Anonymous friend of Aaron McKinney

     The anonymous friend of Aaron McKinney is a cool guy in his twenties. He’s working for the railroads, which means he’s working with his hands all day and is quite strong. He’s not quite sure if it’s a temporary job or not, because he’s quite happy with it, he has many friends there and he doesn’t really know what else he would like to do. He doesn’t want to go to university, because he knows that he’s not bright enough. He is very down to earth and spends his weekends drinking beer with his friends. He doesn’t know anything about fashion but is quite into drawing. He’s originally from down south so he speaks in a southern drawl. 

     Jason Stackhouse from True Blood was one source of inspiration for this part. Jason is also a bit stupid, a bit slow, he talks with a southern drawl and his work is very physical (in the early series anyway). 

 

     My idea to wear the baseball cap was for it to cast a shadow over the characters eyes to make him more anonymous. But, that was changed so I had to wear it the other way around. Just by wearing the cap the other way around the character became much more of a gangster than I had planned for in the beginning. 

Relationships

Aaron McKinney - They have known each other for a long time as they have many friends in common. Aaron was the kind of guy who, whenever he's around more than one guy, puts on this big facade of being all cool and some kind of gangster, but you coulkd tell that he had really bad self confidence. Sometimes he would feel a bit sorry for Aaron, but mostly he felt that Aaron had his own stupidity to blame for all the trouble he ended up in. It seemed to him that Aaron always just pretended being somebody he was not. He thought he was all right though, he was a funny guy. But the whole thing about having a child and moving in together when you're only 21 - what's up with that? Crazy guy...

Kristen Price - Kristen was Aaron's girlfriend. He knew little of her, but had met her a couple of times and she seemed to be on the same mental level as Aaron. That is; stupid. 

 

Given circumstances

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

What are the immediate circumstances? I’m on a break at work and have arranged to talk about Aaron McKinney with some people from the Tectonic Theatre Company. I haven’t really planned what to tell them about him, because I’m not the kind of person who would plan such things, but I do know that I don’t want my name to be mentioned. It’s not like I have anything to hide, I just don’t like the idea of my name being in a play and stuff.

The thing with this character is that I really wanted to take the opportunity talk to the audience, to engage them, so I didn't want to pretened like I was in a room somewhere talking to members of the company. I wanted to be there and then, on the stage, talking to that audience. 

 

Subtext

     In his monologue he wants to tell the theatre company a little bit about what he knows about Aaron and especially how shocked he was when he found out what had happened. It was just unreal that an ordinary guy that he had known for such a long time could do something like that.

Physical portrayal

     The anonymous friend of Aaron McKinney is a young, relaxed, “cool” guy. He’s used to work with his hands a lot and stands confident and steady on the ground. He doesn't really care what other people think of him and is very confident with himself. He's not very concerned with personal hygiene. He walks quite slowly and carefree.

Vocal portrayal

     The southern drawl was the most difficult part for me. Speaking in an American accent in general is difficult, so this was quite a challenge. Sometimes I felt like I had it, but especially during the shows I felt like my accent was just all over the place. It’s difficult though, because even though I’ve been watching True Blood trying to learn the accent, I need someone to tell me exactly what I’m pronouncing wrong to be able to improve. And unfortunately I don’t have a private voice coach.

     He says “like” a lot and struggles at points to find words (“...that’s why I was shocked when I heard this, I’m like…”). He also pronounces Tommy Hilfiger wrong which also indicates his southern accent and that he isn’t too familiar with designer brands. You can tell from the way he speaks, his choice of words, that he's not very high class and have been spending a lot of time with lower class people. 

     I tried to speak in a lower pitch for this character because he's a male.