Releasing Down and Swinging Up: Exploring External Expression through Internal Fall

The goal of my thesis was to investigate how to externalize onstage my inner experience with authenticity and integrity. Using the challenge of playing the role of Irina in Anton Chekhovs Three Sisters, a version of the play where she is Deaf, I investigated how to externally communicate an internal experience through the use of the fall. This paper begins with in-studio research of my personal artistic challenge of releasing in order to externalize. It documents my summer work on physicality and voice while researching and training in American Sign Language. My scholarly research explores the phenomena of the fall as distinct from collapse and release, the life of the playwright, the context of the play, and finally, character analysis of Irina. This paper concludes with my findings from the rehearsal process.