Characterisation 29/09/14 MG

Characterization

 

In today's lesson we looked further into the characterization of Stanley, Blanch and Stella from 'A streetcar named Desire'. We first did a frantic assembly warm up to get us up and moving ready to do some improvisation. We then created still images from scene 3 in the play where we see Stanley calling for Stella to come back after he had violently hit her, Michael and Hannah did a really good example of the idea that Stanley stood for his dominance and masculinity however still relied on Stella's presence to calm him and almost that he feels he would be destroyed without Stella being there with his and possibly feeling slightly dependent on Stanley much like a child is on their mother. Michael and Hannah's interpretation of this was Stella stood with her back towards Stanley while Stanley grabbed her hand looking hopeless. Me and James created a still images of Stella standing up while Stanley was on his knees with his head resting on Stella's stomach, this was our attempt to show the child like image of Stanley and Stella's relationship to hit on Stanley's childlike dependence on Stella like a mother and her son.

 

After doing this we continued on to pursue in doing some improvisation using the idea of Stanley and Stella's marriage. We looked at the scene 4 where Stella first brings up their marriage and how Stanley smashed light bulbs with the heel of her slipper. We were then asked to improvise Stella first telling Blanche that she was getting married. Personally James and I felt that we were to set this before Blanche had ever met Stanley in order to rid of tension and upset from the improvisation but to show the "sisterly love" between the two characters and show Blanches reaction to marriage on a whole and not just to Stanley being the groom. This is because we wanted to hit on Blanches past marriage to show her sorrow of marriage and show hoe her experiences have affected her overlook on marriage.