Ruby Martin

Drama - BA (Hons)

My biggest influence in creating theatre and in acting itself is Old Hollywood. I aspire to have an impact like Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Norma Shearer, Clark Gable. Classic cinema has always fascinated me and made me wish to create art that draws from it. Historical pieces have always fascinated me and this is where I draw most of my inspiration, I want to understand what the world was like, what the people that lived in it felt. I want to bring it to life to make it three dimensional and real enough to touch.

Creating storylines and characters is my passion, knitting them together to be humans with flaws and strengths, relationships with one another so complex beyond what we see. This is what theatre and acting means to me, the desire to create something the same way Old Hollywood did, to sculpt my own world to star in it and show an audience through a window real people and lives that evoke emotions and memories.

Rothwood is the story of one generation of the Farrington family, the play in its majority is set in 1842, and centred around the six children of Rowland and Melantha Farrington.

Rowland runs his house like clockwork, moving his family like chess pieces, everything trembles in his presence, his word is God. His favoured child is the eldest son Lionel who has been named heir to the estate.

The sibling’s relationship with each other is tangled, complicated and detached. Percy now married drinks himself into a stupor, Vincent raises hell away at university, Marguerite throws herself into society and gathers beaux with terrible reputations, India hides away at boarding school detesting them all from afar, and the youngest Adeline remains at home watching and listening from the shadows. They have lived under their fathers iron regime since they can remember, and all in the name of the families honour.

Amidst the gothic backdrop of a howling winter night their lives will change forever, secrets will unfold, the shadow that looms over them has never been darker.