Animal Kingdom

Our director for Scapin challenged us the other day by asking us to each pick an animal to base our characters on.  Usually this is not my thing: I tend to come from a more vocal than movement base in acting.  With this play, however, the choice seems to really work.  The goal of this production is to be truly funny and family friendly, and so basing characters on animals moves us closer to that goal.  So my friend David (also in Scapin) and I went to The Columbus Zoo yesterday to do some research.  We caught some amazing things on camera, including a wolf rolling around playfully and flamingos fighting.

My character tends to laugh a lot, and so naturally I gravitated towards the jovial hyena.

It's body movements and hang dog look, however, didn't suit my sensual gypsy character, so I'm now looking towards the sly fox for body movements, and keeping the hyena for vocalization.

Doesn't she look like she's smiling?  We saw two arctic foxes get into a brief play-fight yesterday, and it was over as soon as it started: it made me think of how quickly a summer storm blows through a sunny day.  

I was surprised how naturally the work came to me, as soon as I was open to it.  My body and instincts took over.  I'm looking forward to really playing with this technique and seeing where it takes me!  Have you ever done animal work in your acting?  Where did it take you?

(Photo from Woodland Park Zoo.)