Day 3: A Doll's House, by Henrik Ibsen

For most of the play, I found myself uncomfortably disliking the chracter of Nora, but being drawn in because she reminded me of some of the traits I like least in myself. She wears a mask around those who love her, talks too much with people who don't want to listen and too little with people who do, and has this awful dichotomy of desperately wanting to look out for herself while hiding what she's done for someone else (but under dubious circumstances) to the point where it can no longer be managed when it emerges. The characters around her are mostly remarkably understanding, apart from her husband, who is a dick.

OK, that's the short version.

I read Nora aloud as I went through, and as much as I found myself understanding the character as a bit of a horrific reflection of myself, I did also find that even cold-reading came very easily. I did find myself commenting part way through that I don't think I would be comfortable playing Nora to a crowd, at least not for more than a short while. I feel that a big part of getting into the skin of another character involves sort of switching control over to a new part of my brain, but Nora seems driven by things that are emotionally very close to home for me.

The promise of being able to distance myself from a character afterwards makes it a lot easier to really let that character feel her emotions and give a good performance. I find it in LARP quite often, I will come home utterly drained but after a good sleep and reconnecting with the real world, I can leave the character behind even when it's one I return to often. I played a character a few years ago, for a couple of seasons, who I based on my own understanding of my inner child. Threw as much sugar and caffeine down my neck as I could and went for it. It was enourmous fun, but I really struggled to get out of her headspace afterwards and would sometimes still be talking in the character's accent for days afterwards. The effect was impressive - most of the people I've spoken to afterwards about it told me they found the character to be believable, well played, fun to interact with... and capturing that kind of energy every time is only going to be possible if I can snap out of it again afterwards.