Week Twenty-Seven: Junk

Do we Really Know our Characters?

Tuesday 29^th April 2014

     During today’s lesson of rehearsals for our production of the play ‘Junk’ the main focus factor for us was to know our characters inside out.  Throughout the first weeks of the production process we have read through the entire script and have begun to read the original novel, from which the play is based off of.  Having been given our roles and have had time to create a character profile, it was now time to demonstrate how much we had learnt, and how much we need to learn, in time for the main performance.  So today’s lesson began with a hot seating exercise, the purpose of this exercise was for the actor, playing the role of a certain character, to take a seat in the centre of the room, where every other member of the group can ask the individual questions about their character.  The sole purpose of this exercise was, not only to present how much we had learnt about our characters, but to also expand the groups and their own understanding of the character.

     The character I was giving to portray in this performance was a young adult character named ‘Vonny’.  In a previous blog I presented the characters profile and explored what I had learnt from understanding the script context and introducing a little bit of originality to create the character.  One goal I aim to achieve is to see how other actors have portrayed the character, whether on stage or screen.  But the basics of my character, is that ‘Vonny’ comes from a rough origins, possibly concerning loss of a parent or guardian, such as his mother.  Or possibly even concerning an abusive father figure in his childhood.  This would have a vast effect of the characters personality and physical structure.

     Characters physicality is essential for an actor, as it helps them expand their acting to the next step.  The first step being the actor would have to understand how the character would have to be portrayed verbally.  So the actor knowing how to present the characters physicality would be a great part to show the actors commitment to the performing role.

     From what I’ve learnt and understood about the character so far is; having rough origins and sparkle of hope for having a bright future.  The impact that this would have on Vonny’s physicality would be somewhat similar to my own.  Vonny’s physical pacing would be tall, strong and positive.  In some way I hope that this can deliver the moral message that Vonny is a man who sees the glass as half full.  This is because Vonny dreams of living a normal life and possibly raising a family of his own, and the only way he can accomplish that is by keeping a positive attitude around people, in the hope of making as much friends as possible and achieve the best.  As well as Vonny representing the ‘hope’ within the group of squatters, so he can show every member of the group the light in their darkest times.  This backs up the characters profile in which I state that Vonny is one of the father figure characters amongst this group of lost souls in a cruel view of the world.

     However Vonny may seem to be the most positive character amongst the group of characters, there is few down sides towards this character.  For example, when we find the character at his first scene on stage, we see him a little frustrated, as one of Vonny’s few dislikes is that he is bored with the characters constant change of location.  Vonny does not like the position he is in and that he and his close friends are moving from house to house.  Vonny much prefers to stay in one house that suits him.  This also backs up his dream of living a normal life.  So when we first meet the character, his physical posture is going to be slightly different.  Slightly different in the way that he is still keeping a tall and strong figuring, but is more focused and wants there to be a point to their current situation.  For example in his first scene, his just want the breaking into a house over with, and wants to know more and more about the next member of the group, Tar (who is the story’s leading character). 

     This physical structure continues to appear in following scenes, such as the scene where Tar introduces Gemma to the group, and when Vonny stands up to Gemma.  When Tar introduces Gemma to the group, much like when Vonny meets Tar, Vonny just wants to get as much information about Gemma as he can.  Because, in a slight way Vonny also likes to judge a book by its cover, and doesn’t really like nor trust his first look at Gemma.  This then leads onto the scene when Vonny stands up to Gemma.  In this scene Vonny, in a way, confesses that he has had enough of Gemma and attempts to send her back home where she belongs, before “she really takes off”.

     But as the play goes on we see more of the positive side of Vonny, which in some ways makes him the only ‘good guy’.  Because every other character in the play, I define them as ‘Anti-Heroes’.  An ‘anti-hero’ essential describes the lead character being the here, but does bad things in order to achieve the best for themselves.  For example, Tar and Gemma are the lead characters, but both characters take up drugs and prostitution in order to get the best for themselves.

     As the hot seating exercise came to an end, we then began to continue our rehearsals for the play.  However one thing that was missing for today’s rehearsals was the warm up exercise.  Now understanding that we have to change our own physicality in order to create our characters for the production, it is now important that we are physically prepared, as well as being prepared in knowing our lines.  So it was now important to address why we all needed to take part in the warm up exercises.  These warm up exercises were now essential to prepare us for rehearsals.  The purpose being that they would get every inch of our bodies warmed up to see if we were physical capable to change our own comfortable physical structure into another characters structure.

     In conclusion, I feel that this lesson was extremely helpful to not only me, but the whole tutor group, as we had an extended understanding of not only our characters but all the characters in the play.  This also meant that we could develop our own characters to a level in which makes the whole plot more convincing.  It’ll also give us the chance to present how much we understand about the sub context within the play and if we are capable of reflecting a harsh view of this particular kind of life on stage.