The Rimers of Eldritch- Lanford Wilson

I was very excited to get to work on an entire play, I really wanted to use this American project to try out some recent process techniques I had been using in my training and revisit old ones. Going into the process I had read the play twice, once completely blind to see the things that stuck out and what my thoughts/opinions were without influence and second time having read up on plot/play explanations (F1). I sensed themes of injustice, fragile masculinity, faith and judgement. I think the non- chronological order of the play really highlights the chaos events in this play cause for the town Eldritch, I felt the scenes not following on from each other meant the murder mystery element of the play was exemplified, the audience would start by thinking Skelly, who is negatively presented throughout, was the criminal of the court case when Robert was the real criminal. I think Lanford did this to highlight societies view on people who are outcasts which although it came out in 1966, is still relevant in today’s society as people who are different are still treated as unequal.

F1

Rehearsals

Starting the rehearsal process as an un-casted ensemble helped everyone begin on the same page, we created a manifesto (F2) as a group which I really liked as it set the tone for this whole process and felt like we were working professionally. We then wrote out the different words that sprung to mind when we read the play (F3), the most helpful part of this was linking the words together, it brought to life the major themes of the play but also helped me see our ensemble as the town of Eldritch not just a group of actors. Also, we did some research in class, we split into groups then presented to the class, I researched music (F4) as music for me has a big influence on my work and helps me understand characters/places better. We looked at music of the 1950s and 60s which ended up becoming something I used to get me into character, we found a relevant song called Missouri Waltz which was popular in Missouri, where the play is set. I added this song to my character playlist (F5)and used it before every run we did of the play as the tone of the song is very dismal and helped me feel negatively about the town Eva was living in.

F2 and F3

F4

F5

Audition

Next, the audition process which I was quite looking forward to as I knew it was a chance to show what bold choices I had in mind for the character of Eva. During the read through in class, I read for Lena and Maggie, Lena being a teenage girl and Maggie being an older woman who was a mother. I decided to audition for Eva as I felt like her emotional range in the play was something I really wanted to challenge myself with, I also thought about how I’ve been told many times my casting in the industry will be younger characters so with Eva being 14/the youngest person in the play I used this as my opportunity to audition as if I was out in the industry. To prepare for the audition I practiced the audition scene with my classmate going for the role of Robert, the character that Eva interacts with the most, actually having someone to work on the scene with really helped; it meant we were able to find new things within the scene that we wouldn’t have got from just reading it, I know having someone to practise audition scenes with might not always be possible in the industry but I know that whenever possible it will be part of my process. I decided to go for the higher energy and slightly comedic elements of Eva for the audition as I didn’t want to play the ending, Eva doesn’t know what’s going to happen to her so by making her a positive person it has a bigger effect on the audience. I was quite happy with how my audition went, I did my hair in a style I imagined Eva to wear, I find this helps me feel like the character without a costume, which I’ve found is good to use for auditions especially. I did a reflection on my audition (F6) which I looked back on after being cast, it was honestly helpful in getting rid of the initial imposter syndrome I have in the first rehearsal after being cast.

F6

Character developing

Once we’d been cast, we went through the play as a class, like a table read and united the entire play. Whilst doing this we noted down all the facts that were given whilst also writing down any questions that came up, this helped us solidify relationships and facts about the characters that we may not have realised at first. We also drew out a map of eldritch (F7) so that everyone knew what the town looked like and could therefore place where we were all coming from and going to in scenes. To develop this further at home we all came up with vision boards with pictures of what we imagined settings in Eldritch would look like, for example, I used pictures of forests with lots of trees(F8) to establish the woods where Eva and Robert would hang out and pictures of what shops would look like at the time(F9) to help understand where Robert might have worked or what types of environments the community might have.

I started off by making a document (F10) that is 50 adjectives about my character, 5 words that relate to me as the actor and the character and then 5 words that are completely opposite to me as the actor. This really helped me develop my character’s personality and influenced the actioning work I did on my script (F10A)as I wanted the adjectives I used to match up to how Eva interacts with people. I used scenes I’d watched elsewhere to help with Eva’s physicality towards Robert(F11)and I decided what Laban efforts I saw Eva as to help with movement, especially since she’s 14, I wanted her to be free and energetic. However, Eva is originally supposed to be physically disabled but due to myself as the actor not being disabled the decision to not honour this was made by me and director. One factor we did consider however was polio, which happened in the 50s-60s and could have been why Eva became disabled, I decided to use this by making Eva seem small and more fragile than everyone else in the town, my own height definitely benefitted me with this but I also tried to make her more childish as being ill might have meant she’d have missed a lot of school and she has no friends other than Robert so I decided her development might have been stunted. In terms of accent Eva’s younger than the other characters so her accent would have most likely been southern but with many hints of general American, I’m normally quite okay at figuring out accents but merging two was more difficult so I listened to both modern Missouri speakers and older ones to try and merge accents whilst also practising my accent class work in both southern and general American (F12+13). When I found out I would be playing Eva in act 2 I immediately knew that I would have to take part in the rape scene that happens between her and Robert. As an actor I’ve never been faced with something quite so extreme before and so I wanted to do it justice. To do this I did some intimacy and fight training.

F7

F8 AND F9

F10

F10A

F11

F12 and F13

Fight/Intimacy Training

In Act one we took influence from other plays for Skelly’s fight scene(F14and F15) and planned out the choreography like a sequence. When approaching the rape scene, Harry (the actor playing Robert’s character) and I had a talk with our director about what we thought Robert and Eva thought about each other, this helped establish the different way each character viewed their relationship. We started off by doing a full body check in and then created a physical check-in(like when doing the previous Skelly fight scenes) which we both knew meant we were both okay to do full intimacy, we then created a “button” which we would do in place of the intimacy in the case one of us wasn’t comfortable doing it that day. The nature of the scene was very high stakes, emotional and violent and so we made sure our check out made it clear that we were completely separate to the characters for this particular part of the play. Throughout our rehearsal process we made sure we were all completely sure on consent and we followed the “fries” (F16) rules of intimacy. Harry and I then did our full check ins everyday of rehearsal which meant we always felt safe with each other and knew what to do if the other didn’t feel comfortable.  A lot of my scenes demanded very high intensity parts and one thing I was worried about was being able to achieve this if I wasn’t playing my character throughout the whole of Act 1, I made sure to do a full character analysis on Eva as a whole not just for my section of the play, I took the Uta Hagen approach initially and completed her 9 questions(F17A), including the fourth side in my work(especially the Rime scene where Eva hears noises) but to go deeper I used these in depth character questions(F17B) and made note of them (F18) and I sat in on rehearsals of the actors playing Eva and Robert during Act 1 so I was present in the conversations of what they would feel during those scenes and what their objectives would be. I also did improvisation exercises in class like Katie Mitchell’s building the past exercises which helped me build the world of the play and what Eva would do in her free time (F18 and F19). This allowed me to access those negative emotions more easily when I had my first scene in Act 2. I personally do think I found a way to get into those scenes after just being sat on a chair as right before the scenes I would take a moment on my chair and think about what my character would enter this scene like almost as if I didn’t know what was going to play out in the scene, even though we all entered as actors physically I made sure my brain knew how to turn it on when needed, this came from finding how to do this in rehearsals though. I made a playlist of songs (Previous F5) from that time period and from my current life to help put me in the mindset of my character, I also started wearing the shoes I was going to wear as Eva to physically put myself into the characters shoes once I was in the rehearsal. I’d still say I wasn’t always happy with how I did the first court scene, sometimes I felt it wasn’t as intense as other times, so I worked on making my scream come from my chest which benefitted my voice and it connected emotionally to the scene more meaning it became more sustainable for multiple runs and therefore I could then carry that emotion through the scene.

F14

F15

F16

F17A

F17B

F18

Conclusion

I was happy with the work I produced for this project; I think I’d have benefitted from more one on one checkouts with people, scene partners gave me feedback that the emotional intensity of scenes was a lot and I think sometimes we were unsure whether as the actors the scene had affected us, when it hadn’t. Also, I’d have liked more time to work on the meshing of accents as that was something I could have developed even further. But I know I will definitely be taking the ensemble discussions whilst uniting into further projects because as a class all our ideas were heard and we got to discuss our initial thoughts which I find doesn’t always happen in rehearsal rooms.

Google Drive with all research done in class and rehearsal footage

The Rimers of Eldritch – Google Drive