RESEARCH REPORT: DUE 16/01/14

PLAYHOUSE CREATURES

RESEARCH REPORT

SOPHIA HINCHLIFF

Since my first time of reading through the script for Playhouse Creatures, written by April De Angelis and published in 1999, I have conducted research on the writer, the play, the characters, the real life settings and the real life characters featured within the play.

The play is set in 1663, in which the setting was very political, and for women a very difficult time. Women had very little participation and status to society, and were looked down upon by men, who held the highest status and saw the women as objects of lust, and not human beings. The play stresses these facts, and shows an insight into the lives of women trying to make it in the acting industry. 

April de Angelis includes very strong historical features in all her plays, and she likes to stress the difference between centuries in her plays. She portrays a feminist undertone in all her plays, and particularly in Playhouse Creatures!

From reading less than 10 pages of the play, I felt the feminism and the controversial lives these women lived, and how hard it was in the 1600's to be respected and noticed, particularly career wise.

Playhouse Creatures features notorious Nell Gwynn also known as "Eleanor". I conducted research on her specifically, and found a lot of information about her and was strongly interested and inspired. She was a smart, cunning and successful women, and although this is something that is common in the 21st century, back then it was extremely hard for women to be successful and well known as she was. She was the long term mistress of King Charlres the second and conceived two son's with him, one of which passed away when he was very young. 

The research portrayed to me, a very strong and stable woman. Who is an excellent character for a play with the settings it has, in the play she is very cocky and cunning, and uses bad language throughout, which is seen as very rebellious. She also does her own thing, and knows her own ways of gaining a higher status, which ultimately was her very public affair with the King at the time. Although he maintained a wife and other girlfriends, they were all short lived, but Nell remained with him until the day he died.

All the characters featured in Playhouse Creatures are very unpredictable to me, as they are not what I expected, they are all very smart talking and cunning in their own ways.

They are all trying to make it in the industry by doing different things, Nell is having an affair with the King, Mrs Farely is trying to get in with the male crowd by following them to pubs and observing what they do, Mrs Betterton is married to a senior actor and has a comfortable life and Mrs Marshall is quite similar to Nell as she is trying to get information about The Earls, Doll seems to be the main character, but I feel there is not a main character, as they are all equal to each other and all have the same motives.

Doll seems the most mature and oldest in age, she seems to have been in the industry for a while and know what she is doing, as she opens the play with a monologue describing the theatre and how it used to be.

Research shows that Playhouse Creatures is a very strong, feminist and powerful play portraying the difficult lives the women led in the 1600's and is also very accurate to how times were in those times.

It shows the vast difference throughout the centuries, as being an actress now is a very respectful, successful and creative job, especially film stars and hollywood actresses. Back then, being an actress was a terribly hard job, and was not paid well nor was it respected. Men used to treat actresses as if they were prostitues, as they were not interested in their acting abilities, they were intereted in the "extras" that is portrayed in Playhouse Creatures. These extras are the females, "baring their bosoms" to the audience, and revealing their legs and other "intimate" areas of their bodies.

Actresses nowadays, are successful people, and it is an interesting and spontaneous career choice. Becoming an actress is a desirable job today, exactly as it were back then, although their are much more opportunities today.

Actresses back then were given no acting training and were simply told to "look the part" and to live in the shadow of a senior actor or actress in order to learn how to act from them. Which inevitably resulted in actresses just "copying" other actresses.

I have learned a vast majority of knowledge about Playhouse Creatures since researching and reading through the full script. I am excited to begin rehearsals and to know which character I will be playing. I feel having this knowledge in my mind will allow me to be able to produce a concise and accurate portrayal of any of the characters.