‘There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape. But even after admitting this, there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.’  Patrick Bateman.

In today’s session, we were required to read out our build up monologues which we were asked to write from Wednesday. It was to help facilitate our opening of each of our solo piece. What was very interesting is the striking imagery that came from each monologue. It helped me have an understanding of the kind of the characteristic portrayal I want in my piece.

My initial idea is to portray a character who appears to be normal, but may in fact be a psychopath in disguise. When i mean disguise I don’t mean literal costume changes, but a person who lives among us in everyday society. a small influence i intend to use is the fictional character Patrick Bateman. I like the idea that Bateman is a man who does kill people, but it is entirely ambiguous as to whether he actually commits these acts or hes just a deluded man driven to kill in his mind. I want my character to be a sort of lunatic in a way, but a theatrical lunatic! Someone who voluntarily scares the living hell out of the audience but at the same time they find his strange persona to be darkly funny. Today we each wrote some answers to some questions that are based on the who, what, where, why, and how of the character. I deliberately made my answers quite philosophical because I want my character to have some sort of unpredictable nature about him; you don’t what to expect.

Lastly, I want to explore how the word ‘psychopath’ doesn’t have to mean a killer or bad person, but someone who can easily carry the traits of a psycho and has a fuse that can be switched in the blink of an eye if something unexplained in their life occurs…