Charecter development 1

In the first stages of my rehearsal project I found it difficult to adopt realism when playing my character and I also found that my approach to jimmy’s character was very aggressive witch was not my objective, jimmy’s character is more patronising and annoying, in an attempt to convey this in my character I got close to me co actors invading their personal space showing jimmy’s arrogant nature I also tried making my voice louder than my co actors to also show this. Realism requires the reactions of an actor to be identical to reactions in real life, in an attempt to adopt this style I used an “emotion memory” technique and thought back to a time where my little sister was being particularly irritating and I related this to my characters relationship with his “Alison” to convey his irritation of the variety of noises “Alison” makes and tried to cut out any grotesque or theatre styled movement gestures or speech. I have made progress but there is still room for improvement. In rehearsal time we were asked to perform in front of our tutor and we received feedback as a group and a little personal feedback. Our extract unfortunately only lasted seven minutes so in an attempt to add at least three more minutes we are performing an extra page of the play, he also said the performance over well as making progress and that it was strong. I was pulled up on my pronunciation of certain words and my line learning. To practice my pronunciation and line learning a plan to read over the script slowly and pronounce every word correctly multiple times until I have remembered I to pronounce certain words and remembered my lines. My co actor “Ryan” advised me on looking into the distance while I say certain lines to convey jimmy’s arrogance, for example when my character says the line “when you see a women in front of a mirror you see what a refined kind of butcher she is” and “shed have your guts out like hair clips” I lean standing against the back of a chair to show that jimmy cares only for what he asked to say. In this scene there is to be a clear build-up of irritation until my character goes to for and ends up injuring his wife, this build up is triggered from the start of the extract when my co actor Danielle says the line “seriously jimmy your acting like a child” my character then feels patronised and offended an proceeds to try and get a reaction from her in revenge, I convey this build up in a variety of ways, firstly I change the tone and volume of my voice starting with a calmer and more friendlier approach at the beginning with lines such as “don’t patronise me” and “have you ever noticed how noisy women are” and then this progresses into a more offensive and unfriendly approach as recite lines such as “you’ve got to be fundamentally insensitive to be as noisy and as clumsy as that” and “the eternal flaming racket of a female”. Secondly I used my body and stage presence to covey the build-up of irritation by throughout the scene by at first saying the same lines while sitting calmly and then towards standing and invading peoples personal space. For example for the start of the scene I decided to sit slouched starring at Danielle (Alison) intensely and pointing her to show my characters general lack of respect for his wife and towards the end I express this by getting close and standing tall while getting in her face and not losing eye contact. By experimenting with these elements I see a clear development in the extract, so far the have been helpful in conveying jimmy’s argumentative and offensive nature.