Women's section

To begin the process of creating our physical theatre piece, we have been divided into three groups: couples, soldiers and the women. We were split into these groups based on the themes of our physical theatre duets and if you had a mix of the themes, you could choose a group to be in. Mine and Rachel's was a mix of soldiers and women but I (Rachel was absent on this day) chose to be in the women's group because I felt our piece had some relevant parts that we could contribute when it came to devising. Also the soldiers' group was all boys and it was a large group.

Simon is the director of our group and to start the process,he had made a list of his favourite duets and the parts he was interested in using. He also had ideas which he came up with himself that weren't in anybody's pieces. We looked over the sections and selected the parts we thought had potential in making our section powerful, emotional and put across WW1 from the women's perspectives.

What I want to achieve from our section is to show our audience that though the soldiers suffered so much, risked and lost their lives, went through emotional and physical pain to serve and protect our country, the women also had some pain and difficulties adjusting to the absence of their partners.
For the women the four years of WW1 was constant worrying about how their men were coping and fear of the fateful news that they wouldn't be coming back home alive as hoped. They also had to come to terms with supporting their families and themselves and went to work, which was unusual of women at the time but there was no other way.

Everyone's initial response to our ideas for the section is excitement. After we had been told how Simon wanted the piece to go and look, we all agreed with him and loved his ideas because just listening to the ideas made us feel slightly emotional. But this really happened to thousands of real women not just in Britain, but in all the other countries too so we have a duty to do them justice. This also goes for all the other sections. This is to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of WW1 in which people suffered, these people a lot closer to home than usual and we shouldn't make a mockery of this piece or do it half-heartedly because it would be dishonour to every person who suffered and who we are representing.