Anatomy of a Suicide - Part 16

Lesson: Thursday 30th November 2017

In this lesson, we looked at Scene 3 of AOAS which is the first time when all three stories are shown simultaneously on stage. In Carol's scene, Balloons, Carol is sat alone in a kitchen at Daisy's birthday party. She is smoking and is joined by Tim (Daisy's father and Carol's brother in law) and then by Daisy who asks Carol why she tried to commit suicide. In Anna's scene, Cooking, Anna is scene to be injecting heroin which is due to her addiction as shown in the previous scene and to numb her emotional pain which is something that heroin does. In Bonnie's scene, Hospital, Bonnie is treating Jo because Jo has managed to get a fish hook stuck through her hand. Out of the three, Anna's scene is the most shocking to watch because she is taking drugs on stage.

Anna only says two lines in this scene, the rest of her section is through movement. The line "Hello" from Anna is a relief at finally having heroin in her system due to her addiction. I think that the line should be said as though it is a sigh to show how relieved Anna is by the drug and also to show that this is the only thing that can calm her down due to her addiction. The line "I don't" is after Anna has started singing. I think in this sense, it could show that she has forgotten what the song is and what the next lyrics are in the song which shows the audience how far gone into her high she is already.

Initially, we thought that trying to get the lines to come at the right time was insanely hard to get our heads around, especially as some lines are said over the top of each other. However, as we read over the scene a couple of times, we found that it wasn't as hard as it first appeared. I think that if we go over the scenes enough times, our timings of the lines will become second nature as well as listening to the other sections to hear our cues.

Other cast members were attempting the first scene of the play with Carol and John where the two have a conversation after Carol has tried to commit suicide. As this is the first scene of the play, and has no other sections playing at the same time, the audience's focus is completely on Carol and John as they aren't having to dip in and out of the sections. This makes the scene more important for setting the basis for the play and the topics that the audience are expecting to hear. In other scenes, the audience's focus is drawn to whoever is speaking but this can be seen as different for Anna in Scene 3 because she's doing something quite shocking - the audience may be compelled to watch someone who's taking off their tights and taking drugs on stage.