'Becoming' Your Character

A little bit of context for this post: I've got my Theatre Studies exam on Tuesday.

What? I only said there would be a little bit of context.

So, for this exam there are two sections, each with equal weightings. 30% of your final grade is based off of a group performance, where you're marked on your ability to abide by the director's (i.e. your teacher's) interpretation of a script, and for our piece we're doing Charlotte Jones' The Dark. The other 30% of your exam mark is based on a 2 minute monologue of your choosing, and you're marked on your written interpretation, movement, characterisation, and voice.

Long story short, being a completely cocky arsehole I decided to play Titania from Midsummer Night's Dream, and believe you me when I say that 'These are the forgeries of jealousy...' may look on the surface to be a relatively easy monologue...But as with anything of Shakespeare, it's one thing saying the words with expression, it's an entirely different thing expressing the language in a way that makes it penetrable to the audience.

Now, as some of you may know, Titania is the Queen of the Fairies. As some of you may not know, I naturally lack grace, and poise, and anything remotely queen- like, asides from my accent (as I discovered, my natural accent wasn't posh enough anyway, I pronounced my 'u's wrong). As the weeks progressed, and as I worked longer on the monologue, I finally managed to grasp the fairy like, but regal manner, that I wanted to portray as Titania.

And then Titania started seeping into my real life. Now, instead of being hunched over when sitting and standing, I generally push my shoulder's back slightly and sit tall. I can't help but pronounce my 'u's as if I'm speaking the Queen's English, and finally, I'm a lot lighter on my feet, seriously. I'm naturally quite a heavy footed person (hence the clumsiness) but now I'm able to prance about without making a sound.

Now this may be something that I've noticed when getting into role as Titania, but it occurs elsewhere in my...'creative pursuits'

For example, whenever I roleplay (as in internet roleplay, not kinky bedroom sex roleplay) as certain character's for a prolonged period of time, I tend to bring across their personality traits into real life, I talk slightly more like I imagine they'd talk, adopt the mannerisms I write for them, adjust my language to suit their background and upbringing.

So, what I want to know is...As an actress and writer, is it a good thing that I find it so easy to adopt my character's mannerisms and such? I mean it doesn't effect me greatly, and when I realise I'm doing it I can snap back to myself straight away, but is it natural to do so?

A Brief Introduction

Hi there everyone! My name is Alice, and I'm a fifteen year old aspiring writer and actress from merry old England. I suppose I should be used to introducing myself by now, with the sheer amount of online accounts that I have scattered about the internet, but every introduction I write seems to be as mundane as the last. I used to think that I was simply bad at introducing myself to others, it's not something that I tend to get much practise at after all, however, over the past few months, I've realised something. I'm simply a mundane, average person. Some people may not want to know about the high flying achievements of the rich kids and celebrities, sometimes people want to know about real people. If that's the case, then you've come to the right place.

So, on with the introductions. As aforementioned, I'm an aspiring writer and actress. Of course, I would choose some of the most difficult career paths to get into, wouldn't I? I mean, writing fair enough, this is writing what I'm doing right now, but if I'm completely honest with you, this isn't my favourite kind of writing. What I do enjoy is creative writing, devising story lines and characters, twisting popular culture and forcing it to look at it's own reflection to show what it really is. The thing is, with my creative writing, it has to have a message that can be carried on into real life. Considering how much I enjoy the supernatural (vampires in particular), it could be seen as quite a challenge, but I enjoy challenging myself. How would an experience shape a person? How would they act because of that? Every character should be complex, and I say that every character should relate back to real life somehow. For example, one of my characters is adopted into a family after watching her mother die in front of her eyes in a brutal murder. Not exactly relatable, is it? But take the psychological aspects, the loss of a loved one, the mistrust of a new family, the feeling of not quite fitting in. Now, doesn't that seem a little more relatable?

Acting on the other hand has been a passion of mine for a number of years. If there's one thing I love more than writing, it's acting. I see it as a channel just as much as writing is. You can pour emotions into a character, anger, fear, hate, love, you can show the world your interpretation of them. But more importantly for me is the simple thrill of being up on the stage, being watched with eager eyes, telling a story through not only your language, your words alone. The performance that really got me hooked was David Tennant's interpretation of Hamlet. Probably one of the most powerfully displayed characters by one of the greatest actors of our time. I admit that I get emotional over a lot of performances, but considering that Hamlet was performed using Shakespearian English, and I still understood everything perfectly and shed tears over a lot of the performance, it really speaks volumes about the man. Because of that, I wanted to be a stage actress. There's a connection that's harder to convey between you and your audience when there's a panel of glass between you.

I said that this was going to be a 'Brief' introduction, and I haven't even gotten onto who I am as a person, what I look like, who my family are, or anything. Ah well, I suppose that will have to wait until another entry.