(Sorry this took a long a time to do. I couldn't do it while at school because all of a sudden the internet became very restrictive and my email to myself wouldn't send. But it's here now, so all's well that ends well.)
This term we delved into the very dark world of Antonin Artaud, a take on the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. And I mean really quite dark. In fact, I can’t emphasis this enough, it was some of the weirdest, scariest stuff I have ever seen in my whole life. The things we saw were mainly unsettling because of the surrealism. It also made you think a bit, I suppose, about what kind of mental state this bloke must have been in. After some research, I found out that Mr Artaud wasn't exactly right in the head. He had grown up a sickly boy, often agitated and disgruntled. He was also rather schizophrenic, aggressive and all in all a not very nice person with which to share a flat perhaps or a boat. But I'm getting off topic so back to Artaud. He lived most of his life in insane asylums, drawing disturbing images and screaming. While it was, in his mind, a splendid way to spend an evening many people disagreed, leading him to a position where few people wanted anything to do with him. This led to solitude, apart from a few faithful friend who were very good to put up with him all this time. We kicked off with some idea making. Now, having just finished the rather hard going Water Station, I was hoping for something a little lighter. I did not get something a little lighter. I got something a whole lot darker, but I digress. I remember one of the first idea being, and I quote, “Santa kills kids and gives their body parts as presents for the parents”. Still gives me shudders.
Anyway, afterwards we went to the library to choose our characters and kick off a monologue. I took Jack, because when I watched the film I was too lazy to learn anyone else’s name, and immediately I set about trying to make a character. There were many failed attempts, but I stuck with one which showed him as really quite posh and complained a lot. This was mainly because, at the time, I wanted nothing to do with any of it. So while some people were going all out on the rape and murder, I stuck to my guns and formulated a different type of character.
Now we come to the YouTube videos. Deary, deary me. To kick off, we watched all these music videos. And I use music in its loosest possible sense. They were really weird pretty much everyone else was not affected by it, but I felt like I needed to take a shower. Then again, I’m rather sensitive and the other videos weren't as bad. They made me have to clamp my jaw shut, but other than that I could just about sleep at night with them in my head. They only very slightly impacted my role.
This was largely how it remained until I had to take a day off being ill. I spent all day watching TV and inspiration came in the form of a Doctor Who Christmas special from 2010, David Tennant’s last ever episode. I was just being nostalgic, me being a rather hidden Doctor Who fanatic, but there I saw my inspiration from Jon Simms’ Master. He was basically insane and there was a lot of shouting and facial expressions. I also sought help from David Tennant’s rage near the end when he is about to die. Couple this with some good old bipolar-ness and my Jack was born.
I didn’t have much time to formulate a proper monologue, so some of my old monologue was still included in the final production. I made sure my character constantly went from loud to quiet and back again, so as to keep people tense. I remember having a lot of fun on the night, despite still feeling that this Artuad bloke is a bit of a nutter. But never mind, eh? In the end, I decided that I would not act overtly evil, but I wouldn’t exactly be a good guy ever. I mainly focussed on a man locked in a battle with himself, trapped in a place he does not like at all. My only real troubles were that my knees really, really hurt after crouching for that long.
This performance is very different to anything I have ever done. Ever. To be honest with you I hadn’t done anything other than comedy really in my whole life. Even relatively serious plays I have had some comic element in, or been allowed to insert jokes. It was very hard at first to do, but I never had any massive doubts that I was incapable of doing serious theatre. I lacked in the surreal a bit perhaps, but only really because I wanted to give him a human element, so you can feel a little sorry for his predicament. Ok, right now everyone’s searching for murder victims, thought I’d come over to you in real time, and I think I’m about to vomit. Sorry, I can’t even begin. So I won’t. Anyway, I intended to have a few jump scares, loud noises and shouting and whatnot. These were incorporated quite well in my opinion.
If I were to do it again, I would probably have made it longer and made more interaction towards the audience. I did ask a question to them, where they lived, which worked well and got the right kind of response. For my character I decided to keep it less evil and more just insane. I had some fun doing that, plus I didn’t end up having as many moral quarrels with it. However, earlier on, I felt a large sense of repulsion towards it. I’m can’t really explain, but while I was watching Children in Need I just absolutely despised of it. I saw it as some kind of middle class attempt at being deep and meaningful, and using dark parts of your brain which, as far as I could discern, was only noticeable in murderers. I had to take some time to think, but in the end I just acted and had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.
I think this has proved to myself that I can do serious stuff if I put my mind to it. I often look out for a joke, because it’s easy to tell if it was good; they would laugh. But I really enjoyed doing it, I think I probably just enjoy acting, no matter how serious it is. However, I do find it hard to do anything other than rather righteous anger, which I suppose makes me feel better about myself to a certain extent. Although at times I absolutely hated it, in the end it was a valuable piece which can help in future dramas and things out side of school as well. Although I still enjoy comedies more, I am grateful for this opportunity to break that mould and mix up what I normally do. As long as comedy is on the way. Please.
