Finding your character's voice

Theatre is voice – the spoken word. Well of course it is also the acted engagement but I am after all trying to write a script – that which is spoken. This exercise challenges the writer to develop a brief monologue that the character might initiate to express each of a number of different sentiments. After writing the monologues read them thru – do they sound like one voice? Ideally you then pick another character and go thru a similar process of monologue writing. Read those – do they constitute one voice – and a distinctly different one from the first?

I explored some of this one voice perspective in Jeff Culbert’s Script Analysis workshop at the Piggyback Fringe 2009. He took us thru the exercise of reading just one character's lines and “plotting the temperature” – noting when things change. How the anti goes up ... and down ... and upper ...

I found this very challenging because of mom’s increasing inability to carry on a detailed conversation – her inability to indulge an emotion for too long – that was great when she got pissed off because it was easy to distract her – but our relationship became progressively shallower – her piss and vinegar was ebbing - as I wrote in summer 2006 in Real Blood ...

you talk of
“going to prison”
with almost none of that emotion
I have grown to fear
But want to hear
That sign of life
Of resistance
Of will

So I need to ask myself "?is this a play of monologues" – who are the characters talking to or with – is Alice Munro the third person in the room – like the audience – maybe she is the fly on the wall – maybe she is pondering writing a play and

One of the heavy revelations is that I cannot remember very much before the painful last few months – the just being there and chatting to be close and sitting together on the couch and the leaving so angry and sad

I know there was alot more than that – check the photos – but ... anyway here are first monologues – mom talking and me (and others) listening...

I am angry – They say I have Alzheimer’s. I hate this disease. Why do they have to do all these tests? What good are they – the doctors do not know what they are doing. I am just a guinea pig – nobody would keep a sick dog alive. It is so unfair

I am sad – I want to go home. I am lonely here. Please take me home. When can I go home? I want to go home.

I am afraid. The phone doesn’t work. How can I call you? I don't know your number. Please write your number down. All the phone numbers have disappeared from my phone book. I have lost my phone book.

I am pissed off. They took my license away. What about KB – he is 90 years old and still can drive. I drove with him yesterday. Only had a little accident – running into the pillar in the parking lot. Now I am stuck in the house. I cannot visit my friends. Why did you let them do that?

I love you. Thank you for taking care of me. My being sick is taking so much of your time. I couldn't do this without you. You need to get on with your own life.

I am proud of you. You have a wonderful child and a good wife and a nice house. I really enjoy your travelogues.

I am embarrassed by you. Nobody else dresses like that. Nobody else talks like that. Grown up people do not act like that. You just want to embarrass me. Why do you want to make me embarrassed? Everybody else your age has stays home and has a job and cares about what people think. Don't you care about what people think? People will think haven
I never expected this. Nobody asked me if I wanted to move. It was just a little accident. |Nobody told me that the house was being sold. You never asked me. This is how old people get treated – people just do whatever they want and tell them later

Part two – me talking to mom - pending...