Anatomy of a Suicide - Part 28

Lesson: Thursday 8th February 2018

During this lesson, we were directed much more fully by Chipp and Starbuck than we had been in previous weeks. In previous weeks we have blocked the majority of the scenes with little regard to the actions within them. By blocking the scenes separately, we have made it much more difficult for ourselves because we don't know how long our pauses are in between each section of speech and where our cues are coming from. I have tried to combat this by voice recording the entirety of a scene so that I know how long my pauses between lines are and so that I know what my cues are. This has been proving successful for me as I don't just know most of my own lines I know other peoples so that if they miss out a line I can easily tell what they have missed out and quickly assess the impacts that that will have on my own scene.

With Chipp, we looked at Scene 3. In this scene Carol is at Daisy's 13th birthday party, Anna is shooting up heroin, and Bonnie is removing a fish hook from Jo's hand. Although it was mainly Cast B on stage, I managed to listen to the notes that Chipp was giving to Bella who plays Anna in Cast B. As Anna walks onto the stage she should be quite quick but as she begins to prepare the heroin for injection, she should become slower and methodical. This is because she would want to get the method right and because she wants to enjoy what she's about to do - she believes that taking heroin is a nice thing to do to herself and so should be an enjoyable process. As Anna takes the heroin, she is closed in on herself but after she takes it, she opens up so that her reaction to the initial high/impact of the heroin is much more visible for the audience. It also shows that she's ready for the heroin to hit because she likes it and thinks it is a blissful, wonderful feeling. She should also feel relaxed and content after she's taking the heroin making it abundantly clear that she is addicted. The "hello" that Anna says when the heroin hits should be strong and powerful so that the audience is drawn to her and to the few lines that she says in the scene. After Anna has taken the heroin she should lie down on her side facing the audience, still completely blissful and relaxed. After a while she lies down on her back and begins to sort of dance/writhe on the floor as she becomes increasingly intoxicated with the drug. Although this may seem uncomfortable for me as an actress, it will draw the audience's attention so that they see that Anna needs help due to her addiction, which has been highlighted in the previous scene. As the build up to Anna's next line in the scene, I should become more aware of what's being said on the other sides of the stage. The line "I don't" is almost like a nervous tick. During this line Anna stays lying down but moves her head slightly before the line so that again the audience's attention is somewhat drawn towards her.

With Starbuck we initially looked at Scene 4. In this scene Carol is looking around the family home that she will buy, Anna is visited by John in rehab, and Bonnie is having an awkward conversation with Jo who's holding a fish. We only got halfway through Scene 4 before we began to look at Scene 5 because of the lack of understanding regarding cues which set us back time wise. At the beginning of Scene 4 Anna is quite stiff with her posture because she doesn't really know how to react around her father - she and John haven't seen each other since she tried to have sex with him when he had picked her up from a train as described by Anna's monologue in Scene 5. When John does begin to speak she relaxes slightly and has a slight exhale of breath which shows that she was scared that he'd never forgive her. The exhale could also be relief that he didn't take the joke - "Given that last time, last time I saw you, you said you were devastated. And there was a lot of hand wringing" - too badly as she may have expected him to. I was also told that after Anna says "Dad" I should continue to look at Marlon (who plays John in Cast A) for longer to show that she's waiting for a response from him. I initially didn't look at him for too long because I thought my head would be facing the audience too much as I have previously been told in the scene. I'll have to find a middle ground between looking at Marlon and not having my head turned away from the audience for too long. In Scene 5 Carol has just had Anna and is in the hospital, Anna is telling Jamie about how she got to the commune, and Bonnie is at a work colleague's birthday party. This scene is the longest and most complicated in the play because not only does it last for around forty pages, it also has many interjections from various parts of the stage, often only one word. This makes finding cues very hard and also meant that we didn't get too far into Scene 5 either. At the beginning of Scene 5, we had Jamie set up the camera straight away so that Anna can peer around to see what he's doing which initiates their first exchange - "Hello" "Hi" "Sorry hi" - and shows that they are awkward around each other due to their attraction to one another which can be shown through nervous smiles. At the line "Well played Sir" Anna does a gesture with her hands which makes the encounter more embarrassing/awkward than it was, shows that Anna is attracted to Jamie, and makes the audience more attached to Anna as she has shown embarrassment after the line.