To develop my role as Fran I answered questions about her in
character to allow me to get into the mind set of Fran Blake. By answering
these questions Fran became more than a 2D character, and was more than someone
placed in the background to add depth to the stage. My answers helped me
develop the reactions that I would have to events within the play, such as my
happiness at the Baron’s return and my sadness for Cinderella having a dreadful
stepmother. The answers I wrote for these questions were something that I could
then refer to constantly when reacting in character. I found that writing in
character was most helpful in developing my character as it helped me
completely remove myself from Fran and so my own opinions did not reflect in
her answers. My role development went into more detail when I started working
closely with Becky to create a small bit of business between our characters. Both
Veronica and Fran work in the village selling fruit and vegetables and so Becky
and I worked together to develop topics of conversation that our characters
would share, such as how ripe our fruit was that day. By building a friendship
with Veronica it allowed me to see the type of character Fran is when around
others. I was able to further develop her cheerfulness to make her extremely likeable
and friendly with anyone she meets.
I found developing the role of Fran quite simple and a lot
of fun to do. By using the technique of writing in character I found myself well
informed about my character from even our early rehearsals, this meant that I
had plenty of time to continue making changes. As I had a good idea of who Fran
was it meant that when Becky and I began to work together closely we had a variety
of things to work from. I think my strength laid in how I was able to place Fran
in any of the scenes and know instantly how she would be reacting because of my
extensive knowledge of her. If I was given another chance to play Fran I would
go a step further and look at changing my voice and physicality to help
separate her from me playing her.
The role of Dancer the fairy was not quite as straight
forward. The work I put into developing this character started much later than
my work on developing Fran, and this meant that I then had to work much quicker
to develop my fairy. This is definitely a weakness I had during role
development as I was slow to find and develop my character meaning that the
scenes that involved the fairies were often flat in earlier rehearsals. However
once I had found a character, I threw myself into it and I was often told that
my character was very noticeable in the fairy scenes. This informed me that I
was on the right track in developing the character and because of my knowledge of
dance I was quickly able to make up for the time I’d lost in earlier rehearsals.
However despite my ability to work quickly in developing my role it was rushed
and so I didn’t achieve creating a fully-rounded character. I was less prepared
with this character and this meant that I was still developing my role in our
very final rehearsals, this meant that the fairy scenes were still becoming
flat at times. If I was to play the role again I would look at creating more
dance mannerisms. I would change the way that I skipped on stage and perhaps
would have choreographed a series of steps that would have been more dance-like
rather than skipping, which may have come across as quite childish. From this
show I have found that I need to give both characters the equal amount of
attention otherwise I will have to work that much harder in the final days
before the show and I found that I did not benefit from that extra stress
Overall I think both of my characters worked well within
Cinderella as they were both suited to the themes and tone of the pantomime.
Fran, like all chorus characters was happy and friendly and helped create the
bright atmosphere of Merrivale. Dancer was quite an odd character that was
quick to be laughed at by the children during the matinees. However I think
that I could have gone further in developing both characters, such as experimenting
with voice and exploring different types of physicality. This would have made
both of the characters stand out more as individuals and then perhaps they
could have been used more within the pantomime.
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