Two Sides of The Same Coin - Introduction / Research

This year for our unit nine project we were tasked with forming and devising a piece of our own in groups, this was a step up from what we usually did within classes as normally our projects revolved around already formed plays i.e The Cherry Orchard, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Blackout & Much Ado About Nothing.

We first sat in a circle and gave out numerous ideas to each other on different kinds of topics we were thinking about, I gave out the idea of a crazed mentally unstable woman who killed for joy and toyed with her victims. I was thinking in the sense of giving a stronger more frightful female character for the leading role and see where the actress could go with it. As we tossed around ideas Sharon got us into groups and told us to pitch our ideas to each other and create something from what was dished around in the respective groups.

My group consisted of Leonie, Ruby, Hayden and Georgia. Our team had wonderful and innovative ideas for both characters and themes/avenues we could go down, due to the powerful set of minds I was grouped with we had to settle down on one idea after writing so many things down on our paper we got another fresh sheet and started again. After a few minutes we decided that the topics we would focus on would be the following: Domestic Violence, Bullying and Mental Health Issues. We also finalized on our main character and I gave the premise of a teenage girl who would later be called Summer, had developed MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) during her early child years after suffering mental trauma from watching her mother get physically abused by her father for the majority of her life. Summer had created such a personality in order to cope with the beatings and violence in her household. Because of the severity of the topics we were handling at the time we had to go and research exactly what it is we were trying to get across and highlight for our piece so that it actually made sense and we weren't spouting nonsense, this meant finding out exactly what MPD was and not just saying 'She just has another side to her" as this could mean a plethora of things.  We set to understand the effects on domestics in the home as well as what goes on in the mind of those suffering with M PD. If we left it on that without researching that would show no progression nor would we better ourselves by gaining the information we needed to make the play great and yield deep insight. As we already had some background on a couple of practitioners we were set on utilizing some of Berkoff's and Beckett's ideas and practices. We chose these practitioners and their usefulness (Why are these practitioners useful)

So I set off first reading on MPD and what it was all about and was amazed to know that in actuality everyone of us at some point have gone through a mild phase of dissociation, whether it be daydreaming or getting lost in something for example a book or music. I had discovered that Dissociative Identity Disorder (or) Multiple Personality Disorder is a much more severe casing of dissociation, the disorder was described as: 

"a mental process which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions or sense of identity."

Reading this statement had warmed me some as I knew from this I was going about the right path on setting the character's personality and themes as prior to coming across this we had already spoke on the detachment issues as well as it being a form of coping and Summer's "loss of true self" so to say the least I was happy. Going further I had found out that there were arguments on the disorder essentially not being "real" and others mentioning it to be a subsidiary attribute from another mental disorder "Borderline Personality Disorder" Upon seeing this I immediately thought that perhaps people were feeling this way because of how new the psychiatric problem was and understanding how such a hazard works. 

I had already gained some information after watching the movie 'SPLIT' a year or so ago and it had stuck with me in terms of getting a grasp on the disorder that each personality has it's own tendencies whether it be way of talking, gestures, age etc when I brought this up it was more than obvious that it had to be implemented.

Branching off from what I learned I spoke with my group and we brought back new information we had in hopes of bringing the story to life in a more realistic way, after some long talks I was told that MPD patients can actually have two or more personalities inside that struggle for control over the individuals personality. Also the memory loss some may experience from different personalities taking over at certain times as well as discussing the different symptoms one would have from this. 

We eventually moved on from talking about MPD and went on talking with one another about the effects of Domestics in the house and what it does to the children or child. I had mentioned that witnessing those events will most definitely change the way that child would think and is also a factor in how they grow etc whilst we agreed on that there were some differing opinions on the matter that will be on my group's individual blogs. I also highlighted the fact that most children going through domestics more often than not find themselves to blame for what goes on inside the home, with such a detrimental state about them many children carry around a cloud of despair with them. In the talks with the group it was brought up by the girls that those whom are victims of domestics often have short attention spans, feel ill 90% of the time and suffer from a continuous string of tiredness and weight changes from irregular eating habits. 

We found that the older children will most likely turn to drugs/alcohol in order to "take the pain" away or become withdrawn or non-verbal in a majority of situations.

As a group we mi A lot of disturbing tidbits I know, but we're actors on the search for knowledge what do you expect?

From many failed attempts at getting a name for the play after everything that was brought to the table and coupled into what would soon become a great story we all settled on the intriguing title "Two Sides of The Same Coin".  (Explanation)