Playing People That Matter

Actors Donogh and Shaan talk about the process of preparing for their very different roles; the research involved, the rewards and challenges of playing their characters, and their top tips for young actors.

How did you prepare to take on the role of Roza?

I spent some months researching. I have not been through the Holocaust, and I am not a Polish Jew, so there was an accent, and a different body language to think about and learn.

The internet, and YouTube is incredibly helpful in these aspects. Books, poetry, films, tv and documentaries are also great tools.

At various times of my life, I have read a lot about the Holocaust and seen many images. I have books at home with that info and I looked a little at those images.

On YouTube I could observe Polish Jewish women of middle age and older; their accents, their body language (which is very different from a middle-aged woman from Aotearoa), their clothing and the way they spoke.

I discovered the Shoah Institute which has been collecting and filming the stories of the survivors of the Holocaust to preserve the history. I specifically looked at women’s stories. I looked and listened. I kept certain people whose accent seemed useful in an accent folder and others into a work folder.

I began to absorb all their stories, seep them into my bones, where the horror and the pain became very normal to me and helped created part of my Roza. Your past informs your future and that is what I was after. How you react to circumstances in life is laid down when you are young, a child. We have abilities to change but some instincts - from fear, from rejection from survival under extreme circumstances - are present always if not outwardly noticeable.

I looked at moving images of Poland before the war, I saw the kinds of buildings Roza was brought up in, the kinds of people that surrounded her before the war came, so I could consider who she was before everything fell apart.

From the script and reading David Galler’s book, I understood she was well off and an only child, so I kept the stories of women from a similar background and from roughly the same area in Poland.

I began to understand of Polish history, how often it was invaded by other countries and how the population was forced to learn other languages and behaviours whilst the invaders were in power. I learnt that Yiddish was often spoken in the Jewish quarters.

I looked at the plight of Jews in the world and how racist others were of them, how even after generations living in one place, they were often still considered outsiders and treated with contempt or suspicion. I saw how quickly they were turned upon when Hitler’s orders were put into place, and I learnt how the survivors revered the Polish people who protected them.

I also looked at lots of footage of the war and the release of people from the concentration camps, still images, and footage of the Death March as Roza talks about it.

I observed and watched footage of Jewish religious life even though Roza is not from an orthodox family, but it is part of her and her family history, so it is a part of her culture and I needed to absorb that too.

What are the challenges of playing Roza?

The most challenging aspects of Roza was her accent, making it real, understood by the audience and “hers.”

There are quite a few accents within Poland especially because it has been invaded and it has borders with other countries, so I had to find what worked for us and that means for the audience too. I was keen to avoid a Germanic part to her accent, but they do exist in parts of Poland. Another challenge was creating a European - not New Zealandwoman. Different cultures have different body languages and outlooks.

What are the most rewarding aspects?

A new New Zealand play about us, about colonisation within our society, about acceptance of death being a part of life. An examination of public health within that framework and in Covid times, (although the play is set in pre-Covid times, we do think about the strain the system operates under).

To work with a splendid group of people with much to give and share with each other as people and as actors, I love that. To challenge, inform, open debates, move and share with the audience, I love that too. We (as Shakespeare says) hold a mirror up to nature....

Top tips to young actors:

Read, observe, watch theatre, look at films and tv but never lose your curiosity. Watch how we as people operate and react to stuff. Now is an incredibly interesting time to be seeing all that.

If you can see a show more than once, do so as you can see it alter and change in many subtle ways and how an audience affects the performers.

If you really want to be an actor you may find yourself hanging out at the Basement (or your local theatre), so introduce yourself to actors that hang out there too. We were all in your position once and so we understand how awkward you can feel but generally we are very open and welcoming.

How did you prepare to take on the role of young resident doctor, Dev?

I tried to do as much research as I could on the world and the circumstances.

I'm lucky to have a couple of friends who work the same (or similar) jobs as Dev. I reached out to them and picked their brains on what their experience has been like. It gave me a huge insight into the world of the play, and I was able to imagine what it would be like if I was in their shoes.

On top of this, I watched a bunch of medical drama clips online as well as reality shows set in hospitals, which was great for seeing the settings from the play in action. We were also lucky enough to have a tour of the ICU at Middlemore Hospital which was a real eye-opener.

What are the challenges of playing Dev?

The most difficult thing was getting my head around all the moving pieces of the play and figuring out how Dev fit into it all. It can be easy sometimes to forget that we are just one piece of the puzzle (an important piece though). Our characters serve a specific purpose and although we may feel or think that we are being truthful to the character, our offers may not always serve the overall message of the piece. I found that by taking a step back and referring to the script I could see the bigger picture and better deliver the story of the play.

What are the most rewarding aspects?

One of the most rewarding things about playing Dev is that I have the honour of portraying what so many of my peers, who are now doctors, are going through in their line of work. Their jobs carry an immense amount of responsibility, and I am only tapping into an ounce of it. My hope is that we do them and other medical professionals’ justice in our portrayal and that the audience comes away with a greater appreciation of their contribution to society.

SHAAN’S TOP TIPS FOR YOUNG ACTORS

Have fun! If it's something you're passionate about, go all in and try to remember why you're doing it in the first place. You are never too old to play.