Rabbit Resource Pack - Frantic Assembly

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Chapter 3 Finding Characters CHARACTER INSIGHTS For the purposes of this guide the performers were asked to list at least three things that had informed their characterisation of the parts. These stimuli could come from the play itself or the outside world. They were to be anything that had informed their choices and inspired their understanding and playing of their characters. Hopefully they will be of interest to you! Sue Kyd Shoes! Getting into the real physicality of the character / The line in the play ‘I live in the real world where real women savour life’ (p.66) / The trophy wives and their startling conversations at her gym in Hampstead David Sibley Rythm and language - thinking of the playing of it like playing in a band / His own Father Daughter relationship - specifically the troublesome teens Sam Crane Avoiding Ali G / Attending a Narcotics Anonymous meeting to try to get the understanding of the concept of ‘an excuse’ / His Hip Hop collection / Bruce Lee Helen Heaslip Swimming Pool (the film) - Ms Dynamite (The album) - High heels and Trustafarian girls with highlights on the Kings Road, Chelsea / Placebo Karl Sullivan Michael Caine / Lewis Collins mixed with the magic qualities of Michael Clark Duncan from The Green Mile! / Cross between mates ‘London bloke Steve’ and ‘big hearted John’ / A postman who was having his lunch in Pellicci’s cafe in Bethnal Green / The idea of Driver being possibly ex-army Outdated mottos / timeless pearls of wisdom that cropped up during rehearsals... Before going on stage think, ‘I am young, I am beautiful and I have a secret!’ Sue Kyd ‘It is all looks, thoughts and glances’ Sue Kyd ‘If in doubt always hit the verb’ David Sibley WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? a) Paul Paul is set out in the original version as ‘The voice of Australia.’ He is a radio talk show host whose opinions are known and feared throughout the country. He is a larger than life figure whose no nonsense outlook would create as many enemies as it would admirers. It was interesting to us that his medium was radio where one could create an impression without having to impose a physical presence. Maybe his physicality would suggest a fragility a million miles away from his almost ogre like reputation. Not quite as extreme as a Montgomery Burns figure but the way he could hide in his radio studio and control and crush the opinions of callers and create this terrifying impression of himself through the airwaves did suggest a Wizard of Oz type character (which in itself is quite ironic, considering he is the voice of Australia!) We saw him as a powerful media person but thought that there might not be a direct British radio equivalent. He may air his outspoken views on political programs like Newsnight or he may be slightly more downmarket and spout his controversial opinions from a day time television program. A fiery Kilroy figure perhaps. He may actually end up being a mix of different media personalities. Paul is a self-made monster yet he is also a man who looks at himself and asks how all this happened. His estrangement from his daughter is probably a matter of great confusion to a man who has done his best to provide everything for her. The tragedy is that he has no words to make amends. He can only spout cynicism and vitriol. It is only when it is too late that he can communicate his love for his daughter and any regret for their alienation when they sit together in total silence. This is symptomatic of the generational clash. They appear to speak different languages sharing only the bitter verbal jousting they automatically fall into but what they really share is much more fundamental and natural. This is a father and a daughter come so far away from each other, only to be united in loss. b) Madeline Madeline is a young woman rebelling against her father, against the priorities of the world he represents. She is also a girl desperate for the attentions of her father, secure in the material comforts he provides. She demonstrates from a position of privilege and this ironic position causes her great distress. The radical rich kid will never be taken seriously so she feels she has to prove herself. She will go to any length to show her Father that his world is not the Real World but she cannot find a real world of her own. The anarchist with a trust fund. The bold artist screaming obscenities at the crowd and the little girl struggling with anxiety attacks. The responsible daughter addressing generational communication in a clear and ordered way and the girl who runs off for a fix the moment she becomes upset. She is constantly between different notions of the Real World. This is her dilemma. She will never fully belong in either world despite her efforts. Not until the real world finds her, as it finds Paul, as it finds Driver. The real world is life then death. 14
c) Spin Spin is an opportunist. We hear about his reliance on his ‘excuse’ ie his parents’ death. He takes this event and lets it open doors for him, lets it protect him. It is the same for his drugs. They are something to run to when things get scary or a little too real. Ultimately Spin is a boy. Losing his parents has not propelled him into maturity. It has frozen him forever as the boy who lost his parents. Kate invites him to ‘step up to bat... to inherit a little bit of manliness’ but Spin will never fill Paul’s shoes and he is left a hollow figure at the end. This is of course our choice of how to interpret the ending. The script might actually suggest something a bit more successful from Spin but we felt that he was a dreamer who had too much to gain from the status quo to ever really be able to embrace ambition and work. Although young we felt that Spin would be the type of person who would probably spend their life on or around a University campus while no one ever really knew what he studied (if he did at all). He would be seen as a radical in the impressionable eyes of guilt ridden upper middle class students and their wide eyed adoration would bring him kudos. His is the alternative lifestyle, ironically, the touch of reality these students seek to show their parents and convince themselves they are living in the real world. He validates their angst and they offer him immediate status. d) Kate ‘This woman is cancer.’ - This was Brendan’s comment during a discussion concerning the character of Kate. Our initial feelings about Kate was that she was a deliciously dark and comic monster. She has some of the most fantastic lines in the play yet she frequently appears to be at least one step behind the action. Underneath all of this she is a scheming opportunist, always on the lookout for her own interests. While this didn’t necessarily contradict Brendan’s assessment we were also interested in a slightly more sympathetic side to her (only marginally more sympathetic, though!). We wanted to bring out some of the history that exists between her and Paul, to suggest a time filled with life rather just than a present overlooked by death. We also wanted to bring out the fact that Madeline was only ever interested in her father’s attention and that a lifetime of this has taken its toll. There may be a genuine (and justified?) bitterness that provokes her sadistic treatment of Madeline. e) Driver We felt that somehow Driver represented the natural order of things or that he was nature shackled. He is held back by the definition placed on him and defined purely by the uniform that he wears. He remains nameless up until the end of the play. We only find out that he is also called Paul once all order crumbles. The idea of order and status is very important. For it to survive Driver must accept Paul’s seniority and his own subservient role, even when that leads to disaster. But what we always wanted to feel from Driver was that there was always a possibility of another order imposing itself. If he were to break from his shackles he could crush the other occupants, impose himself as Alpha male. It is his humanity and composure that stops him from imposing this order and the others lack of humanity and self obsession that stops them seeing this. Of all the characters, Driver exists closest to the Real World, or at least has the potential to. What stops him, even in his greatest moment of need, are Paul’s demands and the need of the modern world to impose its own order and hold back chaos. But Driver needs chaos, he needs revolution if he is to see his son alive again. His inability to act and follow this through is his greatest tragedy. A PHYSICAL COMPANY - APPROACHES TO PHYSICAL SCENES All of the cast were extremely open to the physical aspects of the work. This openness allowed us to work quickly and efficiently and meant that the performers constantly offered inspiration. Working with Karl Sullivan (whose experience is primarily dance) was also a massive bonus, whether it was just bouncing ideas off him or collaborating with him to create material. In a way he often acted as a translator of the ideas. When it came to starting with the cast we talked about the differences and similarities between movement and acting. What came up was that both are a search for truth. Both need truth. It became clear that where bad acting often involves going out of your way to show an audience that you are going through some kind of emotion rather than just doing it, bad dancing also involved that same very deliberate transference of meaning and emotion to the audience. Better to just do it and find the truth in it that way rather than emote your socks off in an attempt to tell the audience something. Give your audience some credit. They can sniff out truth and lies in an instant. What follows are some of the approaches to the physical elements to the show. 15 An Evening Condensed When we are creating new work we try to avoid the situation where there exists a verbal scene on stage which is then followed by a physical scene that says exactly the same thing. Similarly we do not want a physical language during a verbal scene to merely back up the words. What we are interested in achieving is the creation of a physical subtext that might tell a different story from the words. Hopefully the physicality will open out our understanding of the text. To illustrate this we set the company a purely physical task. Picture a party in a room filmed over 3 hours by a fixed camera. Now pick out a person and imagine their journey across the room throughout the night but imagine the footage played extremely fast. (It is the kind of time lapse photography often used to highlight the flow of traffic at junctions or of people in railway stations). Each performer now creates a similar journey of their own, finding different positions of stillness throughout the room. These positions and moves do not have to be completely naturalistic. The shape of this
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