I performed as one of The Creature’s in our production. The Creatures are extensions of The Man’s inner-psyche which is a really fun concept to play around with. The Creatures are adaptable and portray varied emotions. When playing a Creature I need to make swift changes between contributing to a very serious atmosphere to a scene which is much more up-beat and humorous.

We’ve been working as a company on experimenting with our devising process, taking on different personas to form our characters as The Creatures. We tried becoming physically monkeys, an animal so close to being human yet still different.

We’ve also worked on our Memory scene in which we have taken inspiration from Beckett’s Play, specifically the 2001 film version (Minghella, 2001). We have a representation of The Man in the centre who speaks a beautifully written, poetic recollection; then the Creatures start to slowly enter with an unnerving presence. When The Creatures begin to speak it is now fast and deadpan as not to draw attention away from what is being said. Originally we moved with the words however the text was lost among the movements.

We have also been working on moments where The Creatures and The Man do the same motion at the same time for example in The Awakening erratic movements we synchronise movement such as wiping the forehead or pushing the hair back to show that we The Creatures are as much a part of him as he is of us. We’re working hard on showing that connection so that the audience can easily understand what/who The Creatures are in relation to The Man on The Bike.

Works Cited

Minghella, A. (dir.) (2001) Beckett on Film: Play [film].