Isaac List and Pastor Marton

In this month’s opening of ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, I am playing two parts: List, the professional gambler, and Marton, the Pastor and would-be saviour of Little Nell. In the case of the second character, this is an amalgamation of two characters from the original Dickens novel, but List provided me with a description from the book: “The other man…was of a more slender figure – Stooping, and high in the shoulders – with a very ill-favoured face, and a most sinister and villainous squint.” Logically, if he was accustomed to spending his time in ill-lit inns, and other murky corners, plying his ‘trade’, his squint would come from closely studying his cards, and the drooped head and high shoulders would present a ‘nose-first’ character. I decided to crush him down into a smaller man, and gave him a thin voice, threatening, mistrustful, the ‘bad cop’ of the two man con team of List and Jowl. That seemed to just fit with concave chest, and shorter neck and voice origin area than I would generally sound like. This also freed me up to be much taller, and slender as Marton.

Whenever characterisations of priests are seen, they generally walk tall, and on the balls of their feet, as if gliding on an invisible cloud of goodness. I deepened my voice and added a ‘light brown’ colour to it: Deferential, caring, unhurried, and sure of his faith. Also, I tried a happier and more serene countenance that served to differentiate both characters, along with a change of hair style and costume. It’s quite a double act, and when List is finished, I have to go through some routines in both mental and physical outlook to ‘grow’ into Marton. Thankfully, I do have a few minutes. While List is a user of people, Marton is someone that needs them, and tries to guide them, so even though those famous shoes of mine are the same for both, the thought process involved is completely opposite. I have even tried putting each other’s words into the other accent, and they still show evil and good. At least I am back to “English english” following my last few roles. Our scenes are very short, so there is limited time to get your point over, too. The usual ‘attack’ still has to be there, but I am concentrating more on making each word count, rather than letting the script of a speech do the work. Both are dealing with their ‘given circumstances and, working together, these technique are definitely something that I am keeping for future roles.

The script is very dense, and takes many words to say something very simple. These points have, along with playing supporting roles, been very different for me, but enjoyable, as always, and I think that they were both served well.