Character work

We got into groups of people playing the same character, others playing Ranyevskaya are; Rhianne, Romy, Lauren, Robin and Eloise. We first began by discussing what we all thought Ranyevskaya's super-objective is and how we may approach to incorporating that into our performance. We looked at many different aspects, such as; to reminisces, to escape her past, to retain her present, to care for others and to love and be loved.

Ranyevskaya is extremely guilty of running from the problems in her past rather than facing them full on, this is suggested by the fact she ran from the orchard to Paris, yet once things fell negative in Paris, she ran back - "Paris is over and done with." This is futher supported by how she still mourns terribly over the loss of her son when she's triggered by Trofimov's presence on the estate "..my little boy was drowned..." - This suggests that one of her objectives could be 'to reminisce' as she keeps constant thought on the past and events that have happened previously.  But she also states "If only I could forget my past!" when referencing to the orchard and nursery, this could suggest she does want to move on and can't help think about the past - which could make one of her objectives "to escape her past" and "to retain her present." However, I feel that she will be forever unable to escape the past she keeps running from and live in the present as she fails to move on and face the situations that have happened to her and she does so, they will be chasing her.

Overall we decided that Ranyevskaya's super-objective is "to be loved" as we felt that she seems to be searching for love and acceptance everywhere she runs to, whether that be love found in her family and her children, the orchard and the estate or romantic love in a significant other. Her need to find love is suggested by events in her past, "I married a man who made nothing of his life but debts" - This suggests that in her first marriage she perhaps got caught up in the idea of being a wife and being married to a man that she didn't possibly know him as well as she thought she might have done - you wouldn't give you heart to someone and marry them if you thought they'd just turn yours and their life into debts. She then says her "..misfortune was to fall in love with someone else..", this instantly gives the idea that her relationship has negative connotations and perhaps, again, she didn't think it through before falling into love and a relationship with this man. She says "..I gave myself to him..." suggesting that she completely gave her all to this man and their relationship, this could be because of the loss she suffered with her previous husband's death and she felt the need to fill the void he left behind as quickly as possible. After moving to Paris, her new husband robbed her "...robbed me openly..." and completely threw her aside to be with another woman - this gives the idea that the relationship was perhaps one sided and that Ranyevskaya's desperate need to be loved blindsided her. She found herself filling with need to return home to her family "..yearning for Russia, for my daughter!.." suggesting that as she couldn't find love to fill the empty void in Paris or out of Russia, she comes home searching for it in the place and in the people she knows best - back at the estate, hence the cause of her return. All of these different points give the sense of her longing and desperation to simply find love and be loved which, I feel, is definitely something that drives her character's sub-objectives and smaller goals - henceforth why it is scene as her overall super-objective.

Looking at her objectives and super-objectives really helped me understand her mindset and how I may approach portraying that in rehearsals and the performance. By understanding her super-objective I can begin to understand in more detail why she may react to certain things in the way she does and why she may say certain lines and how they may effect her character overall. It also helps me understand the relationships between her and other characters and why how these relationships may be effected by her super-objective. It really helps me understand the motivation behind everything that Ranyevskaya does and I will definitely build further on it as I go further into developing her character and my scenes.

We then looked at Ranyevskaya's physicality and how we felt we should approach performing her. She's a motherly character and cares for her family and children very much, this could influence her to be quite calm and light with her physicality - echoing a stereotypical mother's physicality. But, to portray the tension that riddles behind her character, we decided that she often fiddles with things and occasionally places her hand on her head to present how tense she really is. I really liked working with the other Ranyevskaya's to develop on her characterisation and physicality as it really gave me an idea of how other people may perceive and approach Ranyevskaya's character themselves. Bringing our ideas and suggestions together really helped us develop creative and successful outcomes that are extremely useful in understanding and developing her character in all aspects. It also means we all have the same sense and ideas about the character so when we are all portraying her separating, it's obvious that she's still the same character.