September 17

Similar to last night, I chose to really focus on one aspect of my performance and character tonight. Since the beginning of my costume fittings, I have been speaking with Kevin about exploring some levels of dishevelment throughout the show as I lose control and as things get more hectic. This was something I had already been partially implementing, but I wanted to focus on the ways in which I could become more disheveled and where these transformations could occur tonight. Some of the things I talked about in my fitting with Kevin were taking off my jacket (which I already have a designated spot for because it is part of my blocking), rolling up my sleeves, loosening my tie, and letting my hair get messed up. I’ve been doing some of these each night, but haven’t been super consistent about when I do them or which ones I do. As I reflect more, I like the idea of getting more and more disheveled throughout the show and think it would be powerful to add all of these methods into my action for the show. To start, I established an order of how things would happen, once again looking at my stress levels throughout the piece, but also taking into account the ways that the heat would be affecting me and which methods of dishevelment would also potentially help to alleviate the heat. The logical first step would be to take off my jacket–any of the other methods of dishevelment don’t make a lot of sense if they occur while the jacket is still on my person, especially if they are used at all to alleviate the heat. The first moment past this that struck me was the diagram of the apartment being brought in and how I would respond to having to hold that. I would have seen the diagram in the courtroom, so I would know that we were about to bring a large, potentially heavy object into the room and that I would be expected to carry it. I thought about how I might alter my clothes if I was going to be expected to do that whilst wearing nice clothes, and it immediately occurred to me that I would probably roll up my sleeves to be less constricted in my arms and to prevent anything snagging on my shirt and ruining it. This gave me my first moment of change in my outfit. The other two moments that I found were much easier to pinpoint because they were more easily related to stress. The next moment that I highlighted was after the “I’ll kill her” fight, loosening my tie and unbuttoning the top button. This would be a moment where I exert myself, so part of the unbuttoning allows me to access more of my neck with my handkerchief, but also showcases a moment of stress. The final moment is messing up my hair in another moment of incredibly high stress when Juror 3 almost stabs Juror 8. I’m happy with the moments that I’ve chosen and I think it shows a really good development in the stress of my character and how the events of the show affect me.