Workshop (11) - Character Development

This lesson was spent as a character workshop. James spent the lesson working on his songs and giving the rest of us feedback. Ollie and Lewis worked on Page 59 - when Judge Turpin tells Beadle that he intends to marry his ward, Johanna. Rob and I worked on Page 18 and 19 - where Mrs Lovett tells Sweeney about his wife, daughter and razors. We all spent some time just to work on our short scenes, before performing them to each other and doing forum theatre on them.

Lewis & Ollie:   Initially, when they performed this scene, it was okay but very naturalistic. For the second time they performed it, we asked them to be very over-the-top, almost like caricatures. We asked them what they thought their characters were like and who they were. This did change how they performed slightly - there was more energy within the piece, but then we asked them to change where they lead from. Ollie decided he wanted to use a cane, which automatically lowered his stance, and made him lead from the nose and hands. The use of the cane emphasised how Beadle is someone who thinks he is upper class, but he really isn't. It also made his character seem more perverted and creepy, especially how Ollie laid his hands on the cane. Lewis decided he would lead from his chest to show that he is very upper class. He also moved about with his head held high to portray how he thinks he is so much better than everyone else. We also suggested to Lewis that he doesn't really look at people when he speaks to them, as his character is so confident and dismissive that he doesn't feel the need to look at people when he speaks or they speak. When they performed this scene again, it was so much better and really funny.

Rob & I:   Initially when we performed this scene it was a little bit bland as we hadn't established our characters or our character relationship. We did understand the meaning of our lines, and our performance might have been okay for screen, but as it is live theatre, our characters needed to be a lot bigger. As everyone knows I am a big musical theatre fan, they suggested I approached this role as if it were Madame Thénardier from Les Misérables - this helped me get the bitterness and more butch side - as I approached her too nicely to begin with. To improve on our relationship we had to think about how we really feel about each other - Sweeney uses Mrs L to get information and help he needs to get revenge on Turpin, whilst Mrs L is completely obsessed with Sweeney and just wants him. I had to play up to this by basically "fan-girling" over him. We workshopped the way I said the line "so it is you Benjamin Barker". At first I said it as if I knew all along but with an element of awe underneath. I tried it again but as if I was really excited as if I had just found out that it definitely is him - this had more energy behind it, but didn't really make sense, as she knew from the beginning that it was him. I am keeping the third way I said the line - I say it as if I am excited that the information that he has said has confirmed that it is him, but generally just more obsessive (by taking my time when saying his name).

Mrs Lovett:   As well as showing her obsession with Sweeney, I also shall present Mrs Lovett as being unpredictable, a bit mad and quite dangerous. We discussed her craziness - Sweeney has understandable reasons for him wanting revenge, whereas Mrs Lovett is completely crazy, as she is the person that comes up with the idea of putting people in pies. We want the audience to feel quite uncomfortable with her and feel like they never know what she is going to do next. Therefore, I shall really be working on varying and contrasting my dynamics in terms of both dialogue and movement - some lines I shall say quite soft and slowly, but the next line will be quite sudden and fast. I shall play about with this during scene workshopping to establish how I shall do this. At some point in the near future, I shall look up different people who have played Mrs Lovett in the past, and how they played her. I shall see what I like and what I don't like, and use inspiration from across the different women who have played her, to create my own version of Mrs Lovett.