Sypnosis of 'My Mother Said I never Should'

The play depicts four generations of women through the changing times of post war. It is about women and womanly relationships. It gives an insight in to the changing roles of women and their individual personalities and how they relate to one another. Though they are each connected by family resemblances each character reflects their own individual hopes and expectations and it is a play about how women relate to men and also at different times, to be a wife and a mother.

Our first scene set in a wasteland background whereby Rosie and I as Doris are play acting doctors and nurses conjuring up ways to threaten and kill their mums with notions of ritualistic spells.

I feel the dialogue is not as clear and straightforward as the revelance of the phsycological tensions between each character is predominates.
Each character reflects their own personality, Margaret always appears anxious and unsure, always trying to maintain her position and authority yet exposing a long suffering woman who is caught in the middle and feeling the ongoing strain. Doris appears as if she knows best, slightly detached and yet caught up in tradition (as older Doris), as younger Doris looking up to Rosie as if she knows what she is talking about and shy in her conviction at that age. Rosie always complicit, and Jackie underneath the surface wild, defiant and experimental as well as being independent. It is a play about possessions, lost and found through time.

The four women play together as girls. Doris and her daughter Margared prepare for an air raid in 1940. Jackie visits her grandmother Doris at 61, and Jackie starts to rebels against her mother Margaret. Margaret then has a miscarriage. Jackie has an illegitimate baby Rosie,and her mother Margaret takes her away to bring her up as her own.

Scene 3 -

Our characters appear as children, Rosie waits for Doris in a wasteland playground playing with stones. Rosie dramatises the context of 'Curse' implying that their mum may have her period or some spell. Doris doesn't have an understanding of what 'the curse' is so they seem both carried away with their imaginations to conclude their individual meaning. Then follows a doctor's and nurses scene whereby they take it in turn to lie down while the other plays a male doctor examining a woman. Doris is cuatious of ther mum's insight so clams up and says 'she say's she can see inside my head.' Lastly they finish the scene going through the process of childbirth.

It seems as if the scenes are set in environments which restrain the spontaneity of emotions. The tensions between the characters are felt as they are not sitting in secure places, they are in an open wasteland for this scene. The dialogue leaves you feeling uncertain and up in the air about things without any sense of conclusion.

Scene 4 -

Margaret tries her best to challenge her daughter Jackie who has had sex for the first time. Margaret's attempts to try and make Jackie see the truth in her eyes of the situation anbd how and what is she going to tell her dad this news. Jackie retaliates with anger and feels defensive towards her mother's insistence. Her mum implies that Jackie had no reason not to wait until she was older to have a baby and that she was putting her life on hold and not continuing with her education.

Scene 5 -

I as Doris arrange a rug on the ground for a picnic and I call for Jack over the sound of the lawnmower. I go back in the house to get the tea tray. Jackie and Margaret sit down for tea and Jackie states that Grandad let her use his real paint. Margaret has had a break and been away in the lake district. Doris reminds Margaret to take her iron tablets. Margaret feels alienated and knowing she has had a miscarriage.
Doris and Jackie are warm towards one another. Jackie finds Margaret's old doll and Jackie thinks that her mum assumes she has broken the doll as she spends time putting the doll to bed. Doris understands Margaret's distress and attempts to hold Jackie but Jackie runs away and Doris' frustration with Margaret prevails stating that if she hadn't be so hasty to get a temping job she would never have lost the baby.

Scene six -

The scene is set in a concrete council flat in which Jackie tries to quieten her own baby Rosie who has kept her awake all night. Rosie dressed in her all in one suits aged eight doesn't enter the scene but stands at the back of the scene. Jackie starts to put away the baby clothes in to the bags. Margaret walks in eager to take the baby whilst ken is waiting in the car but the tensions rise between Jackie and her mother as unexpressed emotion and a competitive tension underlies whom wants to hold the baby. Jackie makes it clear to her mother that she had an agreement to bring up her daughter and that Jackie's dad supported her in her decision. Jackie states she is keen to pursue her education through Art school. Margaret tells Jackie the importance of Rosie knowing that she is her sister but only to be told that at the right time and when she is sixteen. Jackie still feels her mother has unrealistic expectations of her and she suggests Jackie stays with Doris and Jack until Christmas time. Jackie feeling the tensions between her and her mother feels upset for both of them, whilst Margaret leaves with the baby and Jackie is left crying whilst observing her baby's clothes.

Summary -

It felt as if the aim of our play was to forge our own individual traits of our character in accordance to the dynamics of the family. I would say that in all three scenes there is a feeling of suppression of emotions together with feelings of duty, responsibility and social issues. Margaret who is ever enduring patience and tolerant at times trying to keep an equilibrium between her daughter and Margaret's mother. The visual aesthetics were prominant in the believability of the play and created an exposure of uncertainty and unpredictability between the family as a whole due to the chosen scenes: wasteground, garden scene, and council flat.