Being Without Sight.

In our production of A Gothic Tale, I play the character William the Piano Tuner. William is blind and has been blind since birth. With this in mind I did not want to over-act his blindness. Because he has been blind since birth he is going to be used to his blindness, so in turn I wanted to aim to play his blindness subtly. At first I found acting blind very difficult, it was hard to perform being blind without it looking comic and unbelievable. Early on in my character development we tried to blindfold me, so I could get an idea how might a blind person move when they just have their hearing to rely on. I found myself concentrating more on my feet as I moved and my hand were a barrier just in case I bumped into anything. This work shop helped me understand how a blind person might move and how they might react to sound differently, and I tried to incorporate my findings from this workshop into William’s physicality.

I could not wear a blindfold all the time while rehearsing so I had to adjust to being blind without one. For this to be believable, I spent a lot of time perfecting what my eyes should be doing. Murray believes that ‘the best way to portray blindness is not with closed eyes, but with a soft eye  focus, which takes practice to perfect’ (Murray: Online). While performing I tried to relax my muscles in my eyes and gaze past the person speaking to me to give the illusion that I can not see. At first I found it difficult not to look directly at a person, especially if they moved suddenly, but in time I believe I perfected this. Pretending to be blind and giving a believable performance was very challenging for me as an actor. I took inspiration from the actor Al Pacino from the film Scent of a Women (1992). From watching another sighted actor play a blind person and noting their mannerisms, helped my own performance as a blind man.

Work cited

Murray, E (no date) Acting Tips for Portraying Blind Characters. Available at: http://www.ehow.com/list_7239986_acting-tips-portraying-blind-characters.html (Accessed: 1 May 2013).