Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.
This excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens has been marked by scholars as an accurate description of an angry mob during the French Revolution. Loaded with descriptive adjectives, commanding verbs and strong nouns - it truly gives a visual picture of a mob. In our production of The Scarlet Pimpernel, there are several scenes in which our young actors are asked to portray an angry mob, but as expected, none of our students have neither been party to or witness to a mob.
But the portrayal of a mob can be achieved through implementing a few method acting techniques. These next few rehearsals, we will be focusing on the practice of using substitution, emotional memory, and sense memory to enhance character development. We can begin by using the above excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities.
Consider the words and phrases below, now highlighted in red. What emotions do they arouse, what senses do they stimulate and is there a memory you can recall that may remind you of that phrase? Great! Now substitute those emotions, senses and memories to become the character of a mob member.
“Patriots!” said Defarge in a determined voice, “are we ready?”
Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women.
The men were terrible in the bloody-minded anger with which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my brother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! Oh‚ mother of God, this Foulon! Oh‚ Heaven‚ our suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being trampled under foot.
The above pictures were taken in class this week by a fellow student (Thank you, Miranda!). As you can see, they are using the above methods well, but because technique can always be improved, we will press on! Keep up the hard work, class - the end result will be amazing!
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