Anatomy of a Suicide: Part 4

Lesson: 9th October 2017

In this lesson, we read the second scene of Anatomy of a Suicide and focused on Anna's scene with Dan. Initially, I found the scene funny, especially as Anna's drunken/high state became more known, especially with the things she was saying to Dan such as mentioning the aquarium. However, as the scene developed, I began to see that Anna was immensely troubled (most probably to do with her mother's - Carol - own suicide when Anna was sixteen) especially towards the end of the scene when she began to echo Carol slightly. My first thought of what might have happened between the two is that Anna and Dan had been close friends, potentially lovers, and had fallen out over Anna having sex with Dan's fifteen year old brother. Additionally, I thought that Dan had provided Anna with a place to stay whilst she recovered from a drug addiction, that she never really overcame, hence why she is high in this scene. As Dan mentioned that Anna had sex with his brother "six months ago", I can assume that this is the last time when the two had met before this scene which is why Dan seems so annoyed with Anna. The class consensus was very similar, with Dan and Anna having been in a relationship that abruptly ended when Anna had had sex with Dan's brother.

After reading this scene, we got into pairs, where one person out of the pair had been given a stick and was told to be really drunk whilst trying to give the stick back to their partner, who they believed owned the stick, who they hadn't seen in six months after a pretty bad break up. This links to Anna and Dan's scene because Anna turns up drunk/high after not seeing Dan for six months. We did this to get a better grasp on the symptoms of being drunk so that whilst performing this scene, we could get a better grasp on Anna's character. Additionally, the person with the stick was told that they were trying to not act drunk whilst drunk which links to this scene because Anna is desperately trying not to seem drunk/high. This allowed us to use Stanislavski's the "Magic If".

Below is some analysis of the scene, most prominently the extract that myself and Marlon performed to the class:




Below is the performance of the above script:





There are many positives about this piece. During the first 19 seconds the audience are allowed to see how Dan and Anna react initially to one another. For example, despite the history that Dan has with Anna, Marlon, as Dan, remains quite calm which could be due to Dan's role as a doctor so he wouldn't want to alarm the other patients and is also in a hospital environment so would want to remain professional. This professionalism is counter acted by Anna whereby I portrayed her as rocking slightly as drunk people usually can't keep still and are generally quite loud. This shouting/slurring of my words allowed the audience to see the state that Anna was in and that despite this, she was trying to act like she wasn't at all drunk. This allowed for some comedic moments within the piece. In addition to this, when Dan starts telling Anna about the things that she has stolen, I changed my tone to a defensive one because drunk/high people stereotypically lie about things that they have done so would get defensive especially if it was something bad.

 At 0.37, I went towards Marlon and emphasised the line that I said. This was to show that maybe Anna is trying, quite unsuccessfully, to make Dan jealous about her previous sexual escapades due to their past relationship. However, as Dan seems unimpressed by the state Anna is in, he would most likely pity her for making a move on him. Marlon also showed that Dan pitied Anna at 0.54 - "I've seen a lot of your vagina" - because of his inability to say the word. It also showed how awkward Dan felt about the situation, that Anna simply did not feel or pick up on. My response to this line was to look down which showed that Anna was very disbelieving about the aforementioned situation or she is very impressed/amused by Dan's reaction.

At 1.06 I started to drift away and focus on one part of Marlon during his speech about how Dan found Anna with his brother. This was to show that she wasn't listening to what Dan had to say further as she was focused on the line "When you come out of all of this" and also showed that her head was "swimmy" as she mentions later in the scene. At 1.23 during the "Head's a bit swimmy" line, I raised my hand to my head. This brought the audience's attention back to Anna's head injury which is mentioned in the stage directions at the beginning of the scene. This also suggests to the audience that Anna is seeing/feeling the head injury for the first time and also may be the cause as to why her head is swimmy in the first place, in addition to the alcohol and drugs. However, this may have to be changed because her head may have been sorted by Dan earlier in the scene which some of the other pairs showed.

There are also some negatives within this scene. Within the first few seconds of the piece Marlon shouted "And you f****d my brother". In my opinion, I doubt that Dan would shout in a hospital, his place of work, because it would seem largely unprofessional. However, this is not without reason because Dan may be annoyed that Anna has come into the hospital due to her own behaviour whilst Dan is having to deal with other patients who are sick of something that is not their fault. In addition to this, Marlon shouts "And I don't live on a boat" at 0.43 - the angry retort worked well but he could have simply kept the angry tone which may have been more effective. Moreover, when I said "No. No I didn't" at 0.11 and 0.31, they sounded very similar to one another which reduced variation to the audience. Instead of using the same defensive tone, I could have varied both the tone and the pace of the lines to make them different to one another.

After this, we read the remainder of the scene which involved Carol and John who would speak at relatively around the same time and would say some of the same lines at the same time as Anna and Dan. Below is the ending to this scene with all the same lines said at the same time underlined in pink. I think that this is going to be one of the most challenging aspects of the piece because the actors will need to learn both parts so that they know where their own lines fall between the gaps in the other scene playing opposite them.