In my production I would have Mr. Birling as a portly, pompous but well experienced man in his late fifties with a large, greying moustache, a balding scalp and a few strands of hair trying to disguise this fact. He should look as though he knows a great deal about business and how to achieve targets which gain him wealth and respect. He should be dressed in a smart, hand tailored black tuxedo illustrating the type of character he is - slightly self obsessed with a deep love of co-ordination and organisation but with a slightly crafty, ruthless edge.
I believe that Sheila should be around twenty seven years of age and should be very co-operative and helpful, as she is with the Inspector. She should have a soft tone of voice, pale skin and deep dark very innocent looking eyes as, I believe, she had the least amount of involvement in the death of Eva Smith, yet she takes full responsibility and is one of the few Birling’s who learns from the Inspector’s words and more importantly his final, climatic speech. She should be dressed in a long flowing gown, maybe patterned with flowers as a symbol of her innocence, a small discreet silver necklace should hang around her neck and later on of course the ring which Gerald buys her as an Anniversary gift, this should be mainly to the taste of Gerald as she says, ”Is it the one you wanted me to have”, when he produces the case, it should be large and bold - a statement of Gerald’s wealth and status. Sheila should also have fairly long, straight, ash blond hair again a symbol of innocence or at least more innocence than the rest of her family.
Eric should be a small, inexperienced young man of about Twenty who has not fully decided what to do with himself and has not really thought about the future. He should have a slightly more scruffy look to him than the rest of the family especially when compared with Mr. Birling and Gerald, this is to symbolise his naiveté. A small head and sharp features - beady eyes, small pointy ears a slightly hooked nose and tight, white lips. He should be small framed and as I wrote earlier look scruffy with slightly baggy trousers, worn shoes and an old moth-eaten black jacket. He should have a quiet unassertive voice with a slight lisp to emphasise his reserved personality.
In my production I would have Mrs. Birling as a fierce, very conservative lady of around fifty-five she should be slightly smug with her and her family’s accomplishments and be a big influence in the family’s decisions. She should be well spoken and come from a good background. Her voice should be curt, sharp and cold and she speaks to other people of lower class - namely the Inspector and even her husband at times as I believe that she should be his social superior in context with the play’s suggestions, all this should show in her dressing style with a long dark unflattering gown and large garish items of jewellery which emphasise her persona. Her speckled black hair should be piled on top of her head but should also stay locked in position as this illustrates her love of precision and organisation much like Mr. Birling.
Now comes what I believe to be the most important character to ‘get right’ - the Inspector. If isn’t acted well and the audience do not fully immerse themselves in the play and its messages the whole production is wasted and rendered useless, he must be utterly convincing if he is to capture the minds of the audience and leave them with some new ideas which they can apply to their everyday lives. I believe that the Inspector should be a tall slightly built male of around forty two. He should have a wise look about him which conveys his intentions - to get the truth from the Birling’s no matter what it takes. A greying head of hair, intense piercing blue eyes, a small neatly trimmed moustache and slightly grey lips should help to emphasise his demeanour. He should have a governing voice which is able to make speeches which can strike chords with the audience and other characters creating emotions and reactions. He should be dressed in a well fitting grey suit slightly warn at the elbows to show his involvement in police work and other activities.
My characters are quite similar to the BBC productions interpretation other than Sheila and Eric who I chose to have a more fresh look. However it is a direct contrast to the National Theatre’s production - although, from what I saw, this was very original production I didn’t believe it conveyed the right messages to the audience. I think that the whole play is about sending out the correct messages so that people do not only go away entertained but also educated and convinced by what they saw.
At the end of Act two I would make sure that the actors conveyed the characters feelings and emotions through: Tone of voice, pace, dialect and body language. This is of the utmost importance as this is the scene where we learn the extent of the damage caused by the Birling’s and all their involvement in the death of a young woman who could take no more kicks, shoves and pushes from the Birling’s. This is the point of ‘no return’ for the Birlings, through the Inspectors gentle persuasion they have exposed everyone of the secrets they tried so desperately to hide from the Inspector. It is a very climatic end to the scene in which we learn the most about the story line, this is where some of the most important messages are indirectly delivered to the audience - of moral issues and why we should treat everybody as equals not inferiors or people we look down on. The most important message is Self Responsibility - this I believe is the most important message of the play.
I would have Mr. Birling with an expression conveying his shock and anger at the discovery of Eric’s awful mistake, he should be clasping his hands out of stress wringing them together and moving them in an agitated manner. His tone of voice should be quick and panic stricken with a large element of fear upon realising the implications these revelations could bear with them. This should be especially present when he says the line “You’re not trying to tell us that - that my boy - is mixed up in this -?”, as this is the one line which emphasises Mr. Birling finally realising that there is no easy way out of a predicament they are in and a terror suddenly grips him as he realises the full scale of what the family have done.
Mrs. Birling should seem defiant before she finally realises that Eric is “Mixed up in this”, and her face should change from stony, hard resolve to not get caught out by the Inspector to one of utter shock, slight embarrassment and disbelief at what she has just heard as she has almost ‘used the last nail in Eric’s coffin’.
When defiant I would have Mrs. Birling’s voice with an icy edge to it, treating the Inspector with contempt, slight authority and inferiority, she should talk slowly, clearly and coolly although raising her voice at points to show her authority as in the line “ Instead of staying of staying here asking quite unnecessary questions” this should be performed much like the National Theatre’s although slightly quieter as I think that they took the raised voice slightly too far.
Her eyes should glare slightly displaying her resentment at the Inspectors rude interruption. All this should change however when Mrs. Birling learns the truth. Her whole facial expression should change and the audience should be able to distinguish shock and horror in her voice maybe, slightly trembling especially in her last line of the scene “I don’t believe it, I won’t believe it . . .” her face should contort with the different emotions she now feels and her eyes should loose their hard, glare superseded by utter wide eyed shock.
Sheila has little to say at the end of scene two but what small amount she does say is very significant to the structure and themes of the play. This is most certainly true when the Inspector begins talking about the death of Eva Smith and her pregnancy - Sheila interrupts, horrified “No! Oh - horrible - horrible!,” and when Mrs. Birling is almost incriminating her son, Sheila begs her to stop, “Mother - stop - stop!,” as she knows the trap the Inspector has set and wants to help before it is too late, she fails in this, yet it still shows that people can change for the better - another message from J.B. Priestley. He tries to tell people that they can change from being stubborn and unhelpful to co-operative and kind like Sheila.
Through this scene Sheila’s voice should be hurried, apprehensive and alarmed as most of her lines are to be spoken in this manner such as “Mother - stop - stop!” this was to stop her mother from incriminating Eric. Her face should portray her horror at the revelations being uncovered, far from the blissful, content and happiness before the Inspector arrived. Her consternation and shock should be especially present in the line where Sheila has just learned that Eva Smith was pregnant: “No! Oh - horrible - horrible!.” Her eyes should be wide and open, innocent but disgusted by herself and her family after what they have done. She might also have her hands on her head, grabbing at her hair, almost tearing it out in stress this is to emphasise her emotions and reactions at the discoveries uncovered by the Inspector, showing that she really does care about what happened not just for herself and the rest of the family, like Mr. and Mrs. Birling, but for what happened to Eva Smith and how she wants to go a little way to try to correct and learn from her mistakes.
Eric - It is important to characterise Eric accurately as he is the scene’s climatic ending in which we learn he isn’t so innocent and has committed one of the worst errors of the whole family - as Mrs. Birling declares “He’d be entirely responsible” for the collapse of Eva Smith’s life. He should enter slowly and cautiously as he doesn’t know how the rest of the family will react. His face should be a mixture of grief and desperation as he has no chance of escaping investigation and probable conviction. His eyes should almost be popping out of their sockets to show his anxiety and his eyes should make contact with anyone else on stage.
He should seem to have aged since we last saw him to show the stress and pressure put on him by the family’s knowledge of his ‘mistake’, although his body should seem to shrink back as he meets his family’s collective gaze, symbolising that he is still very juvenile and has seemed to shrink to an adolescent’s size. His skin should seem paler and his hair lighter maybe greying slightly. He should seem even scruffier than usual again indicating his immaturity - being a scruffy teenager. When he comes further into the room he should also have his hand somewhere near his head such as tugging his ear or his hand pressed against his face. This would indicate to the audience the fact that he wants someone to protect him and in his youth his mother would protect him by holding him shielding his face, he’s trying to comfort himself in the face of the trouble he has managed to get into.
The Inspector is again very important to ‘get right’ to send out the right signals to the audience, capturing their attention and holding it for the length of the scene and the rest of the play. To make my production as interesting and convincing as possible I would have the Inspector with a growing look of impatience conveyed through his expressions as he has almost ‘lost it’ with the Birling’s concealments and dismissals. He should have a fire in his eyes showing his growing anger and resolve to get to the bottom of the dreadful incident where a young girl took her life because of the wake of deception and wrath the Birling’s left behind them. The sense of calm and composure he had kept at the beginning of his investigation should be replaced with a slight sense of urgency, annoyance and frustration directed at the Birling’s and conveyed to the audience. His tone of voice should now be sharp, hard and slightly icy this should be especially noticeable in lines “You have no hope of not discussing it, Mrs. Birling”, “You slammed the door in her face” and “Her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab.”
My interpretation of the characters stage directions is similar to the BBC’s production, however it differs in my interpretation of Eric and the Inspector. Both of these characters I chose to have large quantities of emotion - the Inspector is filled with wrath, disgust and almost hatred of at least Mr. and Mrs. Birling if not the whole family. The BBC’s production did not take these emotions so far, likewise I interpreted Eric as extremely delicate and sensitive at that moment as he shuffles onto stage, however the BBC portrayed him with a little less emotion and, I feel, does not conclude the scene on such a climatic note. Again my production is entirely different to the National Theatre’s as they chose a very original way to end the scene I did not believe this was as effective or convincing as the BBC’s, although even the BBC did not deliver the power I thought was necessary to conclude a fairly emotional and dramatic scene. The National Theatre’s stage directions I found to be too exaggerated or the other extreme of under performed such as Mrs. Birling’s line containing “Quite unnecessary questions”, I believed her bellowing the words to be too much for her character at that moment. Then I found the Inspector’s character to be too ‘weak’ for his role at that very important point in the play such as in his line “Her position now is that she lies with a burnt-out inside on a slab”, in the N.T production I found this to have no depth or meaning, just another line in the play yet I believe that it is a very powerful line and one which should be treated with the utmost importance.
I would hope that the audience would react with shock and also disbelief - much like the characters reactions, this is because it is a realistic scene which conveys many emotions, some quite disturbing and moving. This scene should strike a chord with the audience as this same scene may be reminiscent of a time in the viewer’s lives and so the audience may be able to apply this scene, and what they have learnt from it, to their own individual lives as I think that J.B Priestley intended when he wrote “An Inspector Calls”.
If the scene was acted well and to my requirements Sheila and maybe Mr. Birling should gain the audience’s sympathy and support as Sheila understands the Inspector, tries to co-operate with him and also accepts what she has done and tries to ‘put it right’ and almost redeem herself slightly.
The other members of the family, however, seem to want to defy him as best they can, Sheila knows this will never work and tries to warn the family - Mrs. Birling especially about the need to ‘come clean’ to the Inspector as it would work in their favour to co-operate rather than fight authority. Sheila seems to accept responsibility and is the only Birling who actually feels for Eva Smith and what she went through illustrated when the inspector begins to talk about Eva Smith’s death she interrupts with “No, no please not again,” showing that she actually realises what has happened and how terrible it was for a young girl with the rest of her life ahead of her to take it so suddenly and horrifically.
The audience might also give a small amount of sympathy to Mr. Birling as his lines convey him as being slightly fragile by the end of Act Two. On the one hand he may only be concerned for his reputation but I feel there may also be concern for his son in his words “You’re not trying to tell us that - that my boy - is mixed up in this”, I think the panic in those words might also be for his son as, after all, Eric is Birling’s son and there is still a kind of love between them. The audience might spot this and feel for the first time sadness, pity and sympathy for Mr. Birling.
I do not think that the audience will sympathise with Eric as they have only just heard the revelations from the Inspector and Mrs. Birling and have not heard Eric’s defence and whether or not he regrets his most dreadful of mistakes.
I think this scene should, if acted well, be one if not the most convincing scenes of the entire play. It uses a very well structured utterly believable story line and ends on a very climatic albeit convincing note which is held in the viewers mind, remembered and hopefully considered and applied to everyday life. It holds many messages which I believe “An Inspector Calls” was written to convey most importantly that we should all accept responsibility for our actions and why we should treat everyone as individuals, if there is no responsibility, equality and community the human race will degenerate.
I would hope that the audience would expect a climatic concluding scene where we learn the truth about the whole family’s involvement in the degeneration of a young woman’s will to live. If the play was well produced they would expect to learn the extent of which class and superiority has gone to destroy a life and how the Birlings can go about improving their lifestyles to accommodate for the rest of the world, especially the working ‘inferior’ classes. They should expect the Inspector to be able to almost convert the Birling’s lives to ones which can help other people to unite and accept responsibility where it is needed as this is what J.B. Priestley has tried to do with his most provocative of plays - “An Inspector Calls”.
