Splendid Productions Everything you place before an audience reads. So in Splendid we preach the following: “Death to Generalisation! All Hail the Detail!” With that in mind we give you: THE SPLENDID CHECKLIST FOR CHARACTERISATION 1 10. a. 12. 1B. Who are you? Why are you there? What are your important relationships? What is your character's function within the story? Who do they represent for the audience? Who do the audience represent to them? In each episode know clearly: WHAT is your character doing? WHY are they doing it? HOW can we make that clear for an audience? For the Epic actor: where are the moments of change? Where might your character have made an alternative choice? What decisions, personality traits, perspectives or behaviour of your character do you as an actor feel compelled to contradict? Where can you do this? How can you do this? Archetypes - which archetypes you are playing in each scene and how your performance choices (vocal and physical) assist in putting this across? What archetypal perspective do we need from your character in this episode? How does it feed into the arguments that we are placing before an audience? Gestus — in each episode what is your character's gestus towards the audience and/or other people inthe scene. Does this change? If so where? Is it clear? Is there a way of making it clearer? Physical silhouette for each character - what is their shape, what does that say about them? How old are they? What is their social class? What is their occupation? What is their gender? All of these will affect the silhouette of your character. Where is the tension in the body? Where is the relexation? This work is especially important for the incidental characters that only appear briefly Where is their physical centre? (physical centre is where your energy comes from and where you direct it towards others) Does it have a physical quality? (hot, cold, warm, brittle, hard, rubbery, rough) Where do they lead from? What does this say about them? How would you justify this? What does it signify for the audience? How do they use the stage space? What does that say about them and their place in society? Psychological gestures (archetypal movements involving the entire body can also be applied to a scene, a line or a moment) ~ develop at least 3 - what do they signify to the audience? Establishing gesture — An establishing gesture to tell us who you are, Clytemnestra for example has a steel thread that she uses to show us what is going on underneath her words. She is always preparing herself for each encounter with the world. It also helps elongate her spine and adjust her posture into one of confidence and readiness. Body language: consider posture, gait, stance, stride do they move in a front foot/back foot way? How does your character hold their hands in relation to their body? Think about what you are doing top to toe ~ have a look at your speeches how can you use gesture to clarify your point. No flaccid hands left hanging at the side of the body ~ unless that is a choice and you can explain why. Rhythm of character ~ make sure that your characters are not the same rhythmically. External and internal might be contradictory. Looking at LABAN and/or ANIMALISATION for inspiration and. ideas about movement, rhythm and approach to stage space. Vocal work — where is each character's voice placed? Tone? Pitch? Intonation? Front of mouth? What vocal resonator serves it best? What does their vocality tell us about them in this moment? Does it change each time that we see them? if so, why? We also ask our actors: Is your character bigger than the world? Oris the world bigger than them? To establish their relationship with the audience we pose these clowning based questions: Does your character... Love your audience Love you You're not sure if you love your audience They're not sure if they love you You don’t love your audience They don’t love you Do your audience...