BODIES UNFINISHED- STELLA

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 2^nd 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.