A room in a single colour
An original account of an invented theatre exercise.
Our theatre group had to suggest a room without building a set. We could use one coloured sheet, three chairs and a single sound. The first group chose a yellow sheet and a ticking clock. Their chairs faced away from one another, and the performers kept glancing at an imaginary door.
Nothing in the instructions required a waiting room, yet that was what most of us imagined. The next group used the same sheet but played the sound of waves and arranged the chairs in a line. We began to see a seaside shelter instead. The exercise showed how an audience uses a few selected details to construct a place that is never fully shown.
What sound did the first group use?
528 exam-style questions on WJEC GCSE English Language 3.1 Section A (20%) – Reading, covering 3.1.1 Understanding description, narration and exposition texts, 3.1.2 Range of continuous and non-continuous texts, 3.1.3 Short and extended response question types, and 3.1.4 Editing task at word, sentence and text level. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.