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A-LEVEL
DRAMA AND THEATRE
STUDIES
DRAM4 Presentation of Devised Drama
Report on the Examination
2240
June 2015
Version: 1.0
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
General
Please see the report on the AS examination for general details about the moderation process,
administration and general marking points.
There are some differences:


At A2, the DTSV form (green) should tell the moderator the chosen theatrical style that
students have selected – it should not refer to individual practitioners
Non-examinees are not permitted at A2, except in the situation where one non-examinee
supports one acting student in a centre where the A2 cohort comprises one student.
Choice of Style
At A2, students need to choose a clearly recognisable theatrical style to apply to their devising
work and, in their Supporting Notes, they must refer to live productions seen in that style that have
influenced their work. Not all students fulfilled these requirements.
Some students this year exhibited a lack of clarity in their choice of style and this restricted their
achievements. For example, Creative Adaptation was possibly the most frequently nominated
style, but many of the pieces offered in this category were from students who hadn’t ‘creatively
adapted’ anything but had merely taken a text, such as ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ and used it as a starting
point or stimulus to develop from.
There were also pieces that were claimed to be performed in ‘story-telling’ style but were so
evidently and so heavily influenced by Frantic Assembly that they offered a mix of naturalism and
physical theatre with very few features of genuine ‘Story- telling’ theatre evident.
However, as one would expect, when the style chosen was clearly defined and understood, there
was a much greater focus and clarity in the work and dramatic intentions were clearer.
The clearest examples of Creative Adaptation that moderators reported on seeing were where the
students had not only understood the source material but had a very clear idea of their intentions
for the audience through the dramatization of it, and had been judicious in choosing which aspects
or sections to use.
There was one highly effective piece using ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’ in a story telling
style which also applied knowledge and research into the life of C S Lewis to underpin their
dramatic interpretation. Another successful piece was an extremely comic version of ‘The Hound of
the Baskervilles’.
Those who chose Documentary theatre took as their topics documentary material as different as
the Oklahoma bombings and the trial of Oscar Wilde. Some students did extensive and focused
research and then applied it effectively and theatrically.
Unfortunately, others did not go far enough in their research; becoming aware of the basic facts of
their subject matter but not of the finer details, resulting in a generalised piece of work.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
If a ‘documentary’ or ‘verbatim’ piece is set in a particular period or country, not only do the
costume and props need to be authentic, but also the social behaviour as performed by the
students and the language and idiom used needs to reflect the period/nation, too, in order to avoid
the creation of jarring notes.
Epic theatre was a popular choice although the definition was sometimes inaccurate. Some
students seized what they saw as an opportunity to re-visit Brechtian theatre and they failed to
explore the development of the epic style post-Brecht.
Other styles seen included quite impressive pieces of Absurdist theatre where students revealed a
precise understanding of the style, its opportunities and, most especially, its pitfalls.
Teachers may wish to pass on a word of warning to students who want to create a site-specific
piece: it is essential that rehearsals can take place in the chosen site and preferably at the right
time of day in order to practice the precision of their moves and gauge their lighting requirements
as well as to anticipate and take precautions to prevent unwanted noise and interruptions.
Supporting Notes
There were some very good sets of Supporting Notes seen this year, written by students who
clearly had an excellent understanding of theatre making and their chosen style. Section One, in
good notes, revealed that some students had clearly seen plenty of live theatre in their chosen
style and were able to analyse what they had seen with clarity; making purposeful links to their own
work. They always justified the style in terms of their intentions for the audience and the sort of
theatre experience they wanted to give them. Some of the appended lists of live theatre seen and
plays read were most impressive.
In Section Two, good students were able to give a real sense of process and the means by which
artistic decisions had been taken, referring to devising strategies and in some cases, the use of
script writing techniques. This was especially true of those who had adopted verbatim theatre as
their style as they referred to the Recorded Delivery process before explaining how they had
structured their material subsequently. The best notes always gave a sense of what the moderator
was about to see.
Good work in Section Three, kept in touch with the style, making perceptive comments about the
potential effectiveness of the piece. They explained how they had developed their role with some
analysis of the implications of chosen style for their nominated skill. The very best were able to
explain how health and safety had been integrated into the development of the piece rather than
appended at the end of the section.
Features of weaker work included:
Section 1
• too much focus on a practitioner rather than a style
• little reference to live theatre in the chosen style
• inappropriate reference to plays not in the chosen style
• no linking to own work
• no justification of style in terms of dramatic intentions
• missing lists of live theatre seen and plays read.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Section 2
• no reference to devising strategies
• rehearsal exercises listed, such as hot seating and improvisation with no explanation of
how they had helped in the development of the piece
• no reference to refinement or feedback.
Section 3
• no assessment of the potential effectiveness of the piece
• writing irrelevantly about rehearsals
• nothing on vocal or physical skills
• no mention of role being played at all.
Presentations
There were some outstanding pieces of live theatre witnessed this year that deserved a wider
audience, such was the level of accomplishment and sophistication.
A wide variety of styles were selected with Creative Adaptation continuing to be the most popular,
closely followed by Physical Theatre. Verbatim and Documentary Theatre have proved to be
increasingly popular and reflect the growth of these styles in recent professional theatre. Subject
matter also varied a great deal and there seemed a stronger inclination this year for groups to
focus on matters beyond their own experience rather than the merely abstract exploration of a
teenage theme.
No matter what the style or content, the best work was always very tightly scripted and structured,
with not a moment wasted. In addition, groups that had taken complete control of their space and
all visual elements, regardless of whether there was a design student in the group or not, revealed
a very good understanding of how theatre works for an audience.
Some used multimedia in a very sophisticated, creative and integrated fashion. One such group
created a piece of docu-theatre which explored the rise and consequences of fundamentalism. An
exceedingly well researched and far-ranging piece, it started with a single performer playing a
survivor from the Charlie Hebdo affair. Whilst the actor delivered her lines not only with an
impeccable French accent but in fluent French too, a simultaneous translation appeared on a
screen stage right of her. Her simple restrained delivery contrasted with the distancing effect of the
screen helped to make the point more moving. At another point, another performer created a
pastiche of an online cookery lesson to demonstrate how to make a bomb. At once hilarious and
repellent, the scene was also filmed by another performer and live-streamed. This made the point
very powerfully of the importance of the internet in the spread of fundamentalist ideas. This group
had clearly rehearsed their material and technology to reach an admirable level of precision.
In a completely different style, another group had relied purely on their physical skills including
circus and gymnastic, to fill the space. Playing in traverse, they used hoops, trapezes, rings and
ropes to tell the story of gods and the Phoenix. Swooping above our heads , occasional hanging
upside down, it was a thrilling theatrical experience especially as the performers appeared not to
get out of breath at any stage.
In adopting a style, the more authentic features of that style a group includes, the better. If a group
choose Immersive Theatre (as many attempted this year) they set themselves huge challenges in
how they get the audience from one point to another with no delay in the action or loss of
atmosphere. One group solved this problem by only having a group of five audience members at
any one time which meant there was no delay between scenes but also made the performance
seem special for the audience. Clearly influenced by Punchdrunk’s 'The Drowned Man' and
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Shunt's ' The Architects' in their staging, in many ways they had made a better piece of theatre
than either company because it was so tight in its execution and without the need for 'duck masks'!
Some other examples of excellent work include:
Verbatim
One piece simply called ‘Institutions’ that had been created from a plethora of interviews with a
range of people connected with, predominantly, prison institutions. In another piece called ‘Behind
the Veil’, the students had spent considerable time interviewing the nuns that were attached to
their school and had created a truly moving piece of work that was both enlightening, humorous
and shocking in equal measure. However it was the treatment of the Verbatim material that made
both these pieces remarkable – at no time did the audience feel they were being lectured, the
theatricality employed to weave the stories into a coherent piece of theatre was a joy to behold.
Documentary
In a piece called ‘The Waiting Game’ students went way beyond the stereotype of women in WWII
to create theatre that moved, educated and enlightened and the attention to tiny detail including
perfect 1940s hairstyles for each of the six girls was outstanding.
Creative Adaptation
Pieces that stood out included a version of ‘Death on the Nile’ that drew incredibly successfully on
productions like ‘The 39 Steps’, ‘Stones in their Pockets’ and Kneehigh’s work to produce a very
funny, clever re-telling of the story with an amazing array of multi-functional props.
Expressionism
In a version of ‘The Bloody Chamber’ a group of eight used an immense piece of red fabric in so
many incredibly complex and sophisticated ways as to be jaw-dropping. What was perhaps the
most impressive thing though was how the rehearsal process had to have been so detailed in
order that the ideas would work – there were many occasions where a wrong move could have
resulted in, at the least, chaos and, at worst, injury.
Another group working in a small studio space created a piece of genuinely chilling work entitled
‘Stalked’ where the students’ intentions to unnerve the audience were most certainly achieved
without ever resorting to getting into the audience – in fact, the distance maintained added to the
sense of horror as one felt that one was looking on to something that one was powerless to do
anything about.
All the best work had clearly been meticulously researched and rehearsed with fine attention to
detail given to every aspect of the presentation. Acting was universally at a very high level and
totally in keeping with the adopted style leading to an authentic theatrical experience for the
audience which met the group's stated aims.
On the other hand weaker work was characterised by weak or laboured scripting revealing a
superficial or predictable treatment of their material. Language had not been used fruitfully to
define character for the audience. Some pieces were poorly structured, with scenes either
underdeveloped or going on too long. There were a number of instances of flat or inconclusive
endings. Some pieces did not seem to really go anywhere and it was hard to detect what the piece
was actually trying to say.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Over-lengthy transitions interrupted the pace and atmosphere and occasionally were longer than
the scenes themselves and future groups are once again advised to consider this aspect of their
work more imaginatively.
Other groups had made some strange artistic decisions, for example the group who used water
bottles on stage when their script alluded to beer cans. Others went for all black costumes against
an all-black background thus revealing not only a lack of imagination but lack of concern for the
visual impact of such a decision.
By far the most common feature of the very weakest work was the lack of any sense of the chosen
style at all or such a degree of hesitancy in performance that it indicated a severe lack of rehearsal.
However, it is very pleasing to note that there were far fewer examples of this than in previous
years.
Acting
There have been some thrilling and enthralling acting performances this year from students who
have given themselves something to act by virtue of creating a good script. No matter what the
style, they exhibited exceptional degrees of vocal and physical control. One terrific performer in the
aforementioned circus piece was able to demonstrate outstanding gymnastic ability, delivering his
dialogue at one point whilst hanging upside down ten feet above the audience's heads secured
only by a strip of cloth wrapped around his ankles. At another point he engaged the audience in a
moving monologue whilst holding a crucifix position for a full 2 minutes. What was extraordinary
was his ability to control his breathing and use his strength to such a degree, that the audience
were mesmerised by him. It took direct address to another level...literally! This student and the rest
of the group had clearly chosen to play to their strengths in following this course of action and had
spent many months in rehearsal preparing for this moment.
In other pieces, playing in Farce, students executed a whole range of expertly timed double takes,
quicksilver asides, prat falls and 'turning on an emotional sixpence' to convey their roles and gain
a sense of complicity with the audience.
As has been noted before, there have been some very good verbatim pieces this year with some
students adopting the right level of performance energy to recreate the real people on stage.
Sometimes the actor had altered their appearance so that they actually looked like the ‘real life’
person they were playing, such as the piece where the audience were dumbfounded to look across
from the actor playing a young man gaoled for murder to a projected image of the real person
upstage and back again and not notice any discernible difference. This student had also studied
the character’s mode of utterance so that even when he spoke he sounded like the recorded voice
over.
Weaker students were often hampered by an unbelievable script or they rendered it unbelievable
through their playing. In cases where actors multi-rolled they did not demonstrate sufficient
difference between their characters other than a minimal costume change. In others there was too
much under playing. They may have had more or less the right acting style but it all needed to
ratchet up a bit to communicate the role more fully to their audience. As at DRAM2, there was
some weak vocal work, with poor articulation and projection the most common faults. At times the
actor did very little in the performance apart from just stand there whilst the rest of the group acted
around them.
Fortunately, these instances were rare and it appears that centres have taken on board points
made in previous years' reports and advised their students accordingly.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Set Design
Although not a popular choice, some of what was seen this year was stunning and clearly the
result of a sense of style married to an original and inventive piece of theatre.
There were some quite extraordinary Naturalistic set designs offered for this part of the exam. One
student had gone to the trouble of creating a fully functioning kitchen complete with a kettle which
boiled noisily during an awkward pause in the tense exchange between the characters. It was
wonderful to see the work of a group in which the set designer had so obviously been an integral
part of the team.
A particularly effective set had been designed for a devised piece set in a World War One trench.
There was a glorious assortment of sacks and ropes, wooden crates and rough benches used to
create a sense of the enclosed space and the earthy textures which one might have expected to
see at the front. Each piece of equipment was used at some point and the set, without attempting
to create reality on stage, provided a fabulously authentic environment within which the performers
could establish the truth of the situation.
An interesting piece about modern slavery used the vertical plastic strips usually associated with
butcher’s shops to create the impression of a bleak, hostile environment. They were acted behind
and projected onto; characters emerged from the gaps between them and they were ultimately
splattered with blood – sensational!
Many teachers do not advise their students to offer this skill, citing costs as a problem. However
one student proved this year that financial poverty is not a problem as long as the designer does
not suffer from poverty of imagination. Faced with the challenge of creating a set for an immersive
piece that was set in a 1950's Hollywood studio, the student had sectioned off the whole drama
studio into a series of small 'rooms' including a wardrobe mistress's 'lair' complete with fifties style
sewing machines, huge cutting table, and dressmaker's dummy surrounded by what appeared to
be the entire centre's costume store. The student had cunningly created a maze for the audience
to walk through in order to access this 'room' using clothes rails heaped with more costumes and
huge lengths of material suspended form the lighting rig.
In another scene she had recreated a boss's office using just an old desk and metal filing cabinet
but what gave it the right period look was the inclusion of a fifties radiogram and a stack of 78rpm
records which still went round when placed on the turntable. This crucial item had been sourced at
her grandmother's and had cost her nothing beyond the petrol used to drive the length of the
country to get it.
The finale to the piece took place in the other half of the bare, black painted drama studio
festooned with coloured lights from the local Rotary Club Christmas stock and a baby grand
wheeled in from the next door music room.
The whole thing had cost next to nothing but was one of the strengths of a very impressive piece of
theatre.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Costume Design
What a joy it is to see design students attempting period costume and doing so with confidence
and flair. One such piece was a Jack the Ripper story set in Victorian London. The student had
designed all the female costumes around a basic corset shape, using basques collected from
charity shops. These had been dyed and attached to full ragged skirts of rough calico which
afforded freedom of movement to the performers who wore them.
Many costume design students had worked really hard to ensure that make-up and hairstyles
worked in harmony with their designs and some of the results were stunning. Particularly
memorable was a piece set in a 1960s diner in which all the performers sported beehives and
scarlet lipstick. Before a word was spoken, the make-up and hairstyles transported us back in time
and brought a smile to the lips. What was noticeable in this piece was the way in which the ornate
hairstyles lent a certain elegance to the movement of the girls. They held their heads with just a
little more regal poise than they might otherwise have done, their necks were angled with just a
little more extension.
Rather more disappointing were costumes which failed to provide any real sense of character,
location and era. It doesn’t matter how well a costume is made; it needs to communicate with the
audience, in order to be successful.
Mask Design
Children’s story books were popular material for adaptations this year and one of the most creative
used Dr Suess’ ‘Are You My Mother?’ as its source. The masks for this were delightful. The baby
bird at the heart of the story was created using a sieve and a garlic crusher and the mother bird
mask was fashioned out of a colander and a pair of barbeque tongs. This playful approach to mask
design was entirely in keeping with the ‘homespun’ style which the group had adopted and
communicated the essence of each character in an imaginative and joyful way.
Elsewhere, masks were created using rather more traditional materials such as papier mache and
these were sometimes very effective indeed. Party politics is not a popular topic for devised work,
but this year one group created an interesting piece in which the politicians all had huge ‘heads’.
These masks were constructed using techniques involving balloons and PVA glue and the effect
was very striking. The huge heads had exaggerated features giving the politicians a sinister,
predatory quality which worked particularly well in performance.
Technical elements
Students are more likely to combine both lighting and sound skills at this level with the most
successful designs being for expressionist pieces.
Occasionally the work of the lighting student was the best aspect in a group's presentation as
without it, the piece would be much less successful. Some astute students managed to hide some
indifferent acting with copious smoke effects through which coloured light filtered through. Some
used up-lighting to make their actors look spooky even if they did not sound it. Expressionist pieces
contained many appropriate lighting effects including the combination of strong colour contrasts
from opposite ends of the spectrum, the use of side lighting to create shadows and pin spots just
on an actor's face.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Women’s prisons were a popular topic for devised work this year and one particularly effective
piece used stark white lighting, gobos and barn doors to create the sensation of a harsh and
restricted environment.
The most successful lighting students were clearly those who were drawing on a wealth of
experience as a designer and as a member of the audience.
Students really should not select this skill unless they have already mastered the essence of
lighting design. Lighting students must already have had an opportunity to see some inspirational
designers at work and have glimpsed the possibilities inherent in the art form. Students who were
trying lighting design for the very first time tended to produce work of poor quality.
There were some instances where the lighting was little more than a general cover and in one or
two cases the performers were not properly lit suggesting that the students did not have even a
rudimentary understanding of the angle and focus techniques which form the building blocks of this
skill.
Sound design is becoming more and more popular with many very evocative sound-scapes being
created using a wide range of software. Many of these were applied to physical and theatre of
cruelty pieces and again helped to set the tone and atmosphere of the whole piece. Many students
had composed their own music and effects and occasionally performed them live in the
performance.
At its best the sound was used very inventively. In the aforementioned immersive piece set in
1950s Hollywood, the sound designer had discovered that whilst the turntable on the fifties
radiogram rotated it did not actually produce any sound so she solved the problem by putting an
mp3 player inside the cabinet which she could then operate remotely. Given the very close
proximity of this piece of set to the audience it was an ingenious and effective solution for creating
directional sound.
At another point, the audience became aware of whispering which seemed to come from just
behind them, which it had, because the student had placed a mini speaker at head height amongst
the costume rails that formed the set. This was a student who had combined creativity with full
control of her equipment.
There was also quite a lot of live singing this year and musical sound effects created on stage
using a whole variety of instruments. One group, whose piece was futuristic and slightly spooky,
used a musical saw to extraordinary effect.
In another centre the performers all played percussion instruments on stage and created rhythms
at various points in the performance by tapping the set itself. A hollow metallic clang was created
when the scaffolding pipes were stuck and a heavy thud occurred when the actors stamped their
feet in unison. It was wonderful to see (and hear) such a very inventive use of sound which so
clearly reflected a ‘hands on’, experimental approach to the art of sound design. It also suggested
that the sound designer had been an integral part of the group and had played an essential role
during the devising process. How refreshing to note that so many centres have moved away from
the idea that the sound designer works in isolation and produces a tape which then provides
background music in performance.
Sound design at this level seems to be the preserve of the real enthusiast and virtually all that
witnessed this year by moderators was very good.
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REPORT ON THE EXAMINATION – A-LEVEL DRAMA AND THEATRE STUDIES – DRAM4 – JUNE 2015
Mark Ranges and Award of Grades
Grade boundaries and cumulative percentage grades are available on the Results Statistics
page of the AQA Website.
Converting Marks into UMS marks
Convert raw marks into Uniform Mark Scale (UMS) marks by using the link below.
UMS conversion calculator
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