Book Of Days: Approaching a Character

Here is a little bit on my process of how I approach characters, using my portrayal of Ruth Hoch in Lanford Wilson's play Book of Days as an example.

Set in a small Midwestern town, Book of Days follows the character Ruth Hoch as she prepares for the role of St. Joan; her own journey of building the character turns her into her own version of St. Joan, hearing voices and experiencing hallucinations as she becomes obsessed with the death of her close friend. Deemed an accident, Ruth is convinced that he was, in fact, murdered, and as she delves deeper into the character of Joan, she becomes more fanatical and fixated over the investigation. Even though Ruth experiences a breakdown of mental faculties, her perseverance and passion needed to be as strong and as diligent as Joan’s; Joan was able to command a whole army of men despite the questioning of her mental wellbeing, and I knew that the Ruth I created needed to have that same strength, determination, and unity of mind, even during such a dramatic shift in personality and psychological health. To create a schizophrenic, fragmented character and show the breakdown of this woman’s mind while still retaining a sense of specificity and unity, I decided that the way to build this character was to break it down—to, perhaps ironically, find a union of mind, body, and voice through deconstruction. Lanford Wilson uses the theme of tornadoes throughout his play, a force that breaks down and destroys everything in its path. I wanted Ruth’s characters to do that to the town and to her personal life in her mission to unearth the truth, in conjunction with the destruction of her mind and her sanity. In order to inhabit the abandoned nature of Ruth, I deconstructed and then unified the character through script analysis, research focused mainly on historical and religious aspects of the play, characterization, and spontaneity—specifically, psychological gesture; all of this preparation enabled me to show the schizophrenic and fragmented inner life of Ruth, while portraying a unified and collected personae.

Deconstructing the script, followed by the unifying application of research, enabled me to begin laying the foundation for my character and start tracking her mental transformation from Ruth to Joan. Script analysis is where I always begin in any production; I break down the script into beats and units based off of my character’s goals and verbs and on the arc of the play. I carefully map out my character’s tactics, motivations, and psychological journey through each scene, and constantly ask myself why my character does a certain thing or says a certain line. I analyze my character’s relationship to other characters as well as their relationship to the whole journey of the show; why is she necessary to the playwright? What role does she fulfill? I also record all of my subtext, or the real meanings and thoughts under each line, and after fleshing out the play, I create a full character biography.

It was this breakdown of the script that informed me as to how to go about creating the deconstructed mind of Ruth, specifically in terms of her speech patterns. I began by paying close attention to how her speech changed through the course of the show. Lanford Wilson’s writing is, by nature, nuanced and discreet, so I knew that her speech was not going to have a dramatic shift. Instead, I focused on the use of punctuation and sentence structure. I wanted my transformation from Ruth to Joan, like Wilson’s writing, to be nuanced and specific—I did not want the audience to be beaten over the head with the notion of deconstruction, but I wanted them to receive just a hint of the fragmentation so that there would be a trigger within their own thoughts of the idea of a mind beginning to disintegrate. I noticed that the punctuation and structure of my lines changed as the plot thickened. I utilized this change in punctuation to show a breakdown of language for Ruth; with a change in punctuation, came a change in the rhythm of my speech, especially during emotional moments for the character. I took advantage of this change in rhythm and pace to show the unraveling of Ruth’s mind as she became more like Joan and began to take on a speech pattern that was different than the one she possessed in the beginning of the play. This only furthered the religious undertones because the clipped punctuation and breakdown of speech began to mirror an almost religious-like chant or trance.

Research, like script analysis, is important in any character creation. I started by reading the play that Ruth is rehearsing for in Book of Days, which was George Bernard Shaw’s St. Joan. I then reread Book of Days within the lens of St. Joan and drew parallels between relationships, characters, plot, and action. My aim is to always reflect the writer’s intention, so the more information I know about the playwright and the other plays he draws inspiration from—St Joan in this scenario—the more adept I will be to do my job. I also read a book containing essays written by other actresses who had portrayed St. Joan; this was incredibly helpful because not only did it give me insight as to how they created this iconic character, it informed me as to how their own transformation into Joan affected them psychologically.

In the preparation for all my roles, I research their town, profession, heritage, religion—basically anything that could be helpful down the road. I strive to create a life that is vivid and rich, so that my portrayal will reflect that specificity. For Book of Days, a play that has strong religious themes at its core, I researched the character of Ruth in the Bible and allowed her personae and role to dictate the shades and nuances I should highlight. I compare my script analysis and research to a detective investigating a case—it is all about reading between the lines, finding clues, experimenting with theories, and, most importantly, trusting your instincts.

After the foundation had been set through script analysis and research, I was better equipped with the necessary research to begin my work on the characterization and physicality of Ruth—once again, I utilized notions of deconstruction and fragmentation within the body to parallel a fragmentation within the psychology of the character and, furthermore, to show a unified and seamless transition from Ruth to Joan. I started by looking at numerous paintings of Joan of Arc and other saints (such as the one in this post). I looked for conventions and traits that are recognized as being saint-like or religious, and I aimed to incorporate these gestures and stances throughout the course of the play, with a few existing naturally in Ruth’s gestures and physicality, and additional gestures becoming prominent as she became progressively more like Joan. I wanted the audience to realize that Ruth always had the potential to be like St. Joan, but that the rehearsal process paired with the death of her close friend highlighted and exaggerated these inherent features she possessed. For example, as she begins to plead with the local authorities to investigate the death of her friend, her pleading hands become more prayer-like, and at the end of the play when her life has completely unraveled and she is left only in a spotlight mourning her losses, I chose to clutch myself in a protective and grief-stricken manner by crossing my arms over my chest, resembling a martyr. By deconstructing her previous gesturial habits and then unifying her physicality with saint-like conventions, I once again tried to hint to the audience a woman spiraling out of control, yet gaining in strength and will.
I also broke down her physicality by fragmenting the amount of space Ruth inhabited. In the beginning of the play, I chose to make most of her physical body small, closed off, not demanding much space or attention. For example, while sitting, Ruth always sits with her legs or ankles crossed, a trait of femininity. As she grows in confidence and perseverance, I allowed her to spread out, demanding more space and recognition—after chopping off her hair like St. Joan, I decided that Ruth would begin to sit more like a man, with a wider stance and uncrossed legs. I further fragmented her body by giving attention to specific areas where her weight would be held. To do this, I took classes in Ruth’s profession and in her hobbies, including classes in riflery. I noticed that, as a bookkeeper, she would probably have tired hands and lower-back, but as someone who hunted and was used to holding a gun, she would carry a strong upper back and shoulders. As she begins to transition into Joan, I made decisions on her body carriage based on her emotional state. In times when she was strong and determined, I wanted her to carry herself as if she was wearing armor; in contrast, when she had been beaten down emotionally, I wanted her body to resemble a body that had just come out of battle. This was not a distant stretch from what was taking place within the life of Ruth, because she would have been wearing armor every night during the rehearsals and running of St. Joan, and the battle that her body would have fought would parallel the battle that was taking place within her psyche.

Characterization and physicality—while vital in bringing about the sense of unity within the character—can lead to acting that is stiff and too technical; therefore, at the end of the rehearsal process, when I am becoming more comfortable in lines and blocking, I focus on spontaneity and a full emotional life, specifically through the use of Michael Chekhov’s psychological gesture. In my rehearsal process, I do many things to try and bring about a full emotional life that is personal to me: I listen to music that that character would listen to, I make character journals, I discover the way they sign their name, I practice with substitution and emotional recall, I make photograph collages, I improvise, I incorporate psychological gesture, the list goes on. Because Book of Days was such an emotional play that required me to react with specific emotions of grief every night, I relied heavily on psychological gesture. Through pairing a specific physical gesture with a psychological trigger, I was able to, every night, do a specific gesture at a specific moment that would then trigger a specific emotional response. This was, for the character of Ruth, the pinnacle of emotional fragmentation that was unified through a physical life. It became the unity I was striving for in mind, body, and voice.

Group Art Project: LARC

For our group art project my group, LARC, decided to take a backwards approach to the creative process. When we were first discussing different ideas about what we could create by combining our different artistic mediums—filmmaker, visual artist, pianist, and actor—we found that the obvious choice was to make a film. However, we realized that none of us felt that we would be particularly fulfilled in that process. Yes, Lindsey and I would be working within our original mediums, and Chris could definitely do the music, but where would that leave Renata? Plus, we wanted to do something that was not so obvious. We all wanted an outcome from this project that was more than just a final product. We wanted to learn something new about the creative process, and, in turn, learn something new about our own process.

To ensure that no one would have to compromise their own artistic practice, we decided to do a reversal of the creative process. It began with Lindsey meeting with Renata first and picking a piece of art from Renata’s portfolio that she believed had a theme that could easily be communicated and interpreted by the rest of the group (see above photo). She then wrote down some words that she thought accurately expressed the theme and overall mood of Renata’s piece: “tragedy,” “orange,” “dark,” “betrayal,” and “hope.” Lindsey then told me these five words, and without ever seeing the painting, I chose a few Shakespearean pieces that I thought fit these words well. I thought that it would be a stronger choice to perform a Shakespearean monologue in verse rather than a contemporary piece; there is something already extremely artistic and visual about Shakespeare’s writings, and since it is in iambic pentameter, there is an inherent beat and rhythm to his lines that I knew would work beautifully with Chris’ performance on the piano.

When Lindsey and I met, I gave her a few pieces that I had chosen. These included Portia from Julius Caesar, Ophelia from Hamlet, Lady Macbeth from Macbeth, Rosalind from As You Like It, Helena from All’s Well That Ends, and Queen Margaret from Henry VI parts II and III. The theme that struck me the most was betrayal, so after discussing with Lindsey we decided to work on Portia from Julius Caesar. I first performed it for her as I interpreted it through the context of the play; however, Lindsey would then direct me using the words listed above, coercing me into a direction that would better fit the mood of Renata’s painting (which, at this point, I still had not seen).

She then repeated this process with Chris—going through his portfolio of music and picking a piece that fit within the mood and themes that we had been working on. I believe that all of us were rather surprised with the outcome and how effective this approach was. It seemed fitting for Lindsey, as an editor, to take upon this role of communicating between all the artists and then editing down the work to fit a desired image and goal. For me, it gave me definite boundaries, leading me to a desired structure from which I could then work. In the future, I would love to try working purely off a piece of art, this time seeing the piece and then drawing my own themes and moods to employ in my direction. It is always interesting to see how artists interpret the world around them, taking a painting or a piece of music and completely creating their own story and context to create within. It is one of my favorite things about being an artist and interacting with other artists--witnessing and experiencing the sheer imagination and creativity that can explode out of viewing a piece of art, listening to a piece of music, or reading a piece of Shakespeare.

Acting: An Education

I love watching people. I always try to be very stealthy in my people-watching, but I am quite positive I have alarmed more than a few people in my day. The things that people do when they think no one is watching fascinates me the most: Why did they make that face? Why are they talking to themselves? I always find myself creating stories about their lives based off of how they hold their coffee cup or smoke their cigarette. I think artists have the amazing capability of looking at almost anything and creating a story, or just noticing specific details about objects or people that most people do not notice. Everything is heightened, given extra value or importance, and I find that beautiful.

I was drawn into acting for these reasons, and it is what continues to fascinate me: as an actor, you delve into the life of another character, you create a human being, you live through the eyes of another. Human beings are incredibly complex, so it fits that the training required for portraying human beings would be complex as well. In addition to reading acting books and plays, I study psychology books and science books on bioenergetics and muscle and emotional memory, so that I will be further educated on how to represent humanity. It always astounds me how people pick up and move to Los Angeles or New York City to pursue acting careers without any sort of training. While I admire their ambition and faith, I have never found acting to be something that could be “picked up” during a weekend course at the Stella Adler Studio, due to the fact that as an actor, there is no end to education or training.

Growing up, I always had a passion for theatre, and I was fortunate enough to have parents that supported my decision to gain an undergraduate degree in theatre from the University of Southern California. As a senior in high school, I vacillated between attending an acting conservatory or a university; I have found that my decision to attend a university has helped me in countless ways in my acting. The people that I met and interacted with, the professors I learned from, the classes I attended that were not theatrically based, have all given me tools and experiences that I would not have gained had I attended a conservatory. I also earned a minor in Communication within the Entertainment Industry, which allowed me to gain further knowledge in theories of mass media and entertainment—this was priceless information for an artist preparing to cultivate a career in a society immersed in mass media and popular culture. However, I was given the opportunity my junior year at USC to audition for the British American Drama Academy conservatory in London. Eight students from USC, including myself, were accepted for their spring semester program. Classes were held everyday from eight in the morning to six at night; while most students were exhausted and mentally tired after the semester, I found myself more invigorated each day as I became more stimulated and challenged than I had ever been before at USC. The more I studied, the more I craved theatre. This video is from my stage combat class--one of the many classes I took at BADA that I have found to be invaluable to my training as an actor.



Note: This is not me in the video. I wish it was haha, but it is my instructor. However, this is the routine that we learned in class. The ending that my partner and I performed was a bit different: instead of stealing away her dagger with my arm, I did it with my leg after she punched me to the ground.

My experience at BADA only reinforced my love for acting, and showed me that my education as an actor is never over. With such a small class size at BADA, I knew that I was surrounded by exceptionally talented actors, and watching their work while simultaneously watching them grow as actors was probably what taught me the most about theatre. Recently I have decided to apply to graduate MFA programs: UCI, UCSD, Old Globe/USD, Calarts, and Yale. Besides the brilliant faculty that these schools offer, their small class sizes ensure that my creativity and passion for theatre will be constantly enhanced due to being in the company of amazing actors. I will also be surrounded by actors similar as me, who are willing to challenge themselves, take risks in their acting, give fully of themselves to their classmates and teachers, and most importantly, are not looking for fame or fortune, but merely the chance to do what they love. Acting is about creating a complex human being, but it is also about conveying humanity and revealing the small details in life that other people might take for granted. It is looking at life through a magnifying glass. It is being private in a very public place.

Perhaps that is why I love people watching—it gives me a peek into someone else’s life, and I glimpse them in a moment of vulnerability when the facades and masks are gone. I think everyone feels lonely and lost, and it is our responsibility as artists to connect with people that we have never met before and show them that they are not alone. My favorite pieces of art are the ones that when I leave, I feel emotionally stirred—I do not feel as lonely or as lost, and I am reminded again that everyone is struggling, searching.

Other Art Work

I will not even pretend that I am a visual artist or a photographer. I know that there are techniques, theories, methods, and overall, talent, that I do not obtain. However, this blog is about my journey from the south to Los Angeles, I thought it would be fitting to share the photos that I have taken of my home in the South.

The first five drawings on this site were done with charcoal and pastel. The photographs were taken on my digital camera, and because I am not trained or educated in photography, I did no retouching on the photos except a few color alterations (Like I said, obviously not a photographer haha). A lot of the photos are of the Mississippi River, or were taken inside old barns throughout Mississippi and Texas. The last photograph is the home my grandmother lived in when she was younger with eleven other siblings.

Click here

Artist Statement

I have always been intrigued by things that are abandoned: farms, homes, warehouses. Growing up in the south, there is an abundance of land. Plantation homes sink into the ground, pillars rising up out of the earth like colossal giants. I grew up running around between fields and abandoned places, ducking in holes and springing out of underbrush, and I guess that it is the duality of abandonment and mystery that I carry in my blood and ultimately into my acting. It runs through my veins, a dirty Mississippi clay. My poor mother always has to pull over on the side of the road and let me take photos of abandoned red barns during the three-hour treck to my sister’s university. Abandoned places hold a sense of mystery and possibility to me—it is as if their owners still lurk in the walls and in the upholstery of the furniture they decided to leave behind. I am fascinated by what people decide or are forced to leave behind—an old piano, a wicker chair, a sofa. Why did they leave? Why were these things, articles that made up my playground, not able to venture forward along with their owners? Lives used to be played out on that couch. It used to have a purpose. When I approach these abandoned pieces and draw or photograph them, I feel as if I am giving them a purpose again. I find that my work as an actress parallels these ideas of abandonment while I dig for purposes, goals, and objectives for my characters.

When I approach a character, I always look at it as something discarded and abandoned by its last actor. What did they leave behind? How can I inhabit it? How can I change it, fix it, grow in it, fit my form into its nooks and crannies? Once again, I feel as if I am giving this person a purpose, giving them a voice and a body so that they can tell their story. And at the end of a run of a play, after the last curtain call and cast party, I am always surprised at how quickly that character, the character I had inhabited for two months, has left. And suddenly I am the abandoned one, left only with a remembrance of lines and the way they held their chin or moved their pinkie. It feels like a breakup—you wake up one morning, and they are gone.

I treat the end of the play like the end of a relationship. I hide everything about that play and character. I stick my notebooks and research and lines in a drawer and I do not open it. It makes me sad. I will never experience that person in the same way ever again. Even if I were to play that part again, it would be completely different because of the people in it and because of the time period of my life. And even though a house cannot pick up and leave its owner like the characters I inhabit leave me, each are constantly recycled and renewed, renovated and re-owned. Every character, like a house, has their own set of walls and defenses to protect themselves—these walls create mystery and intrigue; to me, the vulnerable parts that people keep hidden from others are the most fascinating.

It is difficult to say why I do what I do. I do not know what I do. I just do it. I had a teacher say to me once, “Good acting is like the kitchen sink.” I had no idea what he meant when he first said that, but as I grew as an actor I began to understand what he was saying—good acting is not a showing off of technique. It is not deciding, Ok I will cry here, or I will impress the audience now with my ability to scream really loud. Good acting is living. It is making your technique invisible through abandonment so that the audience is seeing a human being, and not an actor. My technique is a combination of Michael Chekhov, Stanislavski, Uta Hagen, Adler—I do not rely on one specific method, just how I do not play one specific character in every show I perform in. What is important is finding the technique within the script, and then fulfilling the playwright’s wishes through the method that is found. Michelangelo once said about his work that every piece of marble has a statue inside of it and that it was the job of the sculptor to find it. He also said that he sees angels inside the marble, and he carves away until he has set it free. I see humanity inside the lines written on the page, and I deconstruct and chip away at the walls, just how Michelangelo chipped away the walls of the marble, until I find the heart, the seed, of the character. I always leave the run of a show feeling fragmented, yet unified. I am part myself, and part that character—it is as if the character has attached itself to me, and I cannot shake off their gestures or speech pattern. It is always a mystery at the end of the run of a show what is left behind the walls of the character, what I never discovered, what questions I could not answer. What is always frustrating is when six months later I awake in the middle of the night in a moment of epiphany and wonder how I was ever so clueless as to not choose that gesture or see that emotional clue. Every now and then they run around inside me, filling me with their lines like my laughter used to fill those empty spaces. I guess my characters never really abandon me after all.

Autobahn

Two weeks ago I sat in a small black box theatre and for two hours watched a play take place in a car. I guess a lot of people would call that boring; there were no big fight scenes, no sex scenes, and no dancing and singing musical numbers. However, this play was incredibly intriguing and thought provoking. Written by Neil Labute, Autobahn is a series of vignettes that give the audience a peek into different kinds of relationships and actions, all taking place within a car. These seven scenes range from a young couple going "parking", to a pedophilic teacher and his young student going on a road trip. What was fantastic about this production and the direction was how the scenarios and the relationships, at first, seem familiar and bland; the scene picks up mid-dialogic conversation, forcing the audience to play catch-up and analyze what is taking place in the scene. However, as the scene progresses, the audience realizes that not everything is as it seems. As the director points out in his notes in the program, "some form of betrayal cries out to be addressed...the destination often holds a potential for violence, violation or the disintegration of a relationship."

There is also an interesting tension that is created by the confines of the car. Each actor is spatially constricted by the car, forcing them to think creatively in respect to their physicality in their acting; furthermore, the characters are restricted by the car and their relationships in that within the climax of the scene, the characters are forced to stay and talk--there is no escaping the inside of the speeding car, which only amplifies the drama and raises the stakes. For each character, the car is simultaneously a prison and a safe-haven, barring themselves in, while also ensuring the presence of their other-half. The characters are also restricted by the confines of language. Each scene is full of misunderstanding as characters struggle to articulate their desires and their fears.

While I loved the production and the directing, my main complaint comes as a consequence from the acting choices that were made. While it could be argued that my problems came from the work of the director, I feel as if the choices that were made were from a lack of preparation and studying by the actors, not as a result of the directing. I feel that it is the job of an actor to present something new to the audience that they would not have been able to discover on their own just by reading the play. It seemed that some of the actors in this production just focused on memorizing their lines and then delivering them in a natural-sounding tone. All of the actors are trained very well technically, that is obvious. However, there seemed to be a lack of commitment in a few of them to do their homework and discover what their characters wanted, what was in their way, and to then discover new tactics to getting their objective. Each scene was, on average, fifteen minutes in length; fifteen minutes can be a long time for an audience member when they are watching an actor do the same thing the whole time. What is brilliant about Neil Labute, and why he is one of my favorite playwrights, is that his writing seems so effortless and natural; however, this can be a trap for actors because an actor could become complacent in just sounding natural and decide to not push or strive for the deeper meaning of the work. In the end, all of the scenarios collide in a car crash, symbolizing the reckless decisions made by the characters that then lead to consequences, fatalities, and injuries when they crash into the lives of the other characters. If some of the actors had done more work, this last scene would have been much more dramatic and impacting. Unfortunately, some of the actors were on cruise control, and couldn't keep up with the racing performance of their cast mates.

Kalifornia Kasting

For those of you out there interested in a part-time job, or are wanting to get into SAG, or just like the idea of hanging out on movie and television sets, Kalifornia Kasting is a great company to be a part of. I joined this summer, and I have had some great experiences on sets for shows like Greek, Cold Case, How I Met Your Mother, 10 Things I Hate About You, etc, not to mention numerous films.

The great thing about Kalifornia Kasting is how personal it is. The owner of the company, Jen, and I are in contact atleast two to three times a week, talking about potential jobs, photograpehrs she is bringing into the studio, and ways to network with people in the industry. She is very flexible, and is willing to work around students' schedules, which is so convenient considering I am taking 18 units as a senior, eek!

Here is her website:
http://www.kaliforniakasting.com/



Check it out, and let her know that I sent you her way.

Epic Theatre--A Peek Into Bertolt Brecht's Vision of Theatre

Last semester I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to perform in a Brechtian inspired and directed version of Friedrich Durrenmatt’s The Visit. I had always been familiar with Brecht’s vision of Epic Theatre, but it was not until I had worked with a director who chose this aesthetic did I fully understand the concepts and theories behind Bertolt Brecht’s method. Started in the early to mid 20th century, Bertolt Brecht, in conjunction with numerous theatrical practitioners, developed the Epic Theatre mainly in response to the most popular movement of that time, Naturalism. Established by famed Constantin Stanislavski, naturalism strives to pull the audience members into the world of the play, allowing them a cathartic theatrical experience by creating the perfect illusion of reality. Epic Theatre, on the other hand, endeavors to keep the audience at an emotional distance, always reminding the spectators that what they were watching is indeed just a play. Brecht thought that plays should not allow the audience to identify emotionally with the characters, but should instead allow the audience to participate in self-reflexivity and therefore create a critical perspective about what they were viewing on the stage. Brecht did this in a number of ways, mainly by straying from the Aristotelian model of a “well-made play”—consisting of unity in time, place and action—and preferred instead a series of detached narratives, or montages, that allowed a fragmented and interrupted experience. He also rejected theatrical conventions of turning house lights down before the play commenced, as well as the convention of the fourth wall. He would often give audience members synopses of the play before it began and would break up scenes with interspersed songs and dances performed by chorus members. All of these tactics made up his Verfremdungseffekt, or the “distancing effect.” By distancing the audience, Brecht reminded the audience that what they were watching was fiction, and in turn, would create a critical discourse surrounding what they were seeing acted out in front of them.
While I thoroughly enjoyed taking part in a production that utilized these techniques, the ideologies inherently built into this movement are in direct conflict with my own beliefs about theatre and how it can affect audience members. I believe that a vital aspect of performance is the ability to motivate change by striking an emotion chord. While Brecht strove to bring about change by distancing his audience members and encouraging them to pay attention to themes rather than characters and storyline, my opinion is that audience members will be more likely to think critically about the themes of the play when they are emotionally invested in what is happening. Regardless, Epic Theatre is, and will continue to be, a part of my theatrical experience that I will always appreciate and view with a critical, and Brechtian, eye.

These two trailers for University of Colorado Denver's theatrical production of Caucasian Chalk Circle, written by Brecht, are good examples of Verfremdungseffekt.