Skipping to the End

Have you ever looked back at yourself a few years earlier and wondered: "Who the heck was I?  I would never do that today!"  Or:  "I cannot believe I was so green."  It is a natural part of life that we live and grow constantly and that what we become, sometimes, is so different to what we were that we can hardly acknowledge that the you-now and the you-then are even the same person.  Some folks actively pursue change through self-improvement but most of us, without realizing it, are learning all the time, changing constantly, and becoming something new, something wiser, not always better, but always evolving.

Plays can be viewed as microcosms rife with change.  Something is happening here: something very important; something by which absolutely everyone will be affected.  Every character, from the chorus boy to the leading lady, will be touched in some way by the prominent story arc and, because of it, will change and will evolve into something new.  In some cases, that evolution will entail the individual literally changing her mind or actions completely.  In some cases, the change will involve the person becoming more rigid or justified in his beliefs.  But, something will happen in that character's head out of the process of the show that will require or force that character to grow - for the good or the bad.

And it is that growth, that dawning understanding, that realization of caring or hatred, that ownership of need that we, as an audience, recognize in our bones, identify with, and makes us love that character.  It's the journey that makes us care about them - whether they triumph in the end or no.  It's the journey.

So, I invite all my gentle readers, when preparing to present a character onstage or in scene study, to ask yourself two questions:

1. Who is this person at the beginning of the play/scene?
2. Who is this person at the end of the play/scene?

When you know where the character starts and where the character ends, much will become clear.  How did the person behave at the beginning?  Is she flippant and fun?  Is he morose and brooding?  How does this person behave at the end?  Does she become serious and forthright?  Does he lighten and open his heart?  Answers to these questions will give you clues on general character body work, energy, pitch of voice.  Answers to these questions will tell you how the character moves, talks, holds her head even, and especially, if the character seems not to change.

And how the heck does she get from point A to point B?  What moments affect her?  Where does she have her epiphanies?  Reading the story for moments of change is a great way to identify the character's journey and will fuel your own creativity as an artist trying to honestly portray a character in crisis.

So many shows lose the journey, somehow.  We are often presented, at the beginning, with the creature into which the character should, finally, evolve.  Sadly, so many shows skip to the end.



Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Kidsplay 2012:  The Mayan Prediction opening June 20. 2012 at the Palmerston Library Theatre for one night only, and The Last Five Years for TOKL Productions running July 20-21st, 2012 at the Alum Studio.  Next year, she is looking forward to producing/directing her own show in the fall, directing Love Letters for Encore Entertainment, and directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild.  She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  She is preparing for two Shakespeare is Boffo! summer camp sessions for 2012.

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Jacqui Burke
Artistic Director
Jaybird Productions
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