Rehearsals and Characters

Name: Elena Chiriac
Project name: Love and Information

      During the project "Love and Information"  we have been through new experiences. Because Caryl Churchill's style is very different from the other writers it was something new for all of us and it made us challenge ourselves. Playing a psychopath helped me a lot with the fear about the audience, I had to be very confident about it and not be afraid to embrace myself in front of people. I also had a role where I was trying to remind my wife who I was, I had to play a very manipulative role to be believable for the audience. All of my characters made me experience new things and feelings. 

      "Love and Information" is an ensemble of seven sections each with a number of scenes that range from less than a minute in length to a few minutes long. In the beginning, it was a little hard for me to understand or imagine the play because it doesn't say where or when the action happens. This was a good thing because it allowed us a lot of freedom and it made us work hard on it and use our imagination. It also helped us to improve teamwork. We had to decide how many characters were going to be in a scene, the importance of them, their ages, the place where the action happens and the time.

Characters

                                                              

Scene 1  "Secret"

  

      I first performed in "Secret" which was the first scene in the performance. I and Michael were training at the gym, he was my boyfriend and both of us had a secret. He was very insistent to find out what my secret was and I was pretending to be indifferent about it. I was going to tell him but I wanted him to insist so I could feed my ego. A few minutes later, he gave up and I decided to tell him. We sat on the bench because it was something very big and I whispered to him.

      After I told him the secret he sat up very shocked and he was happy for a few seconds. Then he changed his attitude being very angry at me asking me "How could you?". I told him that "I did" and he got angrier than he was. He ran away from me. My secret was that I was pregnant. It made him very happy until he realized that it couldn't be his child because he is impotent.
      For this character, it was important to listen to each other, to share ideas and we needed many rehearsals for this because the lines are very short and it would've been harder to work individually.

                                                         

Scene 9 "God's voice"

      God's voice was the ninth scene of the performance. I was a psycho in a mental hospital because I killed people and my partner, Rose, was a doctor trying to understand why. I thought I did a good for the world because "God told me to do it". I was very proud of myself for everything I've done for God and she was asking me stupid questions like "Did you hear words?" or "What's his voice like?". It was the first time for me when I played a psycho and it was my favorite character ever since I started this course. I didn't want to exaggerate, I was a very modern psycho like the terrorists these days who think that "God tells them what to do". 
       While I was performing I could see the reaction of the audience. They were enjoying the scene laughing about me because my hair was very messy and my eyes were lazy. My behavior was stupid being proud of myself for killing people and the audience liked it because I made it look real but funny. I believe that this scene was very successful and I am very pleased with the final result of the performances.
      To build a back story of this character was a bit hard in the beginning, I didn't know exactly how to play a psycho, I had to research this and to use the skills that I had already achieved. I believe that being a psycho it's not just about how you look like, in these days most of the people who think like my character look perfectly normal so this was the challenge in this scene. I tried to build this character as being a good looking girl with a sick mind. 

                                                                  

 Scene 23 "Wife"

     In "Wife" my character was more like a ghost. My partner in this scene was Teigan and we played a lesbian couple.
      I went to visit her because she lost her memory. I was trying to remind her about us being very manipulative and telling her that I love her. She was a little confused and she was moving back from me trying to ignore me. I was telling her stories about us manipulating her even if he told me that I disgust her.
      I believe that in this scene the hardest part was to make it look real. I had to look in love with her and for this, I used a technique that The Broken Hearted Youth company taught us. I imagined her as being someone else, a person that I love. I tried to imagine that the boy that I loved lost his memory and I am trying to get him back. After I planted the story in my mind it was easier for me to rehearse and to perform it.

Scene 29 "Virtual"

      In this scene, Teigan, Rose and I were best friends. I and Teigan went to Rose's house to explain to her that she's crazy because she fell in love with a robot. Rose played the lazy girl who doesn't care about what the others have to say, Teigan was the indifferent friend who was there more because she didn't have something better to do and I played the good friend. I was very into this trying to explain to Rose that she is wrong and she can't be in love with a robot.
      This was the scene where we were all of us were just talking and no one was listening to each other.


Evaluation of the performance

     I believe that my final performance was a successful one. I had the opportunity to express myself and to use the techniques that I've learned during this course. I have been evaluated by the teachers and some of the students that were in the audience and most of them had good opinions about it, It was a success and I am very pleased with the result.