Modern day

In our acting technique lesson we did an exercise where we took our characters into the modern day. As our play is set in the 18th century for us as actors and modern teenagers it could be hard for us to connect with our characters and to understand what they are going through. This exercise allowed us to put our characters into an enviroment that we are used to so that we can connect with our characters more easily.

Through this exercise I made some really interesting discoveries about my charatcer. When I thought about my character in a modern context I immediately saw him in the role of a politician for the conservative party, before having gone to oxford to do law and spent half his career working job the courts. I found this interesting as I imagined him as the type if politician how avoids all questions and had an old school arrogance to him. Before I had always seen my character as a calm and quite reasonable character however I realised that this was only a result of the context and that he still holds these sexiest and bigoted views but because of the context he isn't seen as a bad or hblikeably character. By putting him in the modern day I realised that these views are core to his personality and to his life and career and that they are prominent in his life making him a harsher character.

The exercise also helped me to think about the physicality of my character. I instinctively imagined my character in the modern day to be the stereotypical fat, repulsing, stuck up, middle class man. Although this was a very clear image I was unsure about how it translates to the context of the play. However what I could take from this was the fullness that came with the physicality of the modern version of my character and the power and slight arrogance that came with how he holds himself and his presence.