The singer is a character in itself through the show. He sings about being “fooled in love” and how he is perfectly fine with that. He actively seeks love but there is a barrier stopping him from fully achieving a human connection with another. He defeats any shred of sincerity he has and would rather joke about his heartbreak than fully confront it. In a way there seems to be no redeeming quality about the man as he speaks of love and connections with others in a cutting way. His venomous and extremely crude remarks about his own heartbreak are poignant however and behind the somewhat comedic elements behind his anecdotes there is a fragment of a man who was once there. The crooner is almost a lost soul, forever doomed to sing and reminisce about love so in bitter rage he wants to explore this idea of love and commitment.
When I practise as him I feel myself becoming more robotic, and more structured. It’s almost as if this character is not even human himself and is actually trying to explore the love he has with his only friends, his mannequins and his own wild imagination. The crooner when performing “Lovefool” seems to be stiff in the body. He is almost resembling something mechanic as he manages to sing. I’ve came to the conclusion that he is doing this because he is trying to almost resemble a mannequin. The singer is changing everything about himself to become the perfect partner for this false entity. But in doing this however he only further detaches himself from any other living entities he has the chance to love. By the singer focusing all of his attention on this statue he near destroys his only chance to escape this limbo of performing about a love he will never gain.
As a actor you do put elements of yourself in characters, in certain contexts, and the outcome is a more personal one. The singer is undoubtably a construction I have made. If this is a subconscious way of my mind protecting me from revealing to much and putting a filter to stop me doing so is entirely open to argument. I am conscious of the “Lovefool” I am performing as and I am aware of this role in the piece but there seems to be something thats unsettling me. If this character I’ve produced is a filter for me to project and explore about love then what is it protecting? Granted I have experienced heartbreak, as has everyone, but I’m becoming very aware of my own “self” in this performance piece. Is this character actually acting like a armour for me, as the actor, to fully adapt to performing a very intimate piece?
With a very short amount of time running up to the performance the questions of the actor-character relationship is something that continues to play on my mind, and as I explore these questions I find myself becoming more depressed about the failed relationship I’ve had.