CONTEXTUALISATION - MODERN AUDEINCE

Our version of The Tempest is set at the begging of the end of slavery, around the 18^Th and 19^th century, and one of the issues that we need to consider is how we were going to make it relevant to a modern audience especially as it is written is Shakespearian language. We thought that it could be quite easy for our audience to be alienated by the fact that it hasn’t got a modern or timeless setting as they may feel like it doesn’t relate to them or that our message is simply commenting on the past and not saying anything about our society now. However I think it is important to remember that the end of slavery wasn’t that long ago and still relevant in modern history as relations between different races are still a prominent part of our modern society. So I think that our message about Colonialism and slavery is still relevant to the suppression that conceits in our society and recent society.

One thing that makes our concept and performance so relevant to a modern audience is that it confronts their morals and challenges they way that they think. Although slavery wouldn’t be something that our audience may have been directly involved or linked with however it challenges their history and the country that they are a part of. It challenges the political and historical structure of our society. It challenges the outlook that we have on our history, as a country England has always been one of pride and traditionally the I think we have always found it hard to accept or admit or wrongs as we have so often been at the worlds powers, in our performance I think, with the use of hindsight, we confront our audiences morals by making them question our counties past and choices that were made on behalf of our nationality. It does this by offering a perspective on the past and questioning what we did as a country and how it affected those around us.

It also makes a cultural comment as in our version some of the characters, such as Caliban are based on real people. This makes our version more connected to the cultural aspect that we are exploring as it looks into real people, how they were affected by the true events that we are exploring. This could make our audience; even though they are modern, more connected to our piece of theatre as it has a raw realness to it making the characters even more believable and connectable.