First impressions of LBIA and my character..

After getting our script and reading through it i was really happy that we had been given such a naturalistic play, as opposed to the WOWC play we had done before it. As we were told to read through it and get into groups i was instantly drawn to the character Alison. You instantly realise she is married to Jimmy who is an angry man with no regard for his wifes feelings. This is more shown when he wishes a miscarriage on her. Her relationship is very confusing an brings up the question of why she stays with him if he does nothing but put her down. You see jimmy is directing his anger towards her in regards to her bring up in a higher class standard than his own. 

I think i was very intrigued with her character and wanted to look more into it  and how i could play such a character in a naturalistic way. Especially the scene we had chosen, Alison breaks down and shows raw emotion to Jimmy to show that she had gone through the suffering he wished upon her. I thought it would be a challenge to do this naturalistic piece but was ready to try it as a different style of acting as i had been a narrator in the previous play.  

The naturalistic style of the play had brought the research of Stanislavski. He had brought true life to theatre and explored ways in which actors would be their charcaters and feel their emotions. 

One exercise we did at the beginning was to have someone come into the room and act as if a letter was on the floor. We saw that acting as if it was there seemed very unnatural and almost robotic; you looked for the letter as soon as you entered the room instead of it being found. So we had done it again and actually put a letter there, doing this made a huge difference and you could tell with the expressions and reactions from the person. We were told to underplay it, act but try not to let it show too much that it isnt natural. I think this exercise helped because in my scene i pick up Jimmy's pipe and place it on a table, i didnt want to look uncomfortable so i had picked it up and held it for a while whilst i said my lines. 

I think the scene that we are doing really shows off the development in Alison from the beginning of the play to the end. You see her show what she's really feeling and shows Jimmy that she went through pain and now understands his anger.