National theatre connections- self tape

National Theatre Connections – Self Tape

 

For the Connections performance ‘Remote’ we had to submit a self tape for the characters we want to go for. I read the play at home on Monday night so I was clear with who all the characters are and the storyline. After reading this I was no longer interested in Crystal like I was after the first time we read it a few months ago. It seemed I got her all wrong the first time I read it. I thought she was the sweet older sister which is actually Antler, I got them mixed up in my mind. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to go for Antler because she’s completely different to Violet and would give me something completely new and different to work with. I think Antler is a character that hides her emotions at the beginning and builds up for her outbreaks throughout the play. I think Antler shares an important messages to the audience to the problems the world is facing today. For an example, she mentions the pressure young people are under to ‘save the world’ because of problems like the climate crisis. Antler is also a character that accurately shows another way teens are under pressure. She has a lot of responsibility at home with her mom and dad both showing signs of depressions, then her having her little sister who she feels like she needs to protect and look after. Antler is the one who is arranging to go and see her grandma with her sister which is usually a parents job. I think Stef (the writer) does a good job of writing Antler in a way that she accurately represents how so many people feel when they have pressure on them and they feel under appreciated and stuck, they blame it on something else that sounds like a valid reason and have explosive behaviours like smashing her phone. I tried to incorporate all of these feelings of sensitivity and vulnerability into my self tape because the scene I picked was when she took of the mask of problems and revealed what was really wrong. I’ll put in a video of the self tape I sent to Kelly, that I decided best conveyed antlers feelings. There was also a self tape that I filmed that I didn’t like because I didn’t feel like it was Antler, it was a bit too soft and not enough anger. I think the self tape I sent accurately shown the vulnerability by putting high pitched parts of my voice to make it seem like she’s on the edge. I do worry though that I might have put too much sensitivity into it that won’t show Kelly and Kane the anger that I could also bring to it. I worry that they think that I won’t be able to do the angry scenes because I only picked a soft scene but I didn’t think of this till after I’d sent it off so I’d add a bit more anger is I could go back. 

  

Finn is probably the most complex character in the play. There’s no mention of her backstory or why she’s with the gang except she needs protection. Skin and Blister and the gang are the only people there for her, she doesn’t go to school and she doesn’t mention any family but there’s no answers to any of these questions. You get to completely mould her into anything and anyone you want her to be, you get to create her story. I made up a story that she spent a lot of her life in a foster home without a family, I think she met skin and blister through mutual friends there. I think now she’s with a foster family who doesn’t care about her and are only doing it for the money, they don’t care if she has an education or not or where she goes and who with. She’s been hiding who she is from her only friends because she doesn’t think they’ll accept her. She doesn’t fit into the gang and they don’t even notice her. When I played this character I wanted to do it different than how I played Antler, less emotional more like she was warning Crystal. I wanted to give her a personality that would be different to what you’d expect from gang members. I wanted her to be quite sweet and also with more personality. I sent Kelly a self tape for this but now I’m not sure if I made the dog situation with Blister and Skin a bit too lighthearted so going back is maybe add a bit more emotion to that. But I do like how much personality I gave her.