"In 2018, I leapt at the opportunity to fill a slot at the Watford Fringe Festival, in the main space at my local theatre, the Pump House. I remembered thoroughly enjoying Steven Berkoff’s work when studying him as a practitioner at A Level Drama. I recalled that his work relied on solely performance, and a bold, ugly and unnaturalistic one. The lack of technical requirements, props and set aligned with my lack of funds at the time. After a bit of digging, I discovered ‘Dog’ and ‘Actor’ and decided to pair them together in this particular way.
I look at the skinhead character in ‘Dog’ as a terrible stand-up comedian. We love to laugh at him, we don't laugh with him. His need to compensate his warped sense of masculinity is personified in his obtaining a dog that seems bigger than him - a "tank with teeth". The physical challenge of keeping the dog alive - when I am not pretending to be the beast - is exhausting, but well worth the hard work. There is something magical that happens when an audiences' imagination match with the actor's - both seeing the same imagined world.
Using the loop pedal throughout 'Actor' really gives the poem a heartbeat that resonates with everyone. I feel that the piece strikes a chord with actors and non-actors alike. In life, we can sometimes look over our shoulder at people who are doing better than us. The play was written in the 80s, but if written now, I'd imagine the actor would be sat at home and endlessly scrolling through social media, rather than walking around from place to place. Performing ‘Actor’ is always seems like therapy and reminds me of how unique we all are as artists. We are all on a different track and we all do our best to move on and on. It is a cautionary tale: that rather than harbouring jealous thoughts, we should celebrate the successes of others, otherwise we truly will walk on the spot till the end of our days."
