The play "Caligula" showed us that power could be abused. In the play the Roman Emperor Caligula abused his power. .
Before seeing the play we did numerous activities related with power and status. One activity we did was to make up a short scene showing how level affected status, for example when a character had power over another character they would be physically higher up then them. This could mean the character that possessed more power would be standing and the other character could be lying on the ground. Another activity we had to do was make up a scenario in which a character would abuse their power; this helped us understand how Caligula abused his power and why. We also did some small role-plays, and drama games to understand how during a performance you can lose and gain power.
One week after seeing the play we did a workshop, which helped me understand the play and characterisation. We did lots of different activities in the workshop. In one of the activities we had to face the wall, then the teacher would say a role, for example a teacher and then we would turn to face each other and freeze in a position which we thought would be appropriate to that particular character. We also did an hour of forum theatre. This was very interesting because we got to see how other people interrupted a situation and how they would react. .
The actor Michael Sheen played the main character, Caligula. I thought that he acted the part very well. He had a good posture when he was powerful and spoke loudly and freely. The other actors cowered and had bad postures when the character Caligula was present. They stammered when talking to him and kept very still, almost in a frozen position. Caligula invaded the other characters personal space, he would walk up to them and get extremely close to them, and he even touched them. Again this portrayed his power. Caligula often talked to the other characters in a patronizing tone, making the other characters feel weak.
