Rehearsal Portfolio: The Moors – Agatha

Initial response to the play:

For my first readthrough of the play, I read it aloud with a friend with absolutely no prior knowledge. This method allowed me to have a ‘first meeting’ with the characters in a playful, open minded way. It also gave me an audience experience of the plot and a better guage of the tension throughout my first reaction. Then I could anaylse the themes better upon my second read. 

Jen Silverman has a huge focus on women and familial relationships in their work. They exhibit these complexities through an ironic use of archetypal systems and the breaking of them. The moors is written as if a stereotypical gothic romance novel such as Jane Eyre, only the male lead is a woman, the elder ‘spinster’ sister of the house, Agatha. She has all the hallmarks of a Mr Rochester or a Mr Darcy- cold and brooding yet desirable.

Only far more dangerous, subverting expectations as a perpetrator, lying and murdering. It feels Silverman questions the audience sympathy towards this kind of character. I found the juxtaposition between Agatha’s masculinity/femininity inciting, her relentless fight for power in a world where she is not handed it demonizes her. 

In each scene it feels to me that Agatha is breaking out of a chrysalis, shedding social expectation to become a completely authentic savage creature of the moors. I found I could relate to this battle in the expectations placed upon women in 2025.

Casting:

I was conflicted upon receiving my casting as Agatha in scene 4. I was thrilled to tackle the development of Emilie and Agatha’s relationship as it has riveting tension and earth shattering reveals from my character. Despite this, I was apprehensive expecting a real challenge due to the large space that Agatha takes up. I usually struggle to find characters with such authority as it is out of my comfort zone, I find myself battling with the confidence for the last 10% of commitment and relinquishing control as the actor. Working on this ability, trusting myself to make bolder choices has been a huge part of my learning throughout the project. 

Research and analysis:

1840s research:

Researching the historical and social context of 1840s Yorkshire was pivotal for understanding the world of the play. The play is described by the playwright as vague ‘1840s…ish’ so it was important to get a wide breadth of background knowledge to draw upon as a collective. The class divided the most crucial topics and presented them at the end of week one (1a). It was key for me to get to grips with gender roles of the time in order to find the line that Agatha walks between masculine and feminine. Researching societal expectations also gave me a grounded understanding into the different motivations of characters, making me have a basis for when Agatha would conform or not. 

Alongside this I did my own research into the settings in the play (1b). I have acknowledged in the past that I learn better visually so finding images/paintings of examples helped me begin world building. Learning what kind of wood the furniture could be, what sort of textures were commonly in rooms helped me to create a sensory rich picture of my characters surroundings.

Trip to the moors:

To fully comprehend the nature of the setting, I went on a research trip to Guiseley moors. I felt it was necessary to experience the chill and isolation of the moors face to face in order to know Agatha’s isolation/cold nature (1c). Whilst there I spent time picturing what she might have done at different points in her life. I wanted to find how she felt about the moors, considering how interconnected she is to them. 

We also visited the church where the Bronte sister’s parents got married (1d). Exploring this legacy and looking at the plaques of names detailing who was vicar there at the time gave me an emotional tie to draw upon. It sparked my imagination and gave me a deeper historical connection to the place.

Posture:

Significantly, I looked into the posture of the era so I had a starting point for Agatha’s physicality. Good posture was seen as a symbol of discipline and self control and women’s clothing/corsetting aided in this. Like with Mike Alfred’s techniques, having as much information as possible gave me clear bounds within the given circumstances to play with different choices. 

Process:

Uniting the text:

In the first week of rehearsals we united the entire text. It was a long process but I found Sean’s method of uniting interesting. He focused on the energy of the room as a whole, not on changes in objectives but the ‘temperature change’ in a room. This instinctive way of looking at it was illuminating in discovering Agatha’s approach with her dictatorship over the house or other characters’ emotions. I also noted all the information given about Agatha going through to create a bank of knowledge alongside the plays intentions (2a). I wanted to find her many dimensions throughout the whole play, not just the one scene I was cast in so I could begin to create a well rounded, realistic character.  After doing this I then fleshed out the details of her life surrounding the play (2b). 

Character development:

In building my take on Agatha in scene 4 I started with Stanislavski’s ‘given circumstances’ (2c) in order to properly discern the situation and how Agatha was affected. I then created objectives and tactics to achieve this. I found that many of my objectives/motivations concerned my relationship with Emilie. Sean wanted me to focus on their dynamic and how that would drive or change Agatha’s usual behaviour, thereby affecting the other characters. As if lessening control on her emotions is starting a chain reaction with everyone in the room. This made the stakes of the scene higher, which was a note Sean had given previously, saying they weren’t high enough. 

As the timing of the play is confusing and not necessarily linear, I collated all the references to time in the play into a rough timeline (2d). This gave me a grounding in the different events that happen and how close they are in relation to one another. I could then make an ‘unbroken line of action’ to aid my character’s momentum at the start of the scene as it began with me already on stage. Knowing how long they had been there and where they had just come from helped inform my physicality in the chair, the nature with which I approached the conversation etc. 

Looking at the relationship dynamic between Agatha and Emilie was paramount in my preparation. When working with Sean, he asked me what I was really asking in each question to Emilie. In response to this I worked with Agatha’s internal monologue on every question in the scene to assemble what she was feeling behind them (2e). This added more depth to the tactics I used to achieve my objectives. Despite this, I do feel that I could’ve used more varied tactics throughout the scene as I could sometimes get stuck in trying methods too similiar to what wasn’t working. This would’ve created an even more active performance and I have this in the forefront of my mind going forward. 

The animal vs the child:

One of the things I found to be defining of Agatha was that she almost has two sides (2f). Sometimes she behaves like a child, tantruming and lashing out when she doesn’t attract Emilie’s attention; the other a cold calculated and dangerous animal, like a predator with something in its sights. I found Laban very useful when trying to portray this. I chose a different internal effort and an external effort for each side of her to show this. For what I called ‘the child’ side of her I chose ‘wring’ to capture impatience, like a whining sensation; externally ‘press’ and ‘punch’ as her way of lashing out. For ‘the animal’ I felt she was internally ‘glide’ and externally ‘glide’ as well as ‘slash’. The internal and external both aligned more for the latter as she is more herself and free when transformed into the savage creature that the moors have created in her.  I also found Laban extremely helpful in my vocal choices, applying the efforts I chose to corresponding lines. This gave a more instinctual approach to the way I delivered lines as I focused on the sensation and the intention, rather than the way the line is said.  Laban was a real triumph for me in this project and reflecting on this process, I intend to use it much earlier to move past blocks I find in my tendency to overthink a character’s physicality. 

An anchoring point in my characterisation of Agatha was her posture and her large kinosphere. After completing the research around women in society at the time I played with Agatha having a socially masked form of physicality and an unbound more masculine version that she ebbs into when the pretense is dropped in scene 4. As if she’s ‘the child’ playing the role of a stern lady of the house, then letting that mask slip off becoming ‘the animal’. At the start of scene 4 I was stiff and severe with an upright spine whilst sitting in the chair knitting. Because the victorians enforced posture, I didn’t want to break this until the transformation happened so I let her frustration flow through her hands in the way I was tensely knitting. I liked the effect the change of my posture and unfolding of Agatha’s disposition had on my scene partner Lottie. I found this sparked something more reactionary/ ‘desperate to prove’ in her choice of tactics creating smugness that Agatha felt toying with her. Imagining a big cat sprawled out lazily after a meal informed the confident lounging way I sat back on the sofa next to Emilie later in the scene.  Throughout scene 4 I led with my eyes and my nose in a watchful manner to embody her judgement of others and feel more oppressive in my movements when interacting with my scene partners. All of this helped me to create the dangerous aura Agatha perpetuates in an effective manageable way. 

Directors notes:

On starting work with Sean I was apprehensive as I wasn’t used to his less structured way of working. In time, I found this freeing as it gave me the space to passionately enact my own character process ready to work on the scene more efficiently in the short time span. Along the way I wrote down everything Sean said so I could reflect on his notes between rehearsals (3a). I found his notes for the other Agathas beneficial seeing if these were things I needed to implement in my scene. 

My biggest note centred around not offering enough energy in the scene. I struggled with allowing myself to let loose. I hit a bit of a wall when I couldn’t find the confidence due to being really sick during rehearsals but I found the way Sean was completely calm, truly believing I would get there very motivating. My breakthrough moment was when he described the play as a ‘dark comedy’ with Agatha as a ‘camp villain’ – I needed to just have fun with it, allowing my work offstage to support me. I discovered that going for a jog around the space (on top of group warmups every morning) before a run gave me physical momentum, loosening me up again to be more playful. This in turn helped cultivate the flirtatious tension within the scene. I’ve noticed I lean more towards underacting than overacting and this was something I reminded myself of driving me to energise further. 

Overview:

In conclusion, I had a really educational and gratifying time working on this project. Though I feel there was a further place I could’ve gone with the character due to illness and the short time we had to work on it, I’ve learnt that self criticism isn’t conducive to commitment. Subsequently I want to implore myself to bring more energy/play to the rehearsal room at the start of my process, detaching from fear- I’ve learnt that the more I give the director, the more the director will give me. It’s interesting to notice that I benefit from the physicality/movement greatly despite finding it harder to break into. I will try to employ physical techniques earlier on into my process as it helped me stop my overthinking and use instinct more readily. The project was invigorating as I was able to explore a character with such power and presence, something that I have found a real challenge before… I feel lucky to work in such a trusting cast coming away with a more solid process and deeper understanding of my acting.