Devising from a Theme

 What is your theme and why did you choose it? 

To help our decision on what topic to base our performance on, we had the choice of four major themes which were Social, Cultural, Historical and Ethical. 

After discussing with my group, we came to the conclusion that we wanted base our performance on the major theme of ethical as we thought we could explore a lot of different ideas within this one theme and educate ourselves and the audience members the things that are not spoken about much as they are controversial. 

 What is your topic and why was this chosen? What was rejected and why? 

After we decided on the theme of ethical, we then decided that we wanted to explore the ongoing and very controversial death penalty which is still going on in many countries to this day. The main reason why we decided on this topic is because we thought doing a performance on something like an abortion would be to easy and not challenging us as we wanted to go for a topic which we didn't know much about so that we could discover so much more information it and learn as we are creating. We also thought about looking at euthanasia but then we decided that we didn't feel it was right for our group as none of us knew anything about it which we though would be hard when exploring it. 

 Upload brainstorming paper 

After selecting our topic of death sentence, we created a brainstorming mind map. For this, we went around in our group saying words which we felt connected with the death penalty. After writing these words all down, we all individually circled the one that we wanted to look deeper into. The word I chose was injection, Ella chose stoning, Molly chose guilty, Kayleigh chose electric chair and Jess chose the word Morals.  

 Upload research- yours and your groups research 

With our chosen words we all then began doing some research and this is what we got. 

 

Me (Demi)- Injection 

Firstly, I found out that the death penalty is still being used in China, India, USA, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Japan and Taiwan. 

I then found out that the lethal injection is made up of three drugs which effectively kills the inmate. The first drug is Sodium Thiopental, this drug causes the inmate to go unconscious meaning they are knocked out. The next drug in the lethal injection is called Pancuronium Bromide which is used to paralyze the inmate. Finally, the last drug in the lethal injection is called Potassium Chloride, this is used to rapidly induce cardiac arrest which causes death.

The death can last as little as 5 minutes to a max of 2 hours.  

Jess- Morals 

Capitalist punishment- society has a moral obligation to protect the safety and welfare of its citizens. 

Punishing murderers to death was allowed. 

The principle of Justice and Injustice.

Adjective- Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour

Noun- A lesson that can be deceived from a story 

Morality- A personal or social set or standards for good or bad behaviour and character or the quality of being right and honest. 

Ella- Stoning 

The History of Being Stoned to Death 

Stoning is a form of capital punishment whereby rocks are thrown at a person until they die. It is an execution method rooted in “ancient Greece and in Judeo-Christian religious texts” but has “no explicit mention in the Quran.” according to NBC News. They get buried as a whole.  

It is relatively rare but still used in some Muslim parts of the world today, where it is considered a form of community justice for punishing those accused of crimes like adultery, prostitution, murder and blasphemy.  

A 20-year-old women in Sudan has been sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, making the first known case in the northeast African country for a decade. (14th July 2022) 

Iran has the world's highest rate of execution by stoning and the middle eastern country regularly makes headlines for its employment of the practice, which came into force after the 1979 revolution.  

https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/crime/957354/the-countries-where-men-women-can-be-stoned-to-death 

Molly- Guilty

Meaning - culpable of or responsible for a specified wrongdoing / justly chargeable with a particular fault or error / conscious of, affected by, or revealing a feeling of guilt 

• Guilt is a natural emotion 

• Having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, especially against moral or penal law 

• Characteristics of somebody who is guilty – avoids eye contact, body language (fidgeting), emotional imbalance, anger, insomnia, loss of appetite, feeling anxious 

• Common factors considered by judges when deciding sentences - Whether the offender is a "first-time" or repeat offender, whether the offender was an accessory (helping the main offender) or the main offender, whether the offender committed the crime under great personal stress or duress, whether anyone was hurt, and whether the crime was committed in a manner that was unlikely to result in anyone being hurt 

• Crucial factors that underlie how the death penalty is applied are often not understood. These include the risk of executing an innocent person, the unfairness of trials, and the discriminatory nature of the death penalty 

• Song - ‘Murder in the Red Barn’ 

 

Kayleigh- Electric chair 

-Alfred Porter Southwick (1826–1898) was a steam-boat engineer, dentist and inventor from Buffalo, New York. He is credited with inventing the electric chair as a method of legal execution. 

-On 6 August 1890, a convicted murderer named William Kemmler became the first person in history to be executed by electric chair. 

-The first, more powerful jolt (between 2000 and 2,500 volts) of electric current is intended to cause immediate unconsciousness, ventricular fibrillation, and eventual cardiac arrest. The second, less powerful jolt (500–1,500 volts) is intended to cause fatal damage to the vital organs. 

-In fact, the electric chair was specifically designed not to be cruel. Death by electrocution was believed to be quick and painless. Today, after 4,300 electrocutions, death by electric chair can no longer be called an unusual punishment 

-England and in the United Kingdom: on 13 August 1964, Peter Anthony Allen, at Walton Prison in Liverpool, and Gwynne Owen Evans, at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, were executed for the murder of John Alan West on 7 April that year. 

-George Stinney Jr. He was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed by electric chair in June 1944, thus becoming the youngest American with an exact birth date confirmed to be sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century. George Stinney Jr.(14 years old) 

-In fact, the electric chair was specifically designed not to be cruel. Death by electrocution was believed to be quick and painless. Today, after 4,300 electrocutions, death by electric chair can no longer be called an unusual punishment 

-The same reason that they would usually cover the faces of criminals being hanged or shot: to keep people from seeing the expressions of fear or agony on the faces of the ones being executed as they die. It can take minutes and can be very distressing to watch. 

-Place (September 18, 1849 – March 20, 1899) was an American murderer and the first woman to die in the electric chair. She was executed on March 20, 1899, at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for the murder of her stepdaughter Ida Place. 

-The electric chair has failed 4 times  

-Smell of flesh aromas the air  

-Some people have set alight  

-Doesn’t always work the first time so have to do it twice  

- Those Who Sit in the Electric Chair Lose Control of Their Bodily Functions 

-People can volunteer to watch the executions  

Sound- https://youtu.be/WNLndm-l8tg  

After sharing our information which we collected, we then created another mind map with all our research about our chosen topics. 

 

 Upload reasoning for the style of performance? 

Before the end of the lesson, we were given the choice of three styles to choose from for our performance. They were Naturalism, Verbatim and Melodrama. 

After some discussion, we decided on Verbatim as we wanted to keep our performance as realist as possible in the best possible way by keeping it sensitive and not having any comedy within to show how serious this subject it and how everyone needs to understand how serious it is by watching/ hearing adaptations of real life stories.