The Stage

The play takes place at a mall in the city of Kamloops, British Columbia. The season is Winter, the temperature outside is around the 5 degrees and is windy, is around 10 am in the morning, and the characters are sitting around a table next to a coffee shop. The stores around are clothing and jewelry stores, a tea store, a services kiosk and a chocolate shop. The mall is quite empty and quiet, no kids running around, is mostly old people. The temperature inside the mall is different from outside, inside is warm. The smells were a mix of coffee, and the detergent used to clean the floors. The main colors around the main area are neutral colors of gray, brown, and white.

The Blocking

The players

The main characters are 3 old women of an age range around 70 to 75 years old , they all have short white hair, their ethnicity is white, none of them seem to be wearing any makeup. Their clothes are casual, and no expensive jewelry is being shown, nothing fancy. They seem to be middle social class. Their main topic is about age, and people in their life, mostly catching up with each other.

 Lady 1 was wearing a pink rain jacket, a lavender vest, gray undershirt and dark pants. She did not seem to have a marriage ring, and was drinking tea instead of coffee, by the closeness with lady 3, it is possible that she is related somehow to her. Lady 1 was the only one wearing gold earrings. Later on started socializing with the table next to them and introduced only lady 2. She was the only one not wearing a wedding ring.

Lady 2 was wearing a wedding ring. She had curly hair and was wearing a navy sweater. When the table next to them started to interact with lady 1, even though she was introduced she did not engage in the conversation. Out of the three ladies she was the most quiet and serious.Whenever they were walking as a group she would walk slightly behind lady 1 and lady 3.

Lady 3 was also wearing a wedding ring, out of the three she was the only one wearing glasses, and physically seemed she was the oldest. Was also the only one carrying a purse, her body language was strongly shown with face expressions and hands gestures. When the table next to them started to socialize, she introduced herself and continue the interaction. When walking she received help from lady 1, even though it was obvious she had problems with her right leg, she did not carry a cane with her.

The first observation made was at the stairs, where they chose not to take the electric stairs but the regular stairs going down. Lady 3 was being helped by lady 1 while lady 2 showed a slight detachment to the group. They sat next to the coffee shop, at a circular table for around 30 minutes. The meeting did not end there as they left together, the meeting ended around 10:40. Before leaving, all of them cleaned after themselves. Lady 1 and lady 3 helped each other as they were leaving and held arms. Lady 2 stayed behind again. Their pace was calm, did not rush at the time of cleaning up or walking.

The Plot

The ladies seemed to have a lot to catch up on, from what I can say this meeting does not happen daily, they might be used to see each other a few times a week or even a month. By the way lady 1 and lady 3 interacted it can be assumed they know each other better. Lady 2 showed an estrangement not only to the group but to the external socializing, lady 1 and lady 3 socializing skills were good as they interacted with new people for at least 10 minutes. They all seemed to have similar norms, at the end of their meeting they all cleaned after themselves. No posible way to tell if they are religious as they did not carry any religious symbol or talked about it. It is posible that lady 1 is not married anymore as she was not wearing a wedding ring. This particular spot seemed to be popular among elders, two other tables were being in use by old ladies as well. At the beginning I couldn’t help to notice none of these ladies wanted to use the electric stairs to go down, this showed independency. There was no visible tattoos and by the kind of clothes they were wearing, the posture they held at the time of talking, I think their social culture falls under conservative.

The Finale

I am a 20 year old male student, spent around 30 minutes observing a group of old ladies having coffee. I found this assignment as an interesting project to do. I don’t think I have ever taken this much time to analyze random people. Thought that a mall in the morning would be easier because there would be no distractions, but it was too calm. I found a lack of interaction from the people I observed. At one point I became concerned that the ladies would notice me taking notes about them.