Style
In this mentee session as part of my research and reflection plan I had to explore the form of theatre of which my monologue uses, which is Born Bad. I am going to be using In-yer-face theatre.
This style of theatre is what ‘Born Bad’ is all about. The
confrontational and aggressive language is supposed to make the audience feel
shocked and uncomfortable. This style of theatre touches on real life situations
and presents extreme emotions to the audience.
Playwrights who use
this technique are drawn to psychological and extreme emotions such as sexual
abuse.What’s a Complicit Victim?
A Complicit victim is someone who is involved in something that is morally wrong.
So in this case the mother in Born Bad is a complicit victim, we know this because, she is fully aware about the father abusing the children but does nothing about it. The children are innocent therefore they are only victims.
In-yer face-theatre depends on a small audience, preferably between 50-80 people. This is to highlight the relationship between the stage and the audience. It is to invade the privacy and comfortability of the audience in order to provoke extreme emotions.
This kind of theatre was a radical break with much of the drama of the 1980s. At its best, its aim was to use shock to awaken the moral responses of the audience – its desire was no less than to help change society. -http://www.dramaonlinelibrary.com
Content
Experiencing sexual abuse in your childhood can have a wide range of effects on you in adulthood. Some adult survivors experience no o very few mental health problems, while others experience many and severe mental health problems. Sexual abuse is a kind of trauma and the effects of trauma include a complex combination of factors:
- The amount of any kind of other trauma you may have experienced
- Your age when you experienced abuse
- Your relationship with the person/s who abused you
- How long the abuse lasted
- How people in your life have responded to your disclosures (whether you’ve been believed)
Some of the most common effects you experience may be as follows:
- Fear. Your abuser may have sworn you to secrecy or threatened you and members of your family, they may have told you that if you tell something bad will happen. Sexual abuse is usually accompanied by coercion, bribery, physical and emotional abuse and threats. You would have been afraid to tell because of what the consequences might be. e.g. punishment, blame, abandonment or not being believed.
- Helplessness/powerlessness. You may have felt as a child that you had no control over your own life or even over your own body. You may have felt that you had no choices available to you.
- Guilt and Shame. You may have known something was wrong and blamed yourself. Your abuser may have encouraged you to feel that the abuse was your fault and you may have felt like a bad person.
- Responsibility. Your abuser most likely made you feel responsible for keeping the abuse a secret. You may even have felt like it was your responsibility to keep the family together and the burden of this responsibility interferes with experiencing a normal childhood.
- Isolation. Abuse survivors often feel ‘different’ from other children. They usually have to keep secrets and manage a lot of stress alone. This may have isolated you from non-offending parents and brothers and sisters.
- Betrayal. Children who are abused feel betrayed because they are dependent upon adults for nurturing and protection and the abuser was probably someone who you should have been able to love and trust. You may also feel betrayed by a non-abusing parent who you feel failed to protect you.
- Anger. Not surprisingly this is one of the strongest feelings which you may feel about your abuse. You may feel anger against the abuser and also against others who you feel failed to protect you.
- Sadness. You may feel grief due to a sense of loss, especially if the abuser was loved and trusted by you. You may grieve your lost innocence or the fact that you had to grow up too fast.
- Flashbacks. These can be like nightmares which happen while you are awake. They are a re-experiencing of the sexual abuse and you may experience all the feelings again which you felt at the time of the abuse. This can feel terrifying
- Loss of trust in others
- Impact on relationships: survivors relationships may be characterised by lower relationship satisfaction, more overall discord, an increased risk of domestic violence and greater likelihood of separation and divorce
- Increased risk taking and low self worth
Psychological effects: survivors of sexual abuse are 3 times more likely to develop psychological disorders in adulthood. Adults with a history of sexual abuse often present for treatment with a secondary mental health issue, which can include the following:
- Depression or feeling ‘low’
- Post Traumatic Stress
- Low self esteem
- Drug addiction
- Alcohol use / dependency
- Suicide attempts / self harm and self mutilation
- Anxiety
- Personality Disorders
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