Thursday, July 19, 2007

Creating Original Characters in a Solo Show

A Woman's Work.........(performed Feb. 2000)

I did nine performances of an original monologue show that I worked on with two other Santa Fe woman. The inspration behind the show was from a Studs Terkel song about working. The concept of the show was that we would each write three , 10 minute monolgues exploring female characters at work and their personal stories.

All three of the charcters were based on my personal life experience but I put them into the context of different voices. The first character that I created was based on Barbie (the doll) She was giving a speech at the annual "Barbie Convention" being her ususal "perfect" self when she starts to have a bit of a nervous breakdown onstage. She gets carried away and speaks of her longtime lust for G. I Joe and what it's like to be put into an arranged marriage with that "unic", Ken. She speaks about what it'slike to smell food, but only to be allowed to snack on celery sticks and have to manage about 30 different "careers" and the "Malibu beach house" all the time with an insipid smile plastered on her face. She speaks about the emptiness of never aging and getting "laugh lines' from really never having lived.

When I created this piece, I found that I was able to publicaly present some of my own political views in a clever and humerous way. It would have been "preachy" if I had given a speech about these topics, but as I incorperated them into an original character and showed the juxtaposition about how she was forced to live as an "image" rather than from a place of authenticity, these views were received in an open and positive way by the audience.

When I teach solo performance classes now, if someone is attached to "making a point", I encourage them to do it through a character. In my experience, when we're speaking on stage as ourselves, it only works if we stick to our own experience. In other words, our own stories from our lives and the insights that arise from our experience. I challenge my students to cut all opinions, judgements (good or bad) and metaphors out of their own story. Onstage, opinions and judgements will distance the audience from you. It takes the audience out of their own experince and into their intellects. Does this mean that you as a performer don't have opinions or judgements or a point of view? No. All strong artists do have a point of view. Your point of view comes across by what stories from your life you choose to share, the tone, your body movements, energy and presence. But, for me nothing is worse than going to a one person show where somebody starts to preach at me. Even if I agree with them!

However, the one way I've found to get around this is through creating original characters. You can take a point of view and show it through a character. For example, rather than saying "war is bad", create a character of a veteran whose child has died from birth defects related to his exposure to depleted uranium. Have this charcter tell his story.This will make your point much more powerfully and effectively than saying "war is bad".

Instead of saying "I hate the values of Hollywood and everybody's shallow there", I created a second character based on someone I knew who was an L.A.party planner. I had her entire monologue on the phone calling various people for an event she was planning. I didn't talk about narcissism being unpleasent to people; rather I portryed how her curt and bitchy with every person she spoke to. I also added a surprising vulnerability to her last phone call which was with her dad who didn't (and obviously hadn't ver)had time for her. Instead of preaching about how people can become mean and self centered by lack of parental involvement, I painted that picteuer, through Staci's(the chahrcters) interactions.

To sum my point up, if you are working on a solo show
a) if you are working in a storytelling format, stick to your story. Eliminate rants, and statements of judgement or opinion.

b) create original characters based on people you know or have interviewed. They can be and say anything that you want them to as long as they feel true to themselves.

c) To begin to create original charcters, begin with people who have strong personalities who you know well. In my female students, I notice that their mothers and grandmothers are endless goldmines in terms of material. That is because these people literally "live inside" us. When you are developing original characters for the first time it is good to work initially with what we know (same with beginning writing- no coincidence)

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