Characters

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Everyone in the show plays two characters. They have their character who is trapped inside the lost property box, which is known as their number character, and they have an equivalent character based on a woman from history.

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The number characters inside the box (11/136/248/335/502) are intended to be manifestations which represent the stories of the women which are lost to time and not the literal women themselves. Therefore their characterisation does not directly correlate to the characterisation of the women. The numbers represent the order in which they arrived in the Lost Property Box, and there are gaps between each number to imply that other people have been inside the Box but are now no longer there. We decided to make these numbers their names as well to show how as their stories have been lost, their names have too. We created these characters initially though improvisation and through work-shopping them during our rehearsals prior to the cancellation of the festival. In our writing of the script we worked together to ensure that these character choices remained strong and that together the five of them held a good on-stage dynamic that would be engaging for audiences.

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For the women from history characters, performers use accents to indicate that they are playing someone new. In these instances the performer has not completely changed character; rather it is more similar to a play within a play whereby the number characters are aware they are pretending to be someone else. In this regard there are moments in the play in which the women break out of character, revealing their number character beneath.

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Each character has a 'final object' individual to them, which has been with them since they arrived in the box. When this object expires, they know they will soon follow.

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The majority of character work was decided upon prior to the cancellation of the festival. However, it was developed further in the days after the cancellation whilst writing the remainder of the script.