Character Acting Reflection

Today we did an exercise in which we were to play the part of our own characters, and portray them to the class. I played the part of Pierre Cotton, the investigator of Salem and Amelia's future lover, when they first meet. Through this process I really got a chance to learn about things deeper in Pierre's life... how he walks, how he talks, if he's deaf in one ear, how he acts under pressure, (etc.). To play him was a lot different and slightly more difficult than making him up and writing about him. You find that even if you think you know your character... you really don't.

Through watching the other acting performances I realized that when you see a character, the way they present themselves, their mannerisms, (etc.) it tells their story of their lives, because they got the idea to act like this from someone. I also realized that we should make Pierre, perhaps, a bit more exciting and put more of an edge to him. This would make Amelia's attraction to Pierre more understandable. I want to show how his values are, how he copes with things, what his beliefs are without just saying "Pierre's beliefs were bla bla bla...". I want to incorporate it into this art.

What I want to do with Pierre Cotton is I want to make him more complex, edgy, and outspoken instead of this monologued thing we have now. I want him to have a personality behind the professional skin that he is, being an investigator for a town that is "under attack" by withcraft sources.

Specifics on how we are to do this... hmm... perhaps we could give him more troubles of his own? Like, say, his mother just died or such. What we did not want to do, however, is turn this into an overwhelming story of bad things happening (if our readers want a story like that they can always read A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. I recommend the series.).

So, somehow, through the events happening (for we still aren't very sure about what exactly is going to happen in the actual story) we want to make Pierre more interesting and more complex.

Amelia, on the other hand, I thought, was portrayed very well in the performance. I thought we showed her witchy side very well and how she acted around this sudden man who comes into her home to inspect where she keeps her witchcraft tools. We got to see her lie as well, which made it all the better because that is very important in this story. Lying is the key element in The Devil's Trial. Without it the story would become deceased.

In the end I thought that most of the groups that we saw did a good job and I look forward to writing more about our characters.