Theatre Review Essay For ‘Spies’

, Older Stephen, and Keith. In the scene we were looking at, Younger Stephen was going to Keith’s house to play, and together they decided that Keith’s mum was a German spy, and that they should spy on her to find out! Older Stephen was not actually there: he was looking back on it, but as the scene went on and on, he got caught up again in the drama.

I chose to look at Younger Stephen in this scene. I think he is an effective actor in this scene because he clearly shows the gap between Keith’s status and his own, and he also stays in character well throughout the scene.

At the start of the scene, Stephen knocks on Keith’s door. He then pulls up his socks and tries to make himself look smarter to try and impress Keith! This shows that Keith has a higher status than Stephen. When Keith answers the door to greet Stephen, there is an awkward silence, which could mean that it is hard for them to be friends because of the social gap between them.

Next, they decide to play with a train set. When Keith gets the train set out he gives all of it to Stephen to carry, and then he only carries the train. This and his body language shows that Keith is more of a leader than Stephen, and that Stephen follows Keith around and takes his orders.

The part of the scene where Keith announces that his mother is a German spy is my favourite part because of the way it is acted. Keith and Stephen look at each other slowly, then at the audience and then back at each other, which creates a comic affect. Stephen’s facial expression was very good because it was exaggerated to make it funnier.

Then, when Keith and Stephen are tracking what Keith’s mum is doing, she points a finger gun at them. Stephen then says ’and points a gun at us as if we were children’. His voice is incredulous as if there was no chance that they could be children, which makes it ironic because they are!

The boys start to look through Keith’s mum’s diary, and Stephen talks about his Uncle Pete. As he does this, he puffs his chest out as if he were trying to emulate him, which shows that he is proud of him. Then when Stephen is anxious about being found in Keith’s mum’s study, his voice becomes quicker, higher and louder.

Stephen stood out to me as the best actor in this scene, and I think especially his body language was very good. Stephen communicated his role very well, and yu could tell a lot about his character from the way he used his voice and his body.