LESSON FOUR. 03|10|12. - ‘Role Play’

We stood outside the drama room where he first asked if anyone was claustrophobic, he then put a make shift head bag over her head and took her through to the drama studio. We remained outside and when he returned sent Matt through into the other drama studio. He then told me, Chris, Emily and Ciara that we were police interrogating Kelly for paedophilia. We were totalitarian and therefore we had the most power and could therefore do or say anything. The police were to be on the scene two at a time, so it would be me and Emily then Chris and Ciara. Everyone in the group was told that if we said ‘saferoom’ we would be taken to the office and that was the only place we were allowed to come out of character. 

When we entered the room there was a table with a stick laying across it, a deodorant spray and some pliers. Kelly was sat on a chair facing the front with the bag on her had and cable ties around her thumbs joining them together. This was a very uneasy image. But, we had to keep in mind what her character had done and act upon this. At first it was really hard because Kelly didn’t respond to anything we asked her. Once she started to reply it was easy to build up more angry responses. Then sir joined in with us, showing us to not be afraid to be more aggressive. It go to a point where I was threatening to cut off Kelly’s little finger with the pliers, and we’d built up so much tension that she called ‘saferoom’ where she was allowed to have a break. Jake had arrived later, so he took the part of Kelly and me and Emily were replaced by Chris and Ciara. Watching a very similar performance was just as unnerving as acting it, very terrifying. We continued switching people as sir introduced more of a back story to the situation, our acting became stronger and very intense. We did this for around 45 minutes, and then reflected on the role play. Using this Stanislavsky method acting we got a strong performance and it allowed us to think ‘what if I was actually in this situation’. It also helped build on improvisational skills with more depth as it was a much longer period of time.