Initial Response
Upon first reading ‘Our Town’ I was very intrigued by Thornton Wilders take on life, death and grief. As we received the play before we got our casting, I could go into it unbiased and gain an idea of who I’d be interested in playing.
During initial research, I discovered that Thornton Wilder wrote the play in 1938 and set it in 1901-1913. This was interesting because even across centuries and decades, people still have the same age-old question of what happens after death and what it truly means to be alive. Knowing that Wilder wanted to shed light on the value of life and it’s mundane moments, this helped me decide what I personally wanted to bring to the piece and what themes I wanted to portray the most; which ended up being regret and resentment.
I watched two versions of the play on YouTube (see figure 1A+B) to see how different companies interpreted the piece and this gave me ideas on how different characters could be played.
As a class, we did a read through of the play and for each act, we wrote down important events that happened in the world of the play (see figure 1C)
We also did research on important events that were happening while Wilder was writing the play and when the play was set and made notes on this (see figure 1D) this helped me further understand the historical and political world of the play and how this would impact Mrs Gibbs, especially as a woman.
Figure 1C
Figure 1D
Casting
For our casting, we didn’t do standard auditions. Instead, we told Beth which characters we’d most like to play (see figure 2) and then we had 1-1 interviews with her where she asked us questions about what makes us a good scene partner, our process and who we are as artists/ what made us want to be artists. I was quite nervous for this initially as I am just used to auditioning with extracts/monologues but Beth made sure that we all felt comfortable and that the interviews felt more like a general catch up chat to see who we are as performers. I mentioned that a big reason I wanted to become an actor is because I don’t see alot of people that look like me in the media as its harder for people of colour, especially women, to be seen and represented correctly and I wanted to prove that I don’t always have to work twice as hard to get half of what other, more privileged people get. My chat with Beth went very well and it was refreshing to talk with her about the downsides of the creative industry. My feedback from our interview was that I seemed very mature and she would be happy with me playing any role and ultimately, I was cast as Mrs Gibbs in Act 2.
Figure 2
Character Work
As me, Ella and Izzy were all playing the same character, we worked together to create joint movements for Mrs Gibbs (see figure 3A) and to find an overall throughline of her emotion throughout the piece. We ultimately decided that what drives her is resentment, especially regarding her relationship with Frank. We also worked on finding memories for her to think back to in scenes, one of them being the last time she remembered George truly needing her when he hurt himself playing in the garden. This was significant because as a woman, her only job is caring for her children and husband but as George is getting married, she no longer needs to do this which leaves her feeling slightly useless.
We were also set a task to write down words that reminded us of Mrs Gibbs and narrow it down to 4 main ones. (see figure 3B) It helped to repeat these words to get into character while preparing for different scenes.
I also used Uta Hagens 9 questions to help me expand on Mrs Gibbs world and understand her further. (see figure 3C). Through these methods, I found that Mrs Gibbs was a woman who constantly gave and got nothing back and this pressure slowly builds throughout act 1 to fuel my anger towards Frank (Oscar) in our scene in act 2.
Figure 3A
Figure 3B
Figure 3C
My process
Before this project, I had never felt like I had properly applied my process to the characters I was playing but this time I feel it worked very effectively. I started out with all the things that the play explicitly told me about Mrs Gibbs and then worked on the things I could imply. The work I did with Izzy and Ella also aided my process because we could figure key things out together even though ultimately, all our versions of her were different. Figuring out different emotions she was feeling during the scene and then finding times in my life where I had felt the same emotion helped me massively. Using physicality and figuring out how my body physically reacted to different emotions and scenarios was useful because I knew what I needed to replicate in the rehearsal room.
Before each run-through, I would listen to the spotify playlist I curated with all the songs that remind me of her and Franks situation (see figure 4). I always find music to be a great gateway into my emotions and really helps me fully immerse myself in the characters world. The song ‘labour’ by Paris Paloma was the first song I added to the playlist as I thought it fully summed up Mrs Gibbs life and the frustration she feels having to give her all to her husband constantly just so he doesnt have to lift a finger. The emotional weight she carries as a woman is perfectly explained in this song and I would listen to this and pace around the room, generating energy to drive myself into the scene further.
I also made the decision to not do any form of physical warmup before runthroughs. I made this decision because I decided that Mrs Gibbs had alot of built up tension in her body from being up on her feet all day chopping wood, doing dishes, laundry etc and I felt that by not doing a physical warm up, I was able to tune into her physical tension alot more.
One thing I did learn through fully applying my process was to not overanalyse each line so I wouldn’t have a predisposed way of delivering it. I’ve found that in the past I would find a way that works for me and just stick to it and while this is affective sometimes, it’s much more useful to keep trying out different ways to deliver, so that when it comes to the actual performance, I am genuinely reacting to what’s being said to me rather than planning it.
Figure 4
Challenges & Breakthrough moments
A big challenge for me was my scene with Oscar/Ed where I had to draw on alot of emotion in order to portray the scene authentically. This was my first and only scene in the piece and therefore I felt alot of pressure to do it ‘correctly’. The scenes intensity built very quickly and this meant I had to do alot of work offstage and work with Stanislavskis unbroken line of action in order to establish where all my rage was building from (see figure 5A). In our earlier rehearsals, I was shouting at him and generally doing all the ‘right’ things but I didnt actually feel as though I was in the scene which is something I wanted to overcome. Me, Beth, Ella and Izzy sat down and discussed Mrs and Doc Gibbs relationship and established what it is exactly that makes her break this day. We went over some action words that we attributed to her (see figure 5B) and this helped us decide what it is that drives her everyday life and relationships. We then discussed what it meant to be a woman and more specifically a wife during this time period. If you are someone’s wife, that is your only job and that is all that defines you. Mrs Gibbs is a hopeless romantic and wanted Frank to take her to Paris and to stand and stare at the moon with her and that is how she expresses her love (and also why her choir and gossip time with Mrs Webb is so important) whereas Doc Gibbs shows his love through doing things like making sure George chops the wood for her. Mrs Gibbs hasn’t felt truly listened to their whole marriage and the one time she genuinely needs him to sit her down and say ‘how can I help you?’ he doesn’t. Instead he gives a selfish account of his wedding day in an attempt to calm her down. After this conversation, I made a list of all the things Frank does that annoys Mrs Gibbs (see figure 5C) and I grasped the concept of how frustrating and consuming this marriage is for her. Before a run-through, I’d read this list and pace the room, generating all my and frustration to release on Frank. I then felt much more present in the scene and felt like I held way more power. I found myself playing the scene much more authentically, truly listening to what Oscar was saying and letting it affect me.
Figure 5A
Figure 5B
Figure 5C
Feedback
Once I fully grasped the concept of what was happening in the scene, I felt much more present within the play and found I was receiving less notes after our run-throughs. Beth would do check-ins at the end of most lessons to give us a chance to go up and speak to her 1-1. She mentioned that I needed to trust myself more and stop trying to find the ‘right’ way to play the scene because there was no right way. She said I had really good instincts with how to depict different things and I should trust that more. This was very encouraging and the final push I needed to truly feel like Mrs Gibbs.
Voice/Accent
Initially, I was quite nervous to do a New Hampshire accent as I knew it was similar to a New York accent, and that was the accent I was least comfortable doing. We were told that the accent was a cross between General American and New York/ a toned down New York accent. We appointed Lydia as our accent coach as she was the one who picked it up best. It was helpful to go to her and get advice on how to say certain words. I ended up being much better at it then i had initially thought and as rehearsals progressed, i found myself getting better at the accent. I found that fun things like speaking in American accents on our lunch breaks helped because it meant when we got back in the room, it felt much more natural for us. The movie ‘It’s a wonderful life’ was recommended to us many times by Beth, firstly because a lot of the themes in that film aligned with the themes in Our Town and secondly, because the accents were similar to the accent we were trying to achieve. Watching other renditions of the play also helped with accent.
We had Jess come in for an hour and we performed a scene for her and she gave us helpful feedback. She said generally my accent was very good but it was small things like overpronouncing the ‘r’ in George and using light Ls in ‘Emily’ instead of dark ones. These were easy fixes and helped me perfect my accent.
In terms of voice, I had struggled in Jo’s classes with trailing off at the end of my sentences. This was something I was cautious of going into rehearsals and I made sure to keep an eye on this throughout. As mabgate is not the best performance space in terms of sound, it meant I had to deliver every part of my line loudly without actually shouting. Although I struggled with this at first, going back to excercises we did in voice lessons and having someone off stage monitor my sound made sure I didn’t repeat these mistakes.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, I am very proud of myself for what I achieved over the 5 weeks. This was my first time properly applying my process to a character and although I found it so challenging and frustrating at times, I had to keep reminding myself to trust myself and trust in my intuition (like Beth told me). It felt satisfying to see all the things i had learnt in our skills block come together and be able to apply everything to this one character. Our Town was such a joy to work on with Beth and taught me alot about myself as an actor and best of all, reminded me of the exact reasons I love acting. I hope to take my discoveries forward with me to other projects in the future.
