Sunday, May 22, 2016

My Character


Recently, we have been working on the scenes in this production where I play Jay Bird. Getting into the head of this character, who seems like a stereotypical news reporter at first glance, has been very interesting. At first, I was frustrated that the cheesy script consistently got in the way as we struggled to play our characters honestly. Then, I decided to use the stereotypical traits to my advantage. There must be a reason that people show the traits they do that make others feel they fit a certain stereotype. I began to think, “What makes Jay Bird seem like any news reporter without many unique traits?”. I decided that his super objective, the main thing he is trying to achieve, is getting a good story. He wants to make people like his story, and this becomes a priority over communicating facts. He says many things to get everybody watching his channel to feel a certain way such as, “Can you manage a tear for the camera?”, “That’s good. Defensive yet emotional.”, “Some viewers may find this image disturbing.”, and “In a sinister new development”. He very rarely communicates actual information about the incident. Nobody cares about a whole bunch of random information, but people care about their own emotions. Jay Bird needs people to care about his stories or he will lose his job. I came to a conclusion that my character doesn’t have a lot of “human moments” because he is constantly trying not to lose his job. In fact, Jay Bird doesn’t demonstrate his true feelings about his news story until his final exit.


One challenging aspect of my character has been his transatlantic accent. The transatlantic (or midatlantic) accent was not a natural accent. Important people trained to use the dialect in the 1920’s to 1950’s since it made them sound more distinguished and was picked up by the radio waves more easily. It did not fall out of use until the late 1950’s because honesty was not the focus of performers. (Our story takes place in an early 1950’s social climate.) The artificial aspect of the accent makes it more challenging since it is hard to know how subtle to make it. Is it overdramatic to make sure that people hear my story through the radio waves? How well-trained is Jay Bird at the transatlantic accent? Does his inadequate accent contribute to the fact that he is always struggling to not be fired? Since he is the most famous television figure in the duckyard, is he one of the most stellar performers with the accent? I will continue to think about this issue as I work on my accent for future rehearsals. Another challenge has been the logistics of the accent. I wrote each of my lines into my script phonetically to help me when I was working on saying my lines with my accent, but I still have many things I am working on understanding. How much do I soften the vowels? Am I putting emphasis on every “t” or did I forget some? I am confident that I will be able to make progress with the requirements of the transatlantic accent as we continue to rehearse. At our last rehearsal, Jacob talked with me since he participates in radio news for speech contest. He told me about how they worked on putting breaths at strategic places and not breathing in places where it wouldn’t help sell your story. I thought this was a very interesting idea, and I have been working on making every single thing I do contribute to my objective.


During my second scene as Jay Bird, the scene begins with my character in the middle of giving a live broadcast about the disappearance of Ugly. Every movement I make is supposed to contribute to making the story more dramatic than it is. Kivan encouraged me to watch Robert Stack as the host of Unsolved Mysteries. It really helped me think about how to make every aspect of the production, my television show, contribute to the story. It also gave me a concept of what tactics I could use when my character tries to tell a story in the most interesting way. I am going to build off of these ideas to create my own way of being a news reporter. One of the dangers of watching other performers is losing your originality and honesty and trying to copy them instead. I will try my hardest to remain honest, even when I am getting ideas from another actor. When we blocked my scenes Kivan challenged me with many fascinating ideas. He made me think, “Does Jay Bird start to care about the story when Ida gets involved? When he sees the affect this situation has had on Drake does he start to care? Does he always have selfish motives?” I decided that Jay Bird is always trying to get a good story when he is on camera, but as soon as he is not being seen by the general public he has true emotions. He is no longer at risk of losing his job. I used this idea when I decided that he would show his true feeling about the issue after he is done filming the episode he is working on. He doesn’t care a lot about what is actually happening within the story, but he sees that Drake is suffering when his wife is gone and shows sympathy. I think that most people would have to feel compassion toward Drake when he is in the state that he is.

I am having a blast exploring this character and the other animals that I play as I am sharing the story of Honk!. I am trying to put equal consideration into my parts when I am playing characters in the ensemble, such as a farmyard animal, a frog, and a father duck. I am so excited to keep on exploring this show and watching everybody explore their characters. I am amazed at every rehearsal by what we are accomplishing as an ensemble.




Ben Siegel
Jay Bird