At the end of last lesson, we were told to select a piece of the play that we could give an audition with. I decided to audition for the part of Anna because her past interests me as she may have been training to be a nurse which is entirely forgotten after her drug addiction. Her immense struggle to overcome and somewhat conquer her addictions shows that she is a strong individual, not weak or vulnerable, which is why it's interesting why she becomes like Carol in the final scenes. I think that she is much stronger than Carol and somewhat Bonnie because Anna allows her emotions to be shown as seen in the piece that I auditioned with, and also is somewhat guarded when she talks to John in her second scene, much like how Bonnie is throughout the play.
Below are my initial thoughts about the script that I auditioned with, I tried to include pauses/breaths and words that are emphasised before I started learning the script so that I could learn it with these points, making the performance more effective. Through my rehearsal process, I may have adapted this to create shorter and longer pauses and also emphasised different words.
Below is a video of the script, which although was not recorded in the audition gives a similar feel to how I wanted the monologue to look.
I chose to have different pacing in each half of the monologue. At the beginning of the monologue I decided that Anna should speak quite quickly as though her mass of thoughts was over flowing into her mass of speech about what she had done. This is supported by a couple of stutters that she does in her monologue - "a a a dealer" and "and I I I I and he so and when I" which show that she's speaking so fast and about something largely traumatic that show her mass of thoughts. Towards the end of the monologue I decided to slow the pace down because it shows that when she's speaking about calm things that she herself is calm. Additionally, on the script, the monologue is set out so that the beginning of the part that i did is cramped together and the end of that part is spaced out. This is also what led me to the decision of swapping the pacing of the monologue as I slowed down when the script began to become more spaced out.
The pauses that I chose worked well in some places. It made it seem as though Anna was thinking about what she was about to say at some parts because of the amount of graphic images that are presented in the monologue. This is possibly because she has never told anyone about her life, or if she has, this was probably in rehab where she might not have told the entire story of how she came to have a drug addiction and how she was during the addiction. Although, she may have told someone about this before, but is still slightly embarrassed to say anything due to the nature of the events (e.g. hitting on her own father - John). Additionally, in the commune, Anna and others may have had conversations about how they ended up there in which she may have told her story, however, she may think that Jamie hasn't heard something as bad as what she has told him, which brings about a fear at what Jamie will think about her after she's said this to him.
Another audition piece that made me think more about characterisation was Kathryn and Peter's performance of Carol and John in the scene just after Carol has given birth to Anna. In the scene, it seems as though Carol is trying to come to terms with having Anna to which John seems largely oblivious to what she is feeling. Kathryn and Peter performed the scene as though John walks in on Carol saying her line "a baby" over and over again which made it so that he was more aware of what Carol was feeling. I think that John should be more oblivious to what Carol is feeling because he is overcome with such immense joy at having a child that he only thinks about his emotions in this scene. Carol should say her continuous line of "a baby" as though she is trying to reassure herself that she is okay and trying to make herself feel okay with the prospect of now having to care for another human. The line "Does it get better now?" which is said by Carol suggests that she is expecting her life to be solved by the birth of Anna, which is what Daisy had implied in a previous scene. It also shows how vulnerable Carol is in this scene, which I think both Emma and John don't understand to some extent (Emma kissed Carol earlier in the scene).
After this, we imagined that we were estate agents walking around the house that is the house that is present in all three stories after all the events have taken place. The rooms that we focused on were: the living room, the kitchen, the master bedroom, the bathroom, and the garden. We focused on these rooms because they play key roles in telling the stories. We then used freeze frames to show the key events that happen in each of the rooms.
Living Room and Garden
We decided that the south facing windows were ones that you could look out from, from the living room window. The garden has significance because this is where Carol would go when she wanted to go for walks. The garden would give her access to the fields behind the house, as it is set in a rural landscape, so that she would be able to go on the long walks as described in the play. This is why we included an image of Carol going for a walk in this section of the piece. Also, Anna most probably played in the garden as a child so it has some significance there. Finally, Bonnie gardens and has a rabbit in the garden which is why we included Bonnie talking to a child whilst gardening, because the child, much like Daisy, suggested that Bonnie should get a rabbit so that the child would come round more often.
The Kitchen
The kitchen has large significance in Carol and Bonnie's stories. Carol spent a lot of time cooking in the kitchen because she believes that being a good wife is cooking, cleaning, looking after children, and looking immaculate which is supported in the first scene in the hospital after Carol has tried to commit suicide. We included a freeze frame of Carol in the kitchen staring out into the garden, as the kitchen also has south facing window. Bonnie has significance in the kitchen, because Bonnie and Jo have an argument in the kitchen about Jo wanted to be involved more in Bonnie's life; we included an image of Bonnie and Jo fighting to show this.
The Master Bedroom
This has significance for all three women. For Carol and John, this is where they most probably had unfulfilling sex, especially after they try for another baby after Anna that Carol doesn't want. This creates a melancholic undertone to the bedroom as it is somewhere where Carol doesn't share the fondest memories. For Anna and Jamie, this room is one of love, especially during the early stages of their relationship as they seem to have been wanting a baby as shown in Scene 9 where they announce to Daisy that Anna is pregnant, something which the two seem happy about. For Bonnie, the master bedroom signifies how she doesn't know her family as well as liked to have done, and this is the most intimate room to some extent. I don't think that she would have had sex with Jo in this bedroom as it holds too much sentimentally which is why in the freeze frame Bonnie was stood watching her family as they were with the husbands.
The Bathroom
This holds significance for Anna as she killed herself in the bathroom. It also links to how Carol had tried to commit suicide in another bathroom in a different house.
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