Analysis of a scene (1);

The Joad family scene

In this scene Tom has just come home from prison and is on parole. Tom brings former preacher Casy, whom he met on the road. Tom finds his’ family at Uncle John’s house and their old house empty! This is the only scene in which the whole family are together. This scene allowed my character ‘Ma’ to interact with other characters. I was able to show the audience how Ma takes the role of preparing the food and looking after all the members of the family.

The scene is set around a table at dinner time. To show how little room there is I made my character stand while dinner was being eaten. I also thought this would suggest how Ma’s priorities are the family rather then herself. I like this scene because there is so much going on, however everything is quite laid back and light hearted. It lets the audience see the whole family and their different relationships. On first doing this scene in rehearsals I had my character sitting down and occasionally going off to get more pans, but after a few rehearsals I decided that 'Ma' would have probably been more worried about everybody else eating rather than herself! In the dress rehearsal I decided to add in a bit were I go to my son 'Winfield', I take off his hat and have a little moan at him for wearing it at the dinner table then I wipe his’ face to suggest a caring mother. It also could show, as Winfield is the youngest, how Ma still sees him as the baby of the family.

I also liked this scene because I was able to concentrate on my character without so much dialogue. If I were to develop my character further I would concentrate fully on her posture/ the way she would have walked, for example she might have had a bad back due to the lack of rest she has.