As I have never been casted the same role as someone else in a cast I really want to focus on my own interpretation of my character as much as I can. We were asked to think of at least two ideas for our characters origin or past-
- Mimi didn't have a father figure at a young age because her father left due to troubles with his wife, Mimi's mother, and money, so she had to take on that responsibility herself to look after her younger siblings (two brothers). This has lead to her not wanting to be feminine and being afraid of seeming 'girly' and vulnerable in that way later in life.
- She had a boyfriend before moving to The Alphabet City who gave her aids due to unprotected sex and was the person that introduced her to harmful drug use. The problems with her father as previously mentioned caused her to fall hard for this man even though she knew he was bad for her but because she was weak in self esteem at the time she ended up being abused by him and only stayed with him for the drugs. When he found out that she had aids he left her, which is why she is afraid to tell people she has aids or make it into a problem because she is afraid of being judged or left alone again. This breakup left her alone with little money and a bad drug problem and so she found herself in NYC trying to make a living like many others.
- Mimi danced when she was little, her parents would pay for her lessons but they couldn't afford it when her father walked out on their family, therefore she had to give up her childhood dream of dancing. This is why she has the job at the Cat Scratch Club, as she has experience in dancing and being feminine is a good thing, this helps her confidence a lot but she only does this for the money, she would rather have more respect off of other people but this is the only job she can get with her lifestyle.
We then, in pairs, created small improvisations with different characters in situations that would reflect the decisions we had just made that would also make sense with our characters. We continued this moving around the room in different partners. This was really helpful for me as I struggled to make up things about my character from her past as I don't know a lot about her, Improvising on the spot is something that I feel very comfortable with and it helped me to come up with more characteristic as I acted my scenes out and gave me an idea of what my character is going to be like in later development and rehearsals. We were then given provocative situations in pairs such as finding a dead body on the street or suspecting a close friend has gotten into drug use and discussing this in character. I also learnt a lot from this exercise because I began to understand how my character would react and interact with different characters in the cast.
From this we made at least 3 definite decisions about our characters that we found out from this workshop-
- She is afraid of being feminine in front of other people in daily life
- Her father left at a young age and she doesn't have a good memory of him
- Doesn't keep in contact with her mother much as she is afraid she'll be disappointed
- She doesn't like or deal with commitment well
This lesson was really beneficial for me as it was the first time I worked with the character of Mimi, I am very excited as I wanted this part a lot and I am looking forward to seeing ho my character develops and how it contrasts with the other Mimi in the other cast. I have learnt a lot about my skills in character development and good techniques in devising, I feel I can use these in performance to keep in character and react or interact appropriately with others on stage.
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