Playhouse Creatures 4

Definitions

Objective [described using verbs]

What are your character's aims? What do they want to gain from the situation? What motivates their actions?
+ units [sections of the text to which to which the objective applies]
You could map out your scene with the changing objectives.
Your character's objectives will change as their personality and situation changes, so objectives will alter throughout the play.

Super Objective

What the play is about and what we as actors wish to communicate. This helps the actors influence their own character's objectives. To effectively perform the play and convey a clear message an actor and the company must have an understanding of the superior objective of the play.

Through Line Of Action

The Through Line Of Action is essentially the characters own timeline, starting at birth and ending at death. An actor must  be completely sure of every relevant part of their character's Through Line Of Action. Any event in the character's life could influence their emotions, objectives and way of thinking.

Homework

1) From our mind maps

Objectives

Doll: has a lot of information on the actresses from listening to their gossip, being someone to rant to and a shoulder to cry on for them all. She is actually very powerful. I think she considers the actresses to be entertainment, she watches them come and go and make silly failings and triumphs. She kind of represents the audience in the play, coming in to make small jips however watching the most important moments. She is eternal, the only one who lasts through all of the changes. Even when Nell - who seemingly got everything - is dying from syphilis, Doll is still alive and going.

Mrs. Marshall: a feminist, trying to overpower Otway, wants to get more plays with female leads. She is one of the most strong women of the group. Having been jaded by men she has kind of grown, she doesn't flirt and sleep around and try to win her keep through lovers and men of power, instead she tried to make her won way and play the best leads and create more strong images for women.

Otway: wants to impress, trying to make his ways in the world, looking for opportunities. 

Mrs Betterton: trying to keep her career alive. She is seeing lots of young, talented, beautiful women who can all do her job just as well which must be very scary for her. The only hold she has now is the fact she is married to the director, which gives her some sway. I think she is less worried about the problems of the other actresses and more worried about her own issues.

Mrs Farley: trying to keep her job, wants to get an abortion and win the king back. A lot of her actions up until this scene have been influenced by pride and ambition. She wants to be on top and live a luxurious life and she sees the king as a way to get that. Having fallen from grace and have had everyone witness is must be the hardest thing for her and her defiance and shame motivates a lot of her final actions.

Overall Objectives

Otways play:he wants to get more exposure, Otway wants his play read, actresses are sick of listening to 4 hour long plays about men

Readthrough: sucking up, reflects their own lives of having to sweet talk rich men so they can make a living

Abortion: Mrs. Farley wants an abortion, she's desperate, others try to warn her and help her however it's only halfhearted

3) For Mrs Farley my first ideas for objectives are ambition, pride and the desire for a good life. She is an ambitious woman who believes she deserves the best in life and I don't think this is a necessarily bad trait. Everyone wants to live a comfortable life and everyone believes they deserve something. She will do anything to get what she wants and she plays with quite high stakes. A lot of people looking at first glance at what she does in the play, such as deceiving Nell in the first scene and sleeping around with the King, would judge her, however I think that when you look at it and realise why she does these things it becomes a little less strange and a little more like human nature - to strive and to aim to succeed. 

I feel like I am very similar to her in some ways, I too am a very proud person and when I fail often it's not the failing that's a problem. I will pick myself up, dust myself off and carry on trying. Often what's harder is having other people see that I've failed, I hate that. When I was reading through the scene and asking myself "What if that happened to me?" I felt like having other people seeing my failure, and worse feeling sorry for me, that was worse and I would probably act defensively with coldness and irritation. 

4) For me the play is mostly about feminism, partly because I am such a strong feminist myself. I feel like these women are fighting so hard to be equals and to be treated as such, just getting a salary at all - let alone a decent one - is a huge thing to them. I think that whilst we have come a long way since when the piece was set, these themes are still relevant today. I think that April de Angelis felt this too and that's why she put in the lesson that Lord of Rochester gives Mrs Barry near the end of the play, which is a very modern lesson with very modern forms of acting being taught which where very modern and didn't actually come about until after the events of the play.