In the play Sheila is a young, eager and prosperous woman that thinks she has everything in the world until the Inspector arrives and starts questioning her on the events that happened that day. You will be playing Sheila Birling in the play so remember to be the young, innocent woman, but also to be the shallow and selfish female that you start off being.
In the first Act, Act 1, Sheila meets Eva Smith in Milwards, Sheila’s favourite shop and one of Eva’s places of work. Sheila at the time was trying on a dress and Eva was an assistant. The dress really didn’t suit Sheila and she new it but so did Eva. Knowing this Eva gave a little giggle and Sheila caught her giggling, this in turn made Sheila miserable and angry because she didn’t look good in it she new Eva would have. Sheila was so annoyed and livid that she went straight to the manager and demanded that she was sacked otherwise she would force her mother to close the account with Milwards meaning that the shop would lose their best customers. Remembering this makes Sheila feel miserable and angry, she cannot believe that she may be the cause of another young woman’s death. At this moment in the play, Sheila ought to want to take back the past and change it so that she wasn’t so mean to Eva. Sheila feels out of
line and she wants to be able to say sorry. Although this may be strange, she is the only one that seems to be really affected by this incident at this time. All the other members of the house hold notice the problem but they are trying to build a wall between themselves and the Inspector so that they can deny the truth and save face.
Act 2 changes the atmosphere slightly and now Gerald is brought into the thick of things. This turns the heat up between Sheila and himself due to the fact that Sheila finds out he had a relationship with Eva, during the summer where Sheila and Gerald didn’t see much of each other. When she finds this fact out, Sheila reacts in despair and utter disbelief that Gerald, her fiancé would betray her trust. At this moment in time she wants Gerald Croft out of your life and she wants him to leave her alone. She feels totally ashamed and humiliated in the top form especially as the Inspector already new this information before her. As if the news about your fiancé wasn’t enough, your mother enters the conversation and drops herself in it. Sheila tries to warn her, but being the older woman her mother takes no notice and carries on digging a bigger hole for her to fall into. Mrs Birling treats the whole incident as a minor problem. Her attitude to this makes Sheila ashamed and also because of her callousness towards Eva. Right now Sheila is feeling like her whole family are denying the truth and then Eric is brought into the conversation although Mrs Birling doesn’t quite yet know that it is him they are talking about. Sheila realises that it is Eric they are talking about and immediately tries to quieten her mother. She knows that the Inspector is playing mind games with all of them. This makes a problem because nobody else realises that they are being pulled into his trap. Mr Birling only cares for his appearance and whether it will harm his chances for a new title as Lord, nothing else matters much at this time to him.
Act 3 is where everybody is together and Sheila and Eric face their responsibility together and understand what they have done wrong. They both see what they did to Eva and they are both very sorry but disturbed that the older and supposedly wiser adults are merely hidden from the truth. Sheila tries to stop her family from continuing to lie although she fails at this enormous task, she herself stops the Inspector from playing with her mind and stops him from using her ego against her like he did against the others.
Priestley has developed Sheila’s character and now he uses her as another and brighter mouthpiece for what he believes in aswell as using Mr Birling as a mouthpiece for what he thought would happen in the future. Birling talks about and agrees with everything that Priestley does not believe in and he uses him as a dummy figure. Sheila on the other hand is talking for what Priestley believes in. You want to be able to know what the other characters are like and this is why I have told you a bit about Mr Birling. When you play Sheila in Act 3 you will have to win the thoughts, hearts and minds of everybody watching for the play to for fill its potential in the way that Priestley designed it.
Now I am going to write a few points that you may find to come in handy.
You should wear an early 1900 dress that would be appropriate for a girl of Sheila’s wealth and class. Also you should try to remember at the start of the play, Sheila is very happy and bubbly woman as well as not being too clever. You will have to change you approach to her character as the play progresses due to the fact that she matures very quickly.
One more thing, you should take every step of the play as a new step, this way you will not become confused with anything.
