Being Martha

With Uta Haggen's principles for creating a character in context, we began performing our self-written monologues in class today. We were only able to get through three of them, mines included. This character that I had created through the three separate monologues of the past, present, and future was quite hard to portray. Initially, I had imagined all of the monologues as a comedy considering that my stimulus what a knight's helmet. So the first monologue I wrote, the past, was consequently understood as comedic. As I thought about how this character would progress in time, I began to draw from personal experiences to create an emotional and dramatic setting in which the character had suddenly transformed into a neglected and ignored child. Much of my character's, Martha's, hate stemmed from the ongoing divorce of her parents for which she ultimately blamed her father. I chose to present this monologue to the class in introduction of my character. Though based in personal experiences, I felt I didn't do the monologue justice at all. Focused on the lines rather than what I was saying, I slowed down the pace and found myself repeating things over and over again. Eventually I even had to improv a bit when I began losing my place. My teacher commented that considering my environment was my bedroom, a place of security and closeness for all people, I failed in exuding such sentiments. So blocking was an issue in that area as well. If anything, I felt this exercise to be a catharsis. One of my classmates was heralded as the best example of building a character as her motives and obstacles were clearest. I guess for this particular exercise, simple was the best way to go.