Characters
There are three male characters in the play, they are:
- Joe Lukin, Julia's father, now in his sixties, never let his daughter go, convinced there are unanswered questions about her death;
- Andy Rollinson, generally considered Julia's student boyfriend, but unrequited admirer would be a more accurate description, now in his thirties;
- Ken Chase, a gentle unassuming man in his forties who offers his service as a psychic to Joe, later discovered to have once been the janitor in Julia's house.
There are also two voice parts in the play: one of Julia (or, more accurately, an actress imitating her voice speaking words the real Julia would probably never have said), and a sombre male voice talking about her death.
It was originally intended that Joe would be the central character of the story, but Ayckbourn eventually considered the central character of the story to be Julia herself. He also considered two other offstage characters - Dolly, Joe's late wife, and Kay, the woman Andy married instead of Julia - to be strong characters.
Read more about this topic: Haunting Julia
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga—stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Of all the characters I have known, perhaps Walden wears best, and best preserves its purity. Many men have been likened to it, but few deserve that honor. Though the woodchoppers have laid bare first this shore and then that, and the Irish have built their sties by it, and the railroad has infringed on its border, and the ice-men have skimmed it once, it is itself unchanged, the same water which my youthful eyes fell on; all the change is in me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)