Using Research to support your ideas, reflect on how your understanding of the themes of the play (small town living, America in the 1900’s, time, change. the writers ideas) enhanced your ability to communicate to an audience effectively.
For my most recent college project, me and my class were tasked with performing a professional standard production of the classic Thornton Wilder play, Our Town. We were tasked with researching themes of the play, who Thornton Wilder was and anything that can help us create our characters and invoke a style of telling the story while playing it natural yet entertaining and not to mention having other roles within the production for instance, having the responsibility of taking photos for evidence. Once I was cast as Howie Newsome and Simon Stimson, I knew I would have to address challenges such as showing the contrast between these two characters. One being an alcoholic and the other being a small-town milk man. With these two characters, I knew the approach of portrayal would be very different as one would be bubbly and very light to watch while the other would be heavy and very weighted in portrayal.
Howie and Simon had specific roles within their community, with Howie being a character that would show the unchanging ways of Grovers Corners, due to him always delivering milk, despite what time of year it is or what year it is. This was also reflected with the costumes I wore, as Howie had specific costumes for: Spring, Summer and Winter (this would also show the audience the setting of Grovers Corners and exemplify how much time has gone by). Simon on the other hand was a personification of the dark side to every good side there is in life. Even though it is a small town which is peaceful, Simon is a very prolific alcoholic. He could be considered the only antagonist of this piece, making his drunken rage a large part of act one and his remorse in act three much more important.
My depiction of Simon was started through my brainstorming and researching of drunk styles and drunken characters in media. Applying this to my actual drunken states in real life unfortunately would have made Simon incredibly un-natural and unfitting for this period drama piece. I worked with the idea of less is more and started to tone down moments of aggression which for me made the process more natural and easier to accomplish, I made sure to be constantly receiving feedback from classmates in order to find the best way to present Simon. For instance, not just being aggressive or incredibly unfocused but finding the middle ground, in order to show diversity in Simon’s states. This allowed the story telling aspect of Simon to be clearly told through his actions and words. Come act Three, Simon was dead, he was in the ground without his alcohol and as a spirit he was stripped down without his alcohol, here I thought about the breaks in my speech and when I should raise the intensity of what I am saying throughout my final speech, this made it effective and invoked the negative existentialism of Simon’s speech at the end of the play. I was able to achieve this by reading between the lines and understanding that Simon was filled with regret and that in death he is as unhappy as when he was alive. “Some people ain’t made for small town life.” Howie was a different story, my biggest struggle was having a horse following me around the stage, I tried many ways of having the horse, such as having it on a reign next to me and then on a reign behind me. That made me struggle at pacing myself and generally struggle with interaction. However due to having a knowledge of men and their companionship with horses from Western America in the 20th Century (achieved from primary research with a horse trainer) I decided that Bessie would just follow me loyally, which she would have done anyway, with this ease I was able to walk freely and I was able to bring Howie’s physicality to life. In addition, it was only once I got my costume and walked with an important busy walk that I was able to really mesh with Howie and bring this simple soul to life, physically and vocally.
Due to this understanding I was able to use the staging and react how I believe the character would have – this included speaking to people and of course, being respectful. Howie also excelled in his interactions with Bessie as it enabled me; as an actor, to really showcase my talent when reacting to something that the audience can’t see but the character can… ‘miming’. In addition, the miming of Bessie really helped become Howie. However, the main aspect that helped me most was the costume… This was because it enabled me to hide behind my fears and really engage with the character. Not only that, this also allowed me to differentiate between the characters as the costumes were so accurate in contrast with their personalities. I also thought that the costumes allowed me to engage with my physicality more as seeing the costumes allowed me to understand the ways in which these characters went about their lives in a more relatable way.
Watching the videos of the play, I can see the simplicity in Howie and how despite his accent dipping, the physicality stayed strong in all three acts. I believe Howie’s simple story was told successfully through the comedic timing and reactions to Bessie and since Howie was very much a bubbly character, he was able to always invoke positivity from the audience and other characters. His speech pattern also did not follow any specific rhythm and really made whatever he said memorable and easy to listen to. I also believe that I portrayed Simon naturally and I was able to invoke the emotion from him. I was able to tell the story of Our Town successfully despite my process of finding my characters being a rather long journey. Then of course I got a few lines wrong on the night however the emotion was apparent and my heart was in the performance. if I could change anything, I would definitely work on the accent more as it was prone to slip back to my regular voice once it got louder and despite my practice I could have practiced the pronunciation in my own time more.
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