SEED TO TREE: JAMES RANKIN

I used to perform in educational outreach tours, for years, and almost every-time I played multiple characters. It was a strong suit of mine; it was easy. However, I was younger, and have learned new things since; also the process was different and expedited. I used to put on the characters like masks, off and on, switch and play, a new voice and a new oversized physicality to show the kids a clean and clear difference. It's acting, but the rules and application are slightly different than how I approach things now. Now, I search for an honesty that comes from inside of me as opposed to an honesty that will be easily understood based off of audience expectations. I want to avoid creating an archetypal caricature - which is isn’t bad - but it doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I want to be grounded, and I want voices to feel real, inside out, not outside in. And to achieve that for this show, I knew i’d have to go about it differently.

In Our Country’s good, I play three people. 

Harry Brewer, a midshipman, someone who used to be of a different status in society and then - through a series of life choices - cut a different path that put him in a better position, one of “power”, but yet he still doesn’t quite fit. A tortured man.

Captain Jemmy Campbell, an officer, a person who is intelligible, but barely. He moves like water from moment to moment and occasionally spurts out words of support or chastisement like a geyser. He is absurd to a degree.

And John Arscott, a convict. Confident, but uneducated, gullible, and a runner. He desires an escape.

Each character is already clearly different. Each character requires different tools. 

In the beginning, I was ready to use my old masks, and then once I found that they had different accents, 

                Cockney-Brewer

                Military RP- Campbell

                Cornwall- Arscott

I thought, “boom, thats my way in.” But I had to stop myself, I was moving too quickly, I have time and I had to remember what I wanted. I want the characters to feel real. Each one. I don’t want to rely on old tools that will get me there quickly. So I asked myself a number of questions, one being “What is a mask to me?” To me a mask can be an end, it’s something that you have decided upon. It’s safe, you can take it off and slip it on and never worry about it hurting you or getting stuck. It offers a clean separation between yourself and the character. It can lock you in, it can be free, but once it’s been created it is limited in its freedoms. Humans though, we are defined and undefined simultaneously. We are what we are, but we can also be what we dream, or we can be what others make us or what life makes us or what we ourselves make us. We can grow into seemingly unlimited variations based off of the experiences that we encounter and how we choose to go through them. So If a mask to me is an end, then what is a beginning and how can I grow a human from there to an end? 

I often look to nature for answers when I’m tumbling in my thoughts, and I stumbled on trees. And with my question I came to think that maybe, I want to grow my characters like seeds. 

If I plant each seed in a different place within me, if i feed each seed with a different technique, with different experiences, with different information, with different dialects that are grown from where I discover their voice, then I may be able to achieve my desire. If I use forms of movement to guide and grow Campbell, Atmosphere and Psychological Gesture for Brewer, and Sensations for Arscott, then maybe each one will be grown into a truly individual character. I hope that when I get there, I can tell you what they are. For now though, I’m just going to keep watering them, and making sure they get the right nutrients and sun. It is a process to create and it is a thing that thankfully I have time to do, and hopefully I’ll uncover a new way to get to the end. From a seed to a tree.