Auditions (9) - A Doll's House

For this lesson we had to have two monologues: one we knew off by heart and one that we kind of knew. The monologue that I learned off by heart was the one from "A Doll's House" spoken by the character Nora. I chose this monologue as I had done a little bit of it before and I wanted to work on it more as I was considering using this monologue as one of my three that I have to do for this unit. The other monologue that I chose was the one from "Othello" spoken by the character Emilia. I thought this monologue would be a good choice as I wanted to do it last lesson, but we only had time for one. I had also done the first two lines from this monologue before, but I wanted to do the whole thing.

We were then told then we probably wouldn't have time to do both monologues this lesson as we were going to be going in to them in depth. I therefore decided that I would use the "Doll's House" monologue as I had taken the time to learn it and I really wanted to explore this monologue further. Also, the fact that I wouldn't be holding a sheet, meant that I could work on my movement more and had nothing to hide behind.

The first time I performed this monologue, I did it sitting down (as this is how I had practised it before). After this performance, I was told that I had good articulation, good eye contact and that I grabbed everyone's attention. I was also told that I portrayed the character as being measured and controlled really well, but this wasn't really appropriate for the character.

For my second attempt, I was asked to perform it again, but this time standing up. The purpose of this was so I wasn't restricted and could work on my movement. This was also symbolic as this is the first time that Nora stands up for herself and stands on her own two feet. I was also asked to "explode"! Instead of performing this monologue quite measured, I was told to try it in a completely broken state - my character has reached breaking point in this monologue and is so angered and distraught that she leaves her husband and children (which was not the done thing at this time). To add movement in to this monologue, I paced from side to side quickly, but stopping at various points to exaggerate a certain line. I varied my tone of voice throughout to show my character's unstable mental state. I spoke at a faster pace to show her need to get what she has to say across. This also made a big contrast to the sections that I slowed down to exaggerate.

Before I perform this monologue again (if I chose it), I shall annotate my monologue with the character's objectives and feelings for each line to give me a better understanding of how I should perform certain lines.