The Flesh Is Mine- Working Record- Features and Peformance Style
When the play is staged in the past (Ancient Greece) the performance style is Greek Tragedy. The definition of a greek tradegy is “a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal“.In ‘The Flesh Is Mine’ the protagonist is Achilles and due to the uncontrollable fact that he cannot escape the war, causes him ulitmately lead to his death. The loss of Patroculus (his close friend, and in some interpretations his lover) doesn’t help with his escape. The performance style of the play is naturalistic as the characters do not directly address the audience or the play is not exaggerated to an extent where it is unbelievable. There are certain features that make this play unique to others, for example the fact that the timeframes switch from Ancient Greece to present time is very interesting. The way how scenery, costume and setting instantly change can also have a non-naturalistic feel to the play. I feel that this perfromance style is quite unique and possiblities are quite vast, e.g. some characters could have a costume change while acting to fit a certain timeframe.
In Act 1 Scene 9, Ajax and Phoenix come back with the sad news that Patroculus has unfournately been killed by the Prince of Troy, which is Hector. Mistifed with confusion and grief, throughout this scene Achilles conveys his thoughts and feelings with Phoenix and Ajax. Achilles, who is furious at Hector, decides to get revenge for Patroculus and kill Hector. He his warned by the wise and old Phoenix not to attempt this as fate states that if Hector dies, “his death will follow his”. Ajax (which is the character I’m playing) just came back from the war which he fought in. Ajax starts off very angry and annoyed at Achilles because of the death, but as Achilles starts to take responsibility, he warms up to Achilles and tries to comfort him. He then suddenly snaps out at Achilles near the end of the scene. I feel playing a character that is mixed with emotions is very challenging but can be very rewarding if done well.
