BODIES UNFINISHED by Lewis
Hetherington
Overview:
Alan loves his work.
He doesn't love his wife, his mother or his only child, so he aims to break
free and live for himself. Carol, his wife, is lost too. Stella, a girl he's
just met, lives day to day and he arranges a date to meet her. And his mother
refuses to speak. As Alan makes a start to his new life will his decision mean
that they can all finally know who they are meant to be? Bodies Unfinished
investigates the moment when you decide to stop doing what you know, and step
out of your comfort zone.
Lewis Hetherington:
Lewis Hetherington is a Glasgow based playwright and theatre
maker. As an associate of the award winning Analogue he
co-wrote Mile End and Beachy Head, and wrote 2401 Objects which was a co production with
Oldenburg Staatstheater. He was an Associate Artist of Imaginate from 2010 to
2012 where he undertook at research project on the creative possibilities of
making work for and with young deaf/blind people.
Katerina Stearman (Stella):
|
playing age
|
27
|
|
Height
|
5' 4" (1.63 m)
|
|
Weight
|
8st. 6lb. (54kg)
|
|
hair color
|
Brown
|
|
eye color
|
Blue
|
|
Build
|
Slim
|
An interesting review:
Hetherington’s achievement
is to make all that noise without ever really shouting. His Alan is far from
eloquent, he bumbles around and he stammers. There’s a brilliant scene where he
fumbles through a description of his job, as a geneticist decapitating chicken
embryos, to the sultry
Stella with pathetic schoolboy innocence. But while he’s frustratingly
meek, he’s also compulsive, and however painful it may be, everything is tinged
with the darkest of humour.
Williams’ minimal set,
complemented by Katherine Lowry’s ghost-like lighting, creates that atmosphere
perfectly. The clean, clinical wooden panelling, the uncomfortable looking
chairs and the leather bag that keeps returning, it works for every location
and it fits. And even if the stage is empty, Francis Adams portrays Alan’s
contradictions with delicate brio, attentive to all the quirky nuances of a mid
life crisis. Jean Apps is haunting as Joyce: as she describes the birth of her
son in all its bloody detail her eyes seem to emit a hypnotic beam. Katerina Stearman is powerful
as the used-up Stella and Jane Dodd’s irate wife-in-denial Carol
completes an astonishing ensemble, in a production that should get the blood
flowing for any aspiring theatre-maker
Why did I choose this monologue?
Q1. - Playing Age.
This character, Stella and her monologue
was clearly not created for a 17 year old girl considering she is a ‘call girl’,
however, I feel that I will be able to bring a vulnerability and naivety to the
character that probably hasn’t been portrayed before. To fit the context of the
monologue, I am going to have to perform maturely. Even though I am adding a
younger ‘side’ to Stella, it doesn’t mean that I want to portray her younger-
this would ruin the power of the monologue as we see someone, who is clearly
used to her ‘job’ and numb to everything, break down. When I first read the
monologue, I was left feeling shocked. The opening line ‘I’ve had so many men
in me it’s like my insides have been fucked out’ is so strong and powerful and
left me completely engaged with the script and left me wanting to know more
about the character.
Q2.- The piece.
During my first read of the text, I was already starting to create a
scene in my head and started to engage in the emotions felt at particular
points, where I would add pauses and silences and how I would set it out
blocking wise. The piece captivated me straight away, with the opening line
being so strong, and powerful yet ‘emotionless’- This made it feel like a
challenge, to portray someone who is so numb and empty but to have a chance to really
dig deep into their inner emotions of anger, embarrassment, disgust, isolation,
loneliness and the idea of being worthless.
Q3.- Emotional Journey.
I spent a whole double lesson on just
working out the emotional journey of the piece in detail to make sure I was
clear on the character and the emotions I wanted to portray. The start is
angry, with the word ‘fuck’ being repeated in a manner of disgust and
frustration. For the first 2 paragraphs, the emotions felt are hate, bitterness
and anger. After the line “Wrap my arms round my body as though I’m holding
myself together”, I decided to leave a silence after this line to have time to
show a thought process and an emotion change as the next line shows a different
side to Stella- “I can never bare to look at them afterwards”. In this 2nd
part, I want to convey Stella as naive, worthless, ashamed, lonely, embarrassed,
dirty and numb. As the first part is fast paced to portray anger and
frustration, I wanted to slow the second part down with more pauses and
silences to insinuate thought processes, reminiscing and emotion changes. Therefore,
this shows a huge emotional range and is the reason why it engaged me and will
hopefully engage the audition panel, which is why I chose it.
Q4.- Acting Skills.
I have chosen to face straight on and to
the panel throughout my monologue to involve and engage them more. This helps
me create the feeling that I am talking to someone (Alan) and that helps my
imagination, meaning my performance is more realistic and believable. I am
using stillness in my piece to convey Stella’s emptiness and her feeling numb
to everything. I want to use one or two big movements to portray Stella’s’
frustration or disgust but when showing a softer side of Stella, I want to
include small, minimal movements to make her seem small and vulnerable. I want the monologue to come across as
conversational, so I wanted Stella to seem relaxed and laid back in her seat. I
portray this by sitting with my leg crossed and slouched back into the chair. The
pauses and silences I use are to show my thought processes, but also to shock
the audience, for example, I paused after the first line “I’ve had so many men
in me it’s like my insides have been fucked out” for a dramatic effect. The
powerful line with the long pause afterwards make the audience sit there,
trying to work out the story behind this empty, lonely girl. It makes the
audience sympathise with Stella and makes them sit there, shocked and
interested in what she has to say next. During the lines, “I can never bare to
look at them afterwards, so I cower a little, let them believe I’m terrified to
look into your eyes” and “I feel your taste in my mouth. I want to spit you,
your taste out of my mouth” I articulate every word, to show an inner disgust
and that I’m spitting the words out at Alan.
Q5.- Research.
I tried to research my part through
watching other people perform it and seeing how they portrayed the character
and how they delivered the monologue, but there are no videos or individual
reviews on people that have performed this monologue. However, I think this was
a good thing as I was trying to create a new side to Stella anyway. This gave
me a blank canvas to start working on. As I said in Question 2, I already
started visualising Stella, her emotions, her characteristics and surroundings
after just one read of the monologue. Reading reviews of the play helped me see
how Stella fit into the other characters lives and this made realise how insignificant
she was and this helped when creating the emotion for the monologue- used,
empty, worthless, dirty etc.
