Our Town – directed by Beth Knight
Initial Response
Prior to rehearsals, I read the entirety of the play twice in order to gain a good understanding of the events and characters. My first impression of Our Town was that it’s a play where not a lot happens. Throughout my first read I found myself constantly waiting for the big moment of action/conflict and it never came. Despite this, I saw it as an opportunity to experiment and fill the stillness with lively characters. I thought it was a good play for us to do in this project as it isn’t hard to understand, doesn’t have overwhelmingly heavy themes and gives us a lot of creative freedom and chance to collaborate with the director.
Casting
When it came to casting, I was surprised when told we wouldn’t be auditioning. The director wanted to have a private talk with each of us to get a gasp on our personalities and how we are as performers. Although it was less nerve wracking than auditioning, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed as I wanted the chance to test my audition skills and to be assured that I deserved the role I was given. I realised I’d be happy with any role as I wasn’t initially drawn to any of the characters. I thought it would be good for my development to leave it up to the director as it would allow me to practice versatility and perhaps be pushed to play a role I wouldn’t normally.
I was pleased when I was cast as Simon Stimson, the town’s choir leader who has a life long alcohol addiction. There is an extreme duality to him that I was very excited to experiment with. However, I had always played comedy characters before, never really pushing myself to take on such an intense role like Simon. I felt a lot of responsibility to portray him truthfully and respectfully as I know the issues that he represents effect a lot of people. I was also aware that Simon and his journey throughout the play is still very relevant today, so I was given a great opportunity to connect with the audience.
Research
Group Research
In our first week of rehearsal we focused a lot on researching the play. We all took different sections of research and collectively we created a timeline full of the information we needed. In doing this, the research process became more manageable and less overwhelming. My contribute to the timeline was adding in crucial moments of the play but. I really enjoyed collaborating with everyone on the research and it was so interesting to find links between historical figures/moments and topics and characters in the play.
Individual Research
I watched a recording of the 2003 Broadway production of ‘Our Town’ in order for me to assess other actor’s portrayals of the story, especially Stephen Spinella’s interpretation of Simon. It was interesting to see and I definitely found out more information about Simon through watching a previous production but it was important to me that I was able to experiment and create my own version of Simon. Beth also told me to watch “Brassed off”, as it has a character in it called ‘Danny’ played by Pete Postlewaite who was very similar to Simon Stimson. Though there are differences between the two, they both have a great passion for music and great comedic moments so Danny served as a great inspiration for my portrayal of Simon. I did deeper research into alcoholism and the religious groups that appear in the play and from all that and the information I had from the play already, I used my imagination to “fill in the blanks”. I wouldn’t take this much creative liberty with a characters backstory however as Simon is such a mysterious character I had the freedom to make the character my own.
Rehearsals
Physicality
A big priority for me was to fully embody Simon’s drunken state and show the development of his alcoholism as the play progresses. Something that really helped was experimenting with my weight placement. By imaging that my centre of gravity was sliding between my hips and my knees, I found my steps were heavier and sluggish and my foot placement was less controlled, which made me appear intoxicated. As well as that, I occasionally threw off my balance by shifting my weight over to the front/sides/back of my feet to resemble stumbling and tripping up. In act 1 I kept this movement to a minimum and then in act 2 I made it more obvious in order to show how his addiction worsens over the years that the play takes place.
I found using Laban was extremely helpful to tap into Simon’s emotional state and it was particularly useful for his speech in the final scene. I imagined Simon to be in a constant ‘wring’ state, both internally and externally. I discovered that Simon’s hands are a very fundamental part of his character (using them to conduct the choir, play the organ, etc) so they quickly became predominant in my physicality. As well as conducting the choir with my hands, I would knead my palms in a wringing motion, showing nervousness and anxiety throughout my act 1 scenes. This subtle gesture helped me unlock a lot of Simons physically and helped me stay in character over a prolonged period of time as it sustained the feeling of uneasy within me. In act 3, I didn’t think it was appropriate to continue the fidgeting movement and I wanted to contribute to the stillness of the graveyard so though i was physically motionless, internally I was recreating that same wringing feeling which managed to stir within me the anger and frustration Simon felt. Initially I was intimidated by intense, emotional scenes like Simon’s speech at the end of the play however from using Laban internally as well as externally I was able to safely access those emotions without it feeling forced.
Voice
During rehearsals I was contemplating how much I wanted my voice to be affected by the drunkenness of my character. I wanted to give a realistic portrayal however I didn’t want my vocal clarity and technique to be hindered as I knew that when people are intoxicated their speech can be slurred. Instead I decided to focus more on my accent work asI’m not the most confident when it comes to accents and I struggled slightly when it came to applying the New Hampshire accent to my lines. When Jess came in to give feedback on our accents, I was given a few words that I needed to improve the pronunciation of including: here, world, tenors, forget, Tuesday, art. I made sure to highlight these words in my script so during a read through I knew where they were. I could prepare myself and focus on getting the pronunciation accurate.
Director’s Notes
Assistant Director
I wanted to show the drunken state of Simon clearly and accurately. I was focusing on the physicality of it mostly but I wasn’t quite understanding the mentality and I knew it was just as important. Initially I was playing the scene one way (angry/enthusiastic/tired/ect) but Beth reminded me that excessive drinking typically comes with heightened emotions and dramatic mood swings. This helped me think about the internal journey that Simon experiences throughout the act 1 scene and and ask myself “what could be going on in his mind?”, “ what could be triggering him?” and “how strong are his emotions in this moment and how is it effecting him?”. I created a list of emotions that I could play through out the scene and I allocated one to every line to add variety. Immediately I started to unlock the pieces of the “drunk mindset” and was able to build upon that as rehearsals went on.
During this process I was given the role of assistant director and was responsible for the musical aspects of the performance. This was a challenge for me as even though I have experience in musical theatre, I’m not particularly knowledgeable in teaching or arranging music. After discussion with the director, I mapped out where I envisioned singing/music could take place and knowing I wasn’t confident in teaching the song, I found piano tracks online which I used to help me teach the different harmony parts to each group. Everyone worked together when learning their parts and I brought them all together once they were confident in their own part. We sang ‘Blessed be the tie that binds’ at multiple points throughout the play so I wanted to add a bit of style onto each section to mirror where we were in the story. I’m very pleased I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in this respect as I enjoyed taking a creative role within the rehearsal process and it is something I’m now interested in for the future.
A video from our choir rehearsal:
A clip from act 1:
Reflection
Challenges and Breakthroughs
Unfortunately, I fell sick the last week of the project. It was extremely challenging as I had to alter my preparation work in order to do the best performance I could. In order to conserve energy, I stepped out of the group physical warmup to do a gentle individual one instead. I also did a more in depth vocal warmup as on the day of the performances my voice was basically gone. It was nerve wracking as I didn’t want my illness to affect my performance but i just has to trust that with rest and the correct preparation I would be able to perform to the best of my capability.
A breakthrough moment for me was when I realised I was making different choices and trying new things during a scene. It was a skill I was working on in the weeks before the project and I was excited to put it into practice. At first it was daunting but I soon found that when I had an idea, it was best to just give it a go in the moment. It would give my cast mates something fresh to respond to and would often lead to us discovering a lot of great moments. I’m really happy that I was able to put this skill into practice and prove to myself I am able to follow my impulses.
Reflection of Project
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I am proud of all the progress I have made. This being my first time performing in a full play, I now realise how much research and detail you can embed within a story and it was fascinating watching Beth, our director work. She has definitely inspired me to look into a future in directing. This was a big opportunity for me to test how useful my acting process is and I have discovered that Laban really helps me, not only emotionally but physically step into a character so I will definitely keep that in my tool belt. However, I now know that despite having a solid acting process, you also need to be able to adapt it. Things can easily not go the way you planned and you need to be able to protect your body/voice and still give a strong performance. My goal for the next performance is to push myself out of my comfort zone again and have the confidence to try another vulnerable, emotional character. I was quite nervous this time however now I have the experience it isn’t as daunting as I once thought and would like to stretch my versatility. This project has really taught me what it is to be a cast member and what it takes to work together to create something really powerful.
