Rehearsal: Characterisation / Backstory/ inspiration for my scene

In total I am participating in 6 of the pieces of love and information. I'm in ; Grass, Terminal , Star, Recluse,  Earthquake, and Savant. We are all in wedding video at the end. I really like the play, especially the challenging aspect of it being up to the actor and director to shoot the scene. Its got quite controversial especially Terminal - its quite a touchy subject because we have all lost someone to an illness; and to be honest I want to do patients justice by playing it with thought and as natural as possible. And with earthquake; one of the  earliest memories of a catastrophic disaster I remember is the 2011 tsunami/earthquake disaster in Japan. I remember being gobsmacked I was only young at the time. I was in a hotel getting ready to go to a wedding reception, and the contrast of how they must be feeling (sad and terrified) in a midst to the fun I was going to have was compelling in retrospect.



Grass

For grass, I see myself and my partner Phil as these gangster brothers, like the likes of The Krays and TV gangsters, the "Mitchell brothers" in EastEnders. They gamble, drink and smoke; they aren't exactly great role models, and get themselves mixed up in dodgy dealings wherever money is concerned. Their mate has been banged up to rights due to Phil's character grassing on him. My character is thinking its a stupid idea, more of the level headed brother. My wife walked out on me 3 years back, so she left me alongside my brother to look after them, the two twins that being. I seem to be pinning it all on him, that with the police being involved people will trace it back to us and do us for grassing on a mate; which could put them but primarily the twins in danger.

I want my character to be slightly un-hinged, that's why I want to have him have a fake cigarette, to symbolise his stress. I also want a set up somewhat like a bar behind, with glasses and cups to use the alcohol as a de-stress to. Something they both enjoy, is now something they rely on to get through messy situations like this one, that's why I think it will work well. But it will also be funny because we are brothers, but the way we dig at each other it's like were an old married couple.

- I have taken inspiration from the Mitchel brothers scene from EastEnders. Our scene isn't intense with the violence, but we are at          each-others throats in a subtle way to add more tension.

Terminal

In this scene, my character is quite young and have just been told I am terminally ill. It will just be me in the scene sitting on a chair, with Lucky reading the parts as the doctor off stage. My first approach was originally to be when I get told how long I have to live, I used a motif of looking at my hands to show that my world is now at my finger tips, I could sit back and die or I could get on with my life and live it to the full. However it didn't come across too well and never fit too well either. Having seen a clip from cold feet where a woman finds out she has a lump in her breast, it shows how scared and shocked she is. I like that approach because that one phrase can turn a persons world upside down I want a blue wash with lights; this evokes the loneliness how my character's world has pretty much fallen apart. If you have ever heard bad news, such as a death in the family or someone has turned ill, which could be fatal, then you can somewhat hear the silence as it hits home. I then get told that ten percent of people with the disease are still alive after 3 year years, this is then the spiralling moment where their world completely falls apart.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/1079083/Cold-Feet-Spoilers-Fay-Ripley-Jenny-Gifford-Cancer-Diagnosis-Pete-Gifford-ITV

Star

for this scene, I want to make it appear as a news broardcast gone wrong. Their will be a hint of humour at the start with a pre-going live prep, with the crew around me making a look smart enough to be on air (prodding at my hair, fixing my clothes). I'm going to have the BBC news start up theme in the background, and when it stops playing, for comedic effect, I'm going to push the extra (Mya)   under the table. I took inspiration from a blooper on BBC news where a woman was still brushing her hair, unaware she was on air live about to give the news for London. I want my character to come across conceited and pompous, that the sole purpose for the crew being there is to make him look good.

Recluse

I made a backstory to this scene that I'm living with my new girlfriend, trying to forget the awful past relationship of an ex lover; and because of the scarring of the last love he feels distant from the outside world cutting ties with it as him and his new flame try to move on. But because this relative of the last love has visited trying to get answers, it brings back sore memories of their past and he slowly breaks down, and confused , all his girlfriend can do is assure him it is ok. 

Earthquake

In Earthquake, I'm playing this teenage son of a single pregnant woman. Their relationship is  bumpy because she feels he is old enough to cope on his own and especially now she has a littlun on the way the baby will need her full time care, yet at these challenging years in his life he needs her most for emotional support but maybe less of the physical, but still needs his mum although he won't admit it. I feel  emotionally attached to  this disaster and he wants his mum's support but he feels she isn't giving it to him. He at this current time is putting up with teenage angst and he is letting his emotions run riot while letting it out over not necessarily a trivial matter but something you wouldn't think would affect him so much being in a different country and all. However my partner for the scene, Kadie, who is playing the mum, her character is, is that she wants to care and listen but she's trying to cope with the sudden break up of her marriage, now thinking of having to bring up the baby singlehandedly and doing household chores; yet she does really care about the disaster but she's more glad it happened to no one she knew and that problem which hasn't affected her physically is at the bottom of the pile of problems that she is having to put up with. 

Savant

Me and Michael for this scene are setting it in a police station. I've been wrongly accused and taken into questioning. A murder involving a chipped red mug happened in October 1998, but as I explain my whereabouts it is clear to the audience that I couldn't be involved if I had used the mug for two cups of tea that afternoon. At this point the police officer is in despair, he wants it so badly to have been me but it clearly wasn't. He has had a vendetta against me because I'm not a strange face amongst the prison, I've been arrested before for petty crimes like stealing and burglary, but never murder and neither did he commit it. I took inspiration from the classic sitcom porridge where he is in and out prison and winding up the officers I charge.

Wedding Video 

I have a minor cameo role in this scene. Me and diamond came up with the idea that we start with a freezeframe recreating a wedding photo → like this one. We will then precede with 4 main characters gathered round a tv set, the remaining actors in the group recreate many freezeframes and motifs for the wedding video. the costumes/ whole sort of idea and set up was inspired by the famous soap wedding of Charlene and Scott's wedding in Neighbours that gripped the nation. 

This is the scene that inspired me, The retro-ness of it all , and I get from the script that it would be a wedding from around that time as one of the lines says a bout the whacky dress sense and that "you wouldn't dream", of wearing that now. 

* Update - 22/05/19 *

We had to cut wedding video because it wasn't up to a standard of being performed