Lonely Hearts...

One of our first tasks after our "you are enough" section was to choose a lonely hearts advert which would then become the basis of a character. The lonely heart advert I chose was...

"F36 likes porcelain cats, seeks man not unused to the sound of sobbing coming from a bedroom from which he is strictly prohibited. Tell me how attractive I am."

The information I got from this is that she is a middle aged woman who obviously likes cats, however it asks the question, why are they porcelain and not real cats? and if not why she hasn't got any cats? It is also obvious that she is not looking for a romantic partner, the fact that she states he will be "prohibited" from the bedroom shows that she is not interested in a romantic or sexual experience and indicates that she is looking for a companionship to feel cared for and secure hence the "tell me how attractive I am". Looking back an instinctive reaction was to make her the "stereotypical" crazy cat lady covered in cat hair, with no particular care of appearance just a deep obsessive fascination of the feline creature. As the course went on I made a specific decision not to follow the cliché and instead opted for a more vulnerable, misunderstood character who had to find another means of engaging with her passion- as well as having a varied background story. 
In order to get to grips with the character we were asked question surrounding their background and lifestyle to which we wrote down and collected a brief understanding of the characters background history.
Name: Louisa Rachel Hollard
Nick Name: Weasel (given to her by her brother because she is skinny and weak)
Age: 36
How does age affect your feelings about yourself: middle age, realising she is lonely and tired of living by herself, wondering where her life went.
Closest relative: her mother, she cares for her when she visits her at a nursing home, her mother is very frail.
How do they affect you: Her mother is very controlling, imposes her beliefs on her, her mother calls her a burden because she has never found any one to get married to.
Education: Schooled in state schools, always told to put her hand up and speak up in lessons more, left college and went straight into working- got average c grades.
How did education effect or influence you: seen as an outcast amongst other students, not really noticed and just got on with schooling not enjoying or hating it.
Did you have an enjoyable childhood: she tends not to dwell on her childhood, she had a fairly modest upbringing but felt obscure as she was the youngest, and she was ignored by the family because of her successful sporty older brother. She always wanted a pet but was never allowed one; her Mother thought it would be too messy.
Worst thing you have done: As she really wanted a pet and loved the idea of having a cat, she took the neighbour’s cat called George home to play but ended up having and allergic reaction to him.
Best thing you have ever done: working her way up through the ranks of working in a supermarket and taking part in a beginner in pottery class with a new adventurous aim of making her own clay cats which might be good enough to sell.
Travelled much: No, she has never been out of the United Kingdom, all holidays were spent traveling to wales where it always rained and where there was always and aspect or camping involved.
Relationship status: Single
How do you feel about it: tired of being alone wants a companion and friendship first and the possibility to grow as a couple but needs to take it slow. She wants someone to care for her and someone she can care for back.
Where do you live: Lives in Purley, in a built up area with parks of greenery, lives in a two bedroom flat which she inherited when her mother went into a nursing home.
Best friend: either her mother or the first porcelain cat she was giving for her birthday after it was discovered she was allergic to them, she named it George.
Social Life: non-existent, she is in bed by 9 and reads helpless romantic novels or books about cats until 10.
-She is most comfortable around people she knows; she finds it hard to introduce herself.
Work: She works at the huge Tesco superstore in Purley every weekday with weekends off. she is in charge of the customer service section and has a small workforce in her control. She loves the routine and stability the job offers her. She does not spend her money she saves it for a "rainy day" but as a result of a careful lifestyle and restricted saving she has quite a health amount squirreled away.
Greatest responsibility: caring for her mother in the nursing home, no one else turns up to see her.
Louisa is not very confident or open; her best qualities are her sensitivity and vulnerability.
Her Ambitions:
To become more adventurous one step at a time; to start meeting and making new friends and gain more confidence. She also wants to meet a man who can care for her and be patient with her with the possibility of growing into a relationship. Her long term ambition is to grow old with someone and to not die alone.
If she won the lottery she would give part of her winnings to the cats protection league; Buy a bigger house to fit a larger collection of cat objects and to save the rest with her "rainy day" fund.
If she were heavily in debt she would have to take up more jobs (perhaps a night shift cleaner) and ask her brother for help.
If she could change one thing in her life it would be her allergy to cats; if she could change on thing in the whole world it would be to destroy the allergy to cats so that everyone would be free to have a cat.
In death she would want to be remembered by one person, her future partner and her grave must be surrounded by her cat objects.
Physicality and Vocals:
·         Laugh-a high pitched chuckle
·         voice- cloudy, airy and childlike but still in a high register.
·         Physical impression- closed off, in her own world and internal
·         Hair-messy, normally up, un-cut and un-styled
·         Energy level- slow and timid
·         State of health- bad posture, slumped back, health is usually okay but her back occasionally aches.
·         Sensuality and sexuality- she is not interested or aware of sensuality and sexuality.
·         Appearance- she takes care for her work appearance but not for her home life, she wears glasses.
Emotional Qualities:
·         She cries a lot over virtually everything to do with animals and especially cats.
·         Scared and worried about living alone/ she is extremely vulnerable- no real sense of what the world is like because she is closed of. She believes all that matters is her own world and what she does counts therefore in that respect she is quite selfish.
·         Very sensitive, can become upset quite easily.
·         Not confident, 2 out of 10 on the confidence scale. (wants to change this)
Likes and Dislikes:
·         Her favourite food and drinks are orange juice and fish pie.
·         Her favourite time of day is the evening when she relaxes after work with her book before bed.
·         Favourite season is autumn because of the warm clothes that come out.
·         Her favourite topic is poetry especially when they are about cats.
·         Her least favourite topic is money, she finds that people who like money are self-involved and overly confident something which she hates.
After we discovered their background history and began to see the characters take shape we had to choose a song or piece of music the character would like and write a monologue whilst listening to it. The song I picked was Harvest Moon by Neil Young because it is a slow romantic song which reflects my characters internal fantasy and wants.

Louisa's Monologue

I have a life, it might not seem like much of a life to you but it’s alright. I get to do so many things I want to do... But there is one thing I have always wanted, a pet cat. But I'm allergic to them, runny eyes, snotty nose, puffy face, its awful - I look like some extra-terrestrial being. The fact is though; my pine for cats has fuelled my passion for all things cats shaped. I am a frequent customer to my local charity shops and they even hold back their new stock of cat objects for me so i can have the first look and see which one i want and which ones i already have. I display them throughout my flat in a disorganised manner if they were real beings; no room is without their presence. It has been their company which has made me realise my need for a male companion. I’m not fuelled by sex and believe that i never will be, i just need a man who can care for me and take an interest with the chance of building a relationship- to partner me in the rest of life’s challenges. As you may know my mother has not well and she hasn't got much time left and it scares me that there may be a chance that I will be truly alone in this world.

This monologue reflects the current state of Louisa's thoughts and motives for going the match-making service. After we had written our monologue we all had to walk into a room and say them aloud together as our characters. We would then notice the quality of how we would come across and present our characters. I noticed that Louisa would stutter and be unsure about using certain words which slowed down the overall pace of her speech, she would be nervous about sharing certain aspects about her life but when she starts to get on to the topic surrounding her collection of cats she would be more comfortable and confident showing the audience her passion and fascination with them.
To make our character more believable and relatable we created their own Facebook pages, here is a screen shot of Louisa’s.
 We used Facebook to start to connect with the other lonely hearts and to see how characters would react to the social side of the internet. Louisa posted a lot of cat objects and pictures and even found a bottle of wine with a cat on the label which she had to write a status about.
To get my character just right I looked up other cat lady adverts and wanted Louisa to be more subtle and needy then the crazy stereotypical cat lady. I found this E-harmony dating stunt video and used it as a source in my research.
As a character exploration activity we had to go down to our local supermarket dressed as our characters to look around and interact with the public. Louisa wore her work clothes as it was a weekday, they were; a black knee length pencil skirt; a white cotton blouse; a navy blue long cardigan with a cat pin; black tights with shiny black shoes and with her hair up. Louisa went round with Pauline and Rachel, Louisa was very much a follower in the group and was overpowered by the stronger more dominant personalities of Rachel and Pauline- my character was very much in her own world, I discovered during this activity that she is still quite infantile gravitation towards the colourful children’s toys while the others were discussing make-up. When we got back we had to write a diary entry about our day.

21st October 2014

Yesterday I arrived in Haywards Heath to meet up with my new friends Pauline and Rachel before our evening classes started. Before the classes started we went to the local Sainsbury's superstore in order to get a quick sandwich. I bought a new range of Itsu Chicken noodle soup (a kind we don’t sell in Tesco’s) which were 183 calories which Rachel tells me is great for watching the figure. I also made and impulse buys of hello kitty chocolate lollies- who couldn’t resist the white cats face with long black whiskers and a cute pink bow! As we walked around the shop we talked about Pauline’s love for Elvis and how she even has photos of them together and that they we even supposed to get married if it had not been for Priscilla. Rachel also told us of her passion for make-up and how next time we meet up she is going to teach me how to use it. After our shopping trip we walked up to the evening class venue, said our goodbyes, I went straight into my pottery class. I’m so excited; I’m so close to creating my own cats.

Speaking of Excitement, I’m going on a speed dating exercise with the dating agency soon, fingers crossed I can find a companion.

We then had an exercise involving a questionnaire and an interview as our characters about our ideal match. Here is my Questionnaire:
For our assessment we had to complete the speed dating exercise as our characters, dressed in what they would wear and bringing any objects which they might need, again as it was a work day Louisa wore her work clothes again but this time brought a book about cats in art and poetry in case she had to wait for a long time. I found this exercise very enlightening as it was the first time Louisa had ever really interacted with the male kind, she went in feeling shy but optimistic hoping to find a caring companion asking question such as: where do you work? What are your hobbies? What’s your ideal holiday and date? What kind of person are you looking for today? As far as Louisa was concerned she felt she had connected with most of the men taking part, seeing a possible future with three of them (Peter, Dave and Richard) However it was not to be Louisa left the speed dating exercise with no possible matches not looking good for her goal of not living alone. Here is the dating exercise on camera.

Evaluation:
Looking back at the assessment film I am very happy and surprised about how my character came across, Louisa's fidgety nature and vulnerable personality was clear in the quick interview at the start when they asked her why she was here today and what kind of match she was looking for.