'Remote' Week Two

 

This week we were to put everything we learnt and did last week together. From handing out the lines to different characters, we were now putting the play together. As a group we were going through each scene to make sure we felt comfortable and that everything felt right. We had to choose what we would be doing between scenes and seeing how we could further bring our characters to life. I started to look deeper into my own character and how I could show this in my own performance. What could I do to make my character unique and stand out?

We were put into groups to flesh out the characters we had created. Our group was made up of those that were going to be apart of ‘Blister’s’ gang. Each of us wanted to play a character that would be in this group and would help each other to create these characters. The characters that were in this gang had to be quite rough, tough, and essentially bullies. As a group we went around and made-up whole backstories for each of our characters. We included names, why we were friends with ‘Blister’ and how we became a part of his gang.  This in particular was an essential part of understanding our characters as we only see them in relation to ‘Blister’ and not anything further. Do we really want to be in this gang, are we only there to have a friend, are we there just because we are frightened or do we genuinely look up to ‘Blister’? In terms of my character, we had decided that he had known ‘Blister’ for a very long time, was quite rough and scruffy. Furthermore, we decided that I genuinely wanted to be friends with ‘Blister’ and was quite unstable due to drug use.

During our performances this week Kelly imparted advice to each of us on what we could be doing better. For instance, with my character, Kelly said that between my own lines I should be more aggressive in how I act. I took this into consideration and started thinking about how my character could be menacing without saying anything. In order to do so I started to physically bully the character I was talking too much more. I portrayed this by invading the other actor’s personal space, as well as pushing and blocking them. Kelly seemed happier with this alteration as the correct course of action for my character.