play made it simple rather than it being complex. The less they had made it seem more realistic in my eyes as simplicity can tell as much of a story as complex can. The fact that the characters could enter from front stage into the outside stage setting made it more realistic as well to imply there were coming from somewhere and now have arrived back to the estate.

The clever uses of costume for the characters really help to distinguish who the characters were. For example, Jamie and Ste were usually in uniform which shows that they were school boys under the age of 16. Leah didn’t have uniform as a costume as she was expelled from her previous school. On the contrary, her character would usually were bright youthful clothes such as dungarees and floral playsuits with her hair up in a side ponytail to emphasis her youth. The footwear that most of the characters wore was worn out shoes. The fact that they were worn out implies the lack of money the characters have. In the play, we know that Jamie and Sandra are living under a tight budget as Sandra’s partner Tony declined Sandra’s £5 note when she told him to buy a sketchpad, he said “You can’t afford that”. I believe costume is a key part of a character as it shows what type of class they may be in, their age and their personalities. In this play, the costumes do that very well.

The lighting of the play was used cleverly to show when there was a change of scene. For example, there was darkness for when the scene would change to Jamie’s room. The use of darkness could imply this is the place where Jamie’s true side comes out and where his thoughts that he thinks are dark unleash. Furthermore, the lights would dim for when it was night time in the estate and there was a spotlight on Jamie when he was getting ready for school and the rest of the cast were around them. When it was day time, the lights were used to make the setting look as natural and authentic as possible which adds to the realness of the play. Lighting can be used to display different moods, showing change of scenes and focusing on specific characters. Within this play, I definitely believe different ways in which to use lighting was explored.

To contribute to the realness of the play, the sound effects of birds, sirens and dogs parking made it seem as if they were actually in an estate outside! Using sound effects incorporates one of the key elements of multimedia. Using my knowledge from previous studies, I can recall that using multimedia within productions helps to modernise them as much as possible which makes the play more interesting. I believe not only did sound effects make the play more realistic but engaged the audience more. When Jamie and his mum were in his room and Sandra found out he was gay, Jamie opened up to her and confessed that he was by shouting and then crying. Through this scene, you could hear sirens coming from ‘outside’. Playing sirens during this particular scene has connotations of danger lurking. In this case, the danger was Sandra finding out that her son was gay and Jamie having to confess that he liked Ste. Sound effects can contribute to the atmospheric feel of scenes whilst also making scenes more realistic.

Music was played during scene changes within the play. The music played usually consisted of a fast upbeat tempo which demonstrates what will happen next in scenes will be positive. However, sometimes this idea would be wrong e.g. when Jamie and Ste see each other after the night of their first kiss. The music played helped to create an illusion of how scenes could be like. It helped to engage viewers whilst scenes were changing and lot allowing them to lose focus; they didn’t allow the scene changes to create luls within the play.

The play overall had a very naturalistic feel to it in terms of the staging and setting. Although, there were at times characters would speak in unison which took away the realism of the play. An example of this is when Jamie and his mum both say “Because you were such a cow” to Leah. When they say this, it doesn’t sound like didn’t mean to say it at the same time; it sounds rehearsed. There was another time when characters both said “yeah” at the same time but because of how short the line was, it seemed less planned and rehearsed. Sometimes I felt as if actor Jake Davies’ (character Jamie) accent lost naturalism during the play. Leah’s voice seemed unnecessarily loud at times and the character Tony didn’t seem that realistic to me. The general speech of all the characters was informal by using words such as “init”, “slag”, “git” and much more. However, I believe this was effective as their speech links in with the character’s background, who they are and where they live.

One section of dialogue that stood out to me was the moment we first see Jamie reveal his homosexuality by showing affection towards Ste. You see Jamie rub cream on Ste’s back then rests his head on him for approximately 30-35 seconds in silence then later on Jamie and Ste become more comfortable with each other and show the passion they have towards one another. I believe this moment is key within the play as it openly brings up the issues of homosexuality people face in society and how some have difficulty owning up to their sexuality and who they are as a person. Nonetheless, we see Jamie accept who he is in this scene and see him unravel more and more as the play goes along.

Overall, I believe the play was very successful in openly talking about not only homosexuality but also abuse relationships – not just with couples but within families also (Ste’s dad abusing him). Moments such as Jamie and Ste’s first intimate interaction, Leah confronting Jamie and Ste and Jamie coming clean to his mum are moments I will remember as they are moments that focus on key themes within the play such as violence, love, homosexuality and relationships. Jonathon Harvey did an excellent job by incorporating these themes in as these are issues that can be explored with so much depth and I believe the play did this! Characters like Jamie and Ste were believable as they represent boys and girls who go through the same struggles as they did within the play. Despite Jamie’s accent sometimes becoming unrealistic, his character helps to make bring back the believable character I believe Jamie is alongside with Ste.

I enjoyed watching Beautiful Things! It is a great play and I would recommend it to anyone to watch – bearing in mind the use of strong language and sexual references!

(1,444 words – sorry I went over sir :()