The Baptist Minister's Wife

     At first I saw the Baptist minister’s wife as a proud, patronising, cold hearted woman. However, after working on her a little bit I started to see another side of her. She was still proud and quite cold, but under a warm and friendly façade. Both Jean Lundegaard from Fargo and a friend’s mother became sources of inspiration.

    

     The Baptist minister’s wife is in her forties and married to the Baptist minister. She grew up in Laramie in a very religious family and one of her childhood dreams was to become a Baptist minister’s wife – a dream that was realised when she turned 20. She saved herself for marriage and was quite disappointed with the whole act of lovemaking and only engaged in it to please her husband and to have their two children. At the moment she and her husband don’t involve in any kind of physical contact and that’s the way it’s been for the last ten years. 

     The Baptist minister’s wife is a typical housewife. She gets up very early in the morning to prepare breakfast and afterwards she has far too much time to kill until dinner when her husband comes home. Therefore she indulge in watching the birds in her garden, keeping notes of what kind of birds they are, gardening, shopping for rare antiques in the local shops (preferably pretty porcelain figurines), spying on neighbours (even though she would never call it spying), cooking, baking, tidying and pottery classes. She does anything she can to keep herself busy, because whenever she gets time over to reflect on her life she is very easily brought down by feelings of loneliness.

Relationships

The Baptist minister - The Baptist minister is her husband. She is incredibly proud of him and they share the same opinions on almost everything. He’s rarely at home and when he is, he is usually in his study. They make sure to eat dinner together each night to discuss what’s going on in the city though. They’re relationship is practical and there’s no romance. She does miss romance, but knows that romance only exists in dreams and sees herself as happily married. 

Matthew Shepard – She didn’t know Matthew personally but had heard of him. She strongly disagrees with his choice of lifestyle and thinks that he partially had himself to blame for what happened. Beying homosexual is unnatural and it should not be legal, but unfortunately it is. Hopefully this will teach other confused young men what happens if you chose that kind of lifestyle. 

Amanda Gronich - She has never heard of Amanda before, but she seems very polite. Even though it's a bit annoying getting even more questions about the whole Matthew Shepard thing, she doesn't really mind.

Given circumstances

What time is it? It’s in the early afternoon in 1998, winter.

Where am I? In my house, in the kitchen.

What surrounds me? Kitchen utensils, cooker, fridge, freezer, a window with floral curtains, porcelain figurines on the window sill, family photos on the walls, an old clock that’s ticking quite loud and a lovely smell from the buns in the oven.

What are the immediate circumstances? I was just washing the dishes after baking when the phone rings. When I’ve done the dishes I’m going to wait until the buns are ready, maybe do a crossword in the meantime, and then I'm going into town for some food shopping and later on I’m going to continue working on my embroidery. The turned on oven makes the kitchen very warm.

  

Subtext

She really just wants this whole Matthew Shepard business to be over. It's drawn far too much attention from the press and they just won't leave her husband alone. She just wants everything to go back to normal. 

Physical portrayal

She is proud and has a good posture. Her parents always made sure that she was sitting and walking correctly. Her head is held high and her steps are determined. She’s a neat person and therefore folds the dishcloth while talking. 

Vocal portrayal

Her voice is clear and a little bit higher than my own. After everything that has been going on you can hear a little bit of tiredness in her voice. She has very fixed views about certain things and you can hear that through the way she doesn’t hesitate when speaking. She’s brief, factual and to the point. 

Uta Hagen's acting class

The whole thing about drying my hands and folding the dishcloth while talking was something I wanted to try out after watching Uta Hagen's acting class. I wanted to make sure that I didn't put to much focus on exactly what I was doing, but just do it while talking, like you would in normal life. I started observing myself to see what I do when I talk on the phone and actually noticed that if I have something like a cloth or a piece of clothes in my hand I automatically start folding it.