Uta Hagen’s 9 Questions

On By tylerjohnson19In Ensemble Performance

Dirty Butterfly

    1. Who am I? – Name, age, physical traits, education, personal opinions, likes and dislikes, fears, ethics & beliefs
    2. What time is it? – Year, season, day, minute
    3. Where am I? – country, city/town, building, room
    4. What surrounds me? – environments, landscape, people & objects
    5. What are the given circumstances? (Information I can draw out from the text) – what has happened, what is happening, what is going to happen?
    6. What are my relationships? – objects, space, theme/idea, other characters, people not in the play
    7. What do I want? – right here right now & overall (objectives & super objectives), motivation: purpose
    8. What is in my way? – obstacles preventing me from getting what I want
    9. What do I do to get what I want? – verbal & physical actions I take

 

  1. My character’s name is Jason. I interpreted the character as being 25, slim, and having a lack of education: simple Maths and English. From my given circumstances I have concluded that I also lack physical human touch. To make the character’s obsession more unholy and uncomfortably strange, I envisioned Jason having a Catholic upbringing. I expect Jason to be currently introverted but having a past full of friends and being social. I believe Jason has lost all of his confidence.
  2. Both I and the other two in this play agreed that the story would be more unsettling if we imagined that it was Winter, mid-afternoon on a Saturday. The idea that it would be cold helps us become more unsettled and anxious and we decided that it being mid-afternoon would contrast our characters from what the considered ‘normal people’ do. Instead of living our lives or working on the weekends, we are stuck in our hidden lives: separate from the rest of the world in the middle of the day. As the play is modern, we kept the date as 2019. That can give us an idea of the culture around us.
  3. We are in London in a rough flat building. The walls are thin. We know this because we can hear one another quite clearly. Therefore, the flats are likely cheaply made.
  4. I imagine that the rest of the flat building is dirty and cheap and in a rough state. The walls are made of unpainted concrete and many others live in the same building. The furniture around me is minimal yet there is a lot of clutter and mess. This helps me connect with a character that has an unusual life and is in a messy mental state which reflects on my home. Jo and Amelia are next door to me and I am well aware of their presence.
  5. I can hear Jo next door, I’m listening in because I enjoy hearing what goes on with her and what Jason might assume is an abusive boyfriend. It’s unlikely that Jason has any concept of what may happen in the future and instead he is stuck thinking that this will be his life.
  6. I have a past, (unknown to the audience) relationship with Amelia. Maybe we had a romantic relationship for a brief amount of time. I don’t know Jo and I probably never speak to her but she is the one I listen in to next door and I know a lot about what goes on in her life. There are no objects presented in the piece but realistically Jason would have many things around in his home that I imagine he has no attachment to much like the relationship he has with other people.
  7. On the surface, I want to listen in to Jo. More deeply, I want to stop my urges and be normal and want to not want to listen in.
  8. Knowing that my urges are odd – and knowing Amelia and Jo would find my behavior strange – makes me emotionally less able to listen in comfortably. My obsession is getting in the way of me being normal.
  9. I confront myself more within the play, realising my obsession isn’t normal and I try to stop myself.

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