 ‘Ugga!’
is a play written for adults but is suitable
for children over the age of nine. It is
a play about the obsession with looks, cosmetic
surgery, diets and obesity. It challenges
the audience to recognise the way in which
the media influences our feelings about
our own body image and can cause insecurity,
bullying and eating disorders.
This play was written as a collaboration
between a professional theatre company and
a youth theatre. Two professional actors
played the main roles whilst five children
(aged between 11 and 13) played the students.
The work can be produced in this way but
it can also work well with a much larger
cast, with lots of children creating the
Chorus of the Children and each character
being played by a different actor, perhaps
as a team-up between an adult amateur dramatics
company and a local youth theatre or as
a full school production.
Mr Jones, a new teacher, arrives at St
David’s school with dreams of a great
career in front of him, but in his first
lesson he meets his students one of whom
is a boy they call Ugga, who wears a paper
bag on his head and refuses to take it off.
In the staff room, Mr Jones asks the drama
teacher, Mr Farthing, about Ugga and it
is revealed that the boy has been wearing
the bag for three months and that despite
many attempts, nobody can take it off.
Mr Jones resolves to solve the problem
and the play skips back three months to
reveal some of the possible reasons for
Ugga's bizarre behaviour. These include
harsh words from the headteacher, overhearing
a conversation between two girls, a school
photographer and an argument about looks
between his parents.
Moving forward now in time, at three weeks
into Mr Jones’ appointment, Ugga has
breakfast with his parents and they argue
about the causes of this problem, whilst
back at the school, the two school janitors
discuss their body weight and rail against
the media’s support of body fascism.
They think that Ugga is right to do what
he has done.
Mr Jones deals with a bully who is picking
on Ugga by 'bullying' him right back. Dr
Shandy informs Mr Jones that Ugga will need
to be expelled if his problem continues,
and Mr Jones promises to solve the problem.
At parents evening Mrs Porter is told about
the potential expulsion and Mr Jones suddenly
realizes why Billy is wearing the bag. He
works out a way of getting the bag removed
at tomorrow’s assembly.
 At
that assembly, Mr Jones encourages the cast
and the audience (who play the part of the
students in assembly) to all put bags on
their heads before Ugga arrives. When Ugga
enters he takes the bag off because he just
wanted to be different, and now, because
everyone in the whole school hall is wearing
a paper bag, he isn’t different any
more. Mr Jones is angered that Ugga is so
shallow and that this play has to exist
because of this mundane obsession and rails
at the audience for their stupidity. He
then exits, laughing, with a bag on his
head.
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