Curious Incident: Day 20/21

We are now really close to the performance, with only two rehearsals left after today. These past two days we have been running through Act 1 and 2 and refining out as much as we can to make sure it is as good as it can be. We have tried to do as much as we can without scripts and have found it has ran a lot more easily without them and at the same time helps us get used to thye fact that thgere is no longer the security of a script in front of us.

One thing we have focused on is the very tiny nitty gritty aspects, like making sure that our ensemble pieces have everyone standing in the right position, that everyone knows the lines for lifts to go into slow motion, that we are giving as much energy as possible, that we eneter and exit in the right places and we know our scripts of by heart. Again, we have been running our ensemble pieces, making sure they are as good if not better as the last time we done them. It is really close to looking like a complete and finished article, we need to just keep learing our lines and cues.

My research this week looks into the characteristics of someone with severe autism, like Christopher, possesses, which coincides with my targets as an actor. This will help me give accurate and realsitic portrayals of my characters with Christopher and shows that I am able to research effectively and incorporate my research into my performance.

Very little or no eye contact.

Resistance to being held or touched

Difficulty understanding jokes, figures of speech or sarcasm.

Difficulty reading facial expressions and body language.

Difficulty understanding the rules of conversation.

Difficulty understanding group interactions.

Gives spontaneous comments which seem to have no connection to the current conversation.

Makes honest, but inappropriate observations.

Seems unable to understand another’s feelings.

Prefers to be alone, aloft or overly-friendly.

Finds it easier to socialize with people that are older or younger, rather than peers of their own age. 

Talks excessively about one or two topics (dinosaurs, movies, etc.). 

Minimal acknowledgement of others.

As, Roger, I believe I need to know some of these characteristics such as being unable to understand others feelings, hence why Roger gets angry with Christoper. I believe Roger knows that Christopher has trouble understanding figures of speech and facial expressions, but uses that to his advantage in the fact Roger doesn't care what he says as he passes Christopher off as stupid and knows he won't undertsand him.

As the Duty Sergeant I need to know all of these and perhaps try to gain his eye contact throughout my conversation with him and try to ignore the honest but inappropriate remarks such as "But it was'nt an accident." When he is being questioned. I think the Duty Sergeant would have to use the least amount of facial expressions as he can as he knows Christopher will not understand, therefore has to be as blunt as possible.

Another individual target I have set myslef is to go back through my script, annotating as much as I can, that being subtext or cue lines or reasons, addressing my tone, accents. body language and diction to make sure my annotated script is detailed and to a good standard, whilst giving the best variety in my characters and making them as convincing as possible.

In terms of setting a target that the group needs to do, I would say a run through of everyhtinh without the scripts would bge very beneficial. It would highlight areas that need last minute work and areas we still need to learn. It will help expose our weakest parts in the performance so we can work on refining them the most, leading to the play becoming more solid and interesting as a result.