Acting from life

When Katarin shows, through some as yet unappreciated alter ego, just what she is capable of on the stage, it’s a profound point in the development of a young actor.

But perhaps she was recapitulating something she had experienced in real life, but had felt too traumatised to act out, as it were, her indignation. Perhaps she had recoiled into the shell of stammering that had protected her throughout her life so far.

Perhaps the experience of acting released something that so engaged her mind that the tic of stammering was obliterated. Alter egos can do that sort of thing while the persona that is ‘I’ cannot. For whatever reason, it felt wonderful to me to write this scene, to help Katarin’s voice break free.