The Events

Raymond Ryder

Acting for Non-Majors

Professor Sang

9 March 2015

Midterm Paper: The Events

        The Events, a play written by David Greg and Produced by Ramin Gray follows the journey of a gay, female priest as she tries to cope with the massacre of her choir group by a crazed gunman.

The play stars only two actors, Neve McIntosh who plays the main character Claire, and Clifford Samuel who plays the shooter and various other characters that Claire encounters throughout the story. For the purposes of this examination I will be focusing on Clifford’s performance.

1. Mr. Samuel starts off the play by describing to us a scenario where a young African warrior sees Europeans arriving on ships for the first time. He poses a question to audience concerning whether the young warrior should accept the strangers or kill them. Knowing what we know about the slave trade of the time the answer seems to be implied and, while what he is proposing would be a very rash and aggressive decision for someone meeting strangers, he delivers it with a very calm attitude. This does not persist throughout his performance. While it is not revealed to us until a couple scenes later, Samuel is playing the boy that massacred Clair’s choir. The rest of his performance is marked by rapid fluctuations in emotion and energy level as he portrays this character. There are scenes where he depressingly recounts his hardships, optimistically sings about leaving his mark on the world, and manically describes himself to the audience, breaking the forth wall.

In addition to the shooter, Samuel portrays a couple of other characters that Claire comes in contact with as she tries to investigate why the shooter chose to murder the members of the choir. Interestingly, Samuel’s acting methods do not change very much at all as he switches from persona to persona. If I remember correctly, he acts as Claire’s girlfriend, a political figure that the shooter aligned with, a journalist following the story, and a school friend of the shooter. With each new character, Samuel wears he same outfit, uses the same elevated diction, speaks with the same accent, and generally moves about in the same manner (save for when he is playing the more manic side of the shooter).

1. What I inferred from the ways in which Samuel chose to portray the shooter was that we were looking into the mind of a desperate, lonely, crazed youth. When I say “into the mind” I mean it quite literally as well. There are only 2 scenes where the shooter and Claire interact in real life, in the beginning when the massacre occurs and at the end when they speak in the ward/prison where he is being held. In both cases, Samuel acts very calm and simply (for lack of a better word). There are no exaggerated movements or excited speech. In all of his other scenes as the shooter however, his emotional expressions are much more varied and grand, his movements around the stage are more excited, and as I said previously, he breaks the forth wall. This behavior doesn’t fit with the loner that is described in the play or the type of person we see interacting with Claire. This provides the feeling that we are actually in the mind of a lunatic. One question that seems to be a theme throughout the play is why bad or evil things happen. The question plagues Claire as she tries to cope. I believe our ability to see into the shooter’s mind through Samuel’s acting helps point us to the answer that madness exists in the world ad because of that sometimes they just do; there is no reason and trying to search for one is debilitating to the continuation of life.
2. One scene that originally confused me during the play, but started to make more sense as I thought on it after was one where Claire is fighting with her girlfriend. As I said earlier, there seemed to be very little to no change with Samuel’s acting as he switched from character to character and while I was watching the play this was very confusing. Who Samuel was playing was eventually reveal each time through the dialogue, but until that point the scenes would be hard to follow. He seemed to be a good actor so I was sure that this was done intentionally, but I didn’t figure it out until I was thinking about this scene between Claire and her girlfriend later on. The borderline crazy ways in which Claire lashes out combined with her girlfriends diction and mannerisms being much the same of the shooter’s and every other side character makes it seem as if Claire is so stressed and fried with figuring out why the shooter did what he did that she starts to see him in everyone. Her obsession causes her to see him in everyone. Her need for answers is causing her to go mad herself. Once this came to me I started to think it clever that Samuel portrayed the side characters the way he did, but at the same time it wasn’t worth the confusion that I experienced during the play. Maybe if I was more of a veteran theater goer I could have picked up on that sooner, but trying to figure out what was going on took me out of the play. If I could give Samuel any notes it would be to make at least the transition from character to character more obvious, even if the ways in which he actually portrays the characters is the same.
3. Goal: to leave his mark on the world / do something to be remembered by

Obstacle: In reality it is himself and his lack of talent. Because of this he rationalizes that it is the presence of other “communities” or immigrants threatening his success in life.

What does he have to lose?: He believes nothing. He must leave his mark on the world at all costs so as not to be forgotten. Believes that his only options are the arts or violence and jokes that he was never any good at drawing.

I believe that Samuel developed these aspects of the shooter as well as he could considering the script. The story was focused on Claire’s journey and did not leave much space for development of the shooter. What I learned from his performance was how drastically the ways in which an actor chooses to portray his/her character can affect the overall message of the play.