Creating the Canary

Physical study and exploration.

‘Many actors use a walk, a posture, or a style of gesture as a starting point for their creation [of character]. No amount of intellectual or psychological analysis will replace the actual experiencing of the character which can occur when you begin to adopt his physical traits’  (Benedetti R, Wangh S, 2000, p241).

Once the casting and bird choices had been established we began by having several read-throughs of the Cage Birds script. After this it was my chance to go away and start building my character. I began with the canary’s physical portrayal as apposed to the characters personality. This is because I believe in this characters case, that physical posture, gesture and movement would draw out the characters identity as my characterisation process went on. From talks with the director we formed the idea that the Twittering Canary would always be twitching and moving as the name suggests. I began forming a tick with my head loosely based on an example I had seen of a turrets sufferer. This continuous head movement resembles the canary who, on observation, continuously twitch their heads as many small birds do, to focus their sight. This movement on its own however was not enough and I began to draw on my knowledge of physical theatre to try and focus on the body. I started with re-examining the theories and practices of Jerzy Grotowski, realising as I did so that I had not gained consciousness of my full body.

‘…it should be as difficult for the actor to enter the stage on his feet as on his hands…In other words, every step we take with our feet and legs should be as meaningful, as justified as conscious as if we were walking on our hands’ (Grotowski, J. Wangh, S. 2000, p43).

With this is mind I tried to focus on other parts of my body and began adding twitches and repetitive movements to my shoulders and arms. This affected my stance and I began drawing my head towards my chest as an impulsive reaction, almost out of agitation and frustration from the twitch. This was a pleasant surprize that my physical movement had caused an emotional reaction and thus my characters personality began to take shape.

 

The person inside.

‘When you have an impulse, feeling, or idea, it arouses an energy at your deep center that  naturally flows outward, reaching the outer world in many forms: words, sounds, motions or postures’ (Benedetti, R. 2009, p27.)

Physical impulses were very important to my character because much of my characters nervousness was shown through twitching and ticks. I used the Stanislavskian technique of reading the given circumstances in the script to determine what my character was like and why. Information given to me by the script about my character revealed important information about the human side of my character such as personality traits, my characters opinions and feelings, and her feelings towards the mistress rather than just the bird like qualities.

‘Given circumstances include the plot of the play, the epoch, the time and place of the action, the conditions of life, the director’s and actor’s interpretation, the setting, the properties, lighting sound effects- all that an actor encounters while he creates a role. A     persons psychological and physical behaviour is subject to the external influences of his environment’ (Moore, S. 1984, p26).

By examining this side of my character I could then use Stanislavski’s technique of the magic if, to ask myself questions such as; what would the Twittering do if approached? What would the Twittering do if asked a question? and how would my character react to change and why?

After reading the script and discovering the tense, awkward and nervousness of my character I looked to see what human conditions caused such traits in people. I discovered many of the characteristics of my character were similar to those of autism but even more strongly related to Asberger syndrome.

‘People with Asperger syndrome can find it harder to read the signals that most of us take  for granted. This means they find it more difficult to communicate and interact with others  which can lead to high levels of anxiety and confusion’ (Larches community, 2013).

Learning about my characters personality lead me to think about vocal delivery, how would the Twittering sound? I decided that my character would have a stammer and struggle to get words out. This decision was made after viewing online videos of children that were affected by Asberger syndrome. In practice this way of delivering the lines was frustrating and added to my physicality, which tensed and visualised the effort and frustration of the characters internal struggle.

When decided on set and props all the other birds were given lots of clutter and items that reflected their characters. My character however was harder to cater for, The Guzzle had lots of food and rubbish, The Gloom had many medicines, The Thump had piles of books, The Gazer had many beauty products and mirrors, The Gossip had lots of magazines and mobile phones. All of these thing were representatives of the characters personalities but we could think of no objects that would show nervousness for my character. On discussion of the script with the costume designer Woody, we realised that the Twittering prays to god in one of her most anxious moments. This lead to the idea that the Twitterings’ sole prop would be a bracelet of wooden rosary beads with a Jesus on the cross. This would be a bold visual statement against the yellow and white backdrop of the costume. It would also add to the characters physical movement as she had no reason to use her hands for human purposes, up until now.

 

A hybrid, bringing together the bird and human.

‘Like people in real life, characters often act out of impulse or habit without conscious   choice; this is what Stanislavski called “automatic” action.[…] identify the automatic actions of your character’s behaviour as soon as possible, for it is your task to recreate the  characters habits in yourself for the purpose of rehearsing and performing’    (Benedetti, R. 2009, p136).

Having now found my characters physicality and personality I had to now try and fuse the two together, my canary and my human. This was actually relatively easy as the habits of both were similar as the twitching and movement crossed over between both. However the vocal delivery was hard, it was very human and showed a lot of the mental illness that I wanted to capture, but I was missing a link to the root of the bird. After a group rehearsal that consisted of testing and playing with are bird qualities I noticed that others in the group had chosen to use bird tweets and other bird noises, this gave me the idea of also using a bird sound. Having watched clips of canaries on the internet I knew they made very high noted whistles and tweets, using this information I decided my bird would make a high ‘HO’ sound. This crossed over from bird to human like as I implemented the sound into the stammer, by this I mean when my character got overly nervous and struggled to get her words out she would make the bird noise and then carry on with speech. This mixing of bird and human voice was just what I needed to fuse the two together.

Whilst rehearsing I tested how my character might walk. I believed that I should move very quickly and precisely because of her nervous characteristics, however on practice I was told this was unbelievable and didn’t reflect the character that I had created very well. After our lecturer Wez had seen a rehearsal he suggested that my character be indecisive whilst moving. By moving in a scuttled and indirect manner my character could show her confusion and stress. Having meaning behind the physical movement was extremely important, I did not want to spend all my effort building a character only to have it be unbelievable when walking.

‘An actor must never move for movements sake, e.g., to look good. The character moves as a result of his intentions, in order to achieve what he wants. A step or walk is meaningless if   it does not reflect the characters need to move. A state of being cannot be presupposed.  Rather it emerges, depending on what has gone before, what is happening now, and what  may happen in the future’ (Dennis A. 2002, p29).

Each time she had to walk she would take a few steps then change direction. This was a wonderful idea in theory but very hard in practice and although I tried very hard to do this movement every time, I did struggle when moving into the group clusters during the most nervous moments. Interaction with the other birds was difficult as each was in its own little world and never really spoke any relevant conversation to each other. This meant all communication between the birds was really based on body language. This was practised intensely during rehearsals as it is quite hard to say one thing and mean another.

Works cited

Benedetti, R (2009). The Actor at Work. 10th ed. U.S.A: Pearson. p27,136.

Benedetti, R and Wangh, S (2000). An Acrobat of the Heart. New York: Vintage Books. p241.

Dennis, A (2002). The Articulate Body. London: Nick Hern Books. p29.

Larches Community. (2013). Learn about learning disabilities and autism. Available: http://www.larchescommunity.org.uk/Learn-About-Disabilities(2512110).htm. Last accessed 23th May 2013.

Moore, S (1984). The Stanislavski System. 2nd ed. U.S.A: Penguin. p26.