Annie Moffat – Little Women (2019)

Annie Moffat, played by Abby Quinn, appears in the film adaption of Little Women (2019) as not only a minor character but also a prime example of Ernest Mathjis’ “Referential Acting and the Ensemble Cast.” Annie is a girl of high society that Meg March becomes friends with at a ball they are both invited to, she embraces Meg as a friend, gives her the new, societal name of Daisy, and lends her a beautiful gown for the ball they attend together that night. Although her part is relatively small, Annie poses as the temptation in Meg’s life. Each March sister works their way through their own character arc, Meg’s is accepting her poorness and learning to live with just love (like her Mother). Annie represents this life of money, ballrooms, and gowns, that Meg often wishes for throughout the film, creating this lustful tone when Meg finally does attend this magnificent ball. Annie’s part in Little Women can be directly connected to Ernest Mathijs’ article, “Referential Acting and the Ensemble Cast,” found in Will Straw’s “The Small Parts, Small Players Dossier.” Mathijs explains that “the members of ensembles play off the received perceptions of themselves held by other cast members and audiences” (Mathijs). Annie Moffat does exactly this, her character only ever appears in this one scene where the main themes are wealth, parties and marriage. She is perceived by most viewers as not rude but privileged compared to Meg and her sisters. As a part of this specific ensemble cast Abby Quinn is expected to portray Annie as well-mannered, wealthy, and blissfully unaware of struggles in their world, for example, her biggest concern in this scene was making sure Meg did not wear a certain worn-down dress to the ball.  Abby Quinn is also a great example of Mathijs’ Referential Acting: “a performance on the basis of a previous one” (Mathijs). The character she played in the film prior to Little Women (2019) was called After the Wedding (2019), in which she also played character of wealth who opposed the protagonists struggles and represented an alternate, easier, carefree lifestyle.