The Experience VS Structure

I love to act and perform on stage; I like becoming new characters because it allows me to become a completely different person for a while and I get to entertain an audience. And I know how much work it takes from me to get to a point when the character is starting to evolve from me just reading lines to eventually be able to flick a switch and become my version of this character given to me.

I never actually knew just how much work had to get done in order to create characters and write plays. I’m still in the beginning stages where I have a couple of ideas for characters and a few play ideas but I’m not entirely sure how to make them come alive and link together; and I had no idea how to allow a character to develop through a play as it progresses. I think that once I have more theory and have taken part in more workshops then my writing will become better which is much like performing on stage – if you have a solid foundation of the theory and practice and have the experience of doing it then that’s what makes you better.

At our last workshop we had the amazing Nicola McCartney explain how she writes and develops a play as well as character development. She took the time to explain how to roughly structure a play and gave us 10 minutes to write a very basic play which is surprising hard. We had to create a secret that one of the characters was trying to overcome without actually saying what it was, this created mystery and allowed us to discuss what we thought it was. By doing this it allows ideas to develop further and you can listen to what others think allowing more ideas of what they are going through develop.

She went on to discuss about how a character needs goals to achieve, the obstacles they face trying to achieve them and what tactics they can use to get past them. I thought this was really helpful because putting it to paper helps me to make sense of my ideas. By mapping out a character’s journey to their goal it will allow me to develop my characters better. I learned a lot about how plays are structured and how to map a character’s journey I think this will help me greatly.

Recently we have also watched Iphigenia in Splott a one woman play on Digital Theatre +. It talked about alcohol and drug addictions, relationship issues and the impact the loss of a child can have on a person. The character goes through many changes from being the stereotypical council estate drug user to someone wanting to be a better person all because she met someone she thought loved her. She accidentally gets pregnant, but she flips her life upside down for the sake of her unborn child. The character Effie really kept me engaged and I wanted her to keep talking because the stories she was telling were really interesting and different. I got the message that you don’t know everyone’s story of how they came to be and what struggles they went through. Having watched this play, I think we can all relate to it because we all know someone going through these types of situations. I am thinking of how I could create a one person play and whether or not I could manage this well enough to portray the issues that people are experiencing and if it would be interesting enough to hold an audience’s attention.

I haven’t officially started writing my play yet, but I have been creating ideas using the bold image and big problem strategy from a previous workshop to create more ideas. I have been working on character development and I have been creating my own characters and creating fact files about them. Hopefully by doing this I will find it easier to create characters for my final play idea.

Rachel Anderson

Rachel is part of the Bunbury Banter Young Playwrights Programme 2019-2020