Tag Archives: acting technique

The Four Emotions, Part II

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When acting, you might feel different elements of the primary emotion at the same time.  For instance, if your primary emotion is Joy, you might feel both confident and hopeful, or confident and proud.  If you feel the former, it will express itself slightly differently than the latter pairing.

On the other hand, you might feel both Anger and Sadness at the same time, as Biff does in the confrontation scene at the end of Death of a Salesman.  He is more closely connected to the Anger in the beginning of the scene and to Sadness at the end, but those two emotions co-exist throughout the entire scene.  Your job, as an actor, is to let them both affect you, while making choices about which to let dominate when and how to make the move from Anger to Sadness.

death of a salesmanKnowing that there are two different emotions governing opposite ends of the scene helps you to chart the space between them.  You can allow for a gradual and natural change, with each successive line of dialogue helping you to move closer to your final emotion.  But to really make this effective, you have to clearly understand the difference between the starting and ending primary emotions, and where they can overlap.

A third option is for both to exist throughout the scene, without the clear sort of delineation we find in the Death of a Salesman scene.  For instance, you might experience Anger and Joy at the same time.  Frustration and Pride, or Jealousy and Love.  There are scenes where it is entirely appropriate to toggle between the two throughout the scene, as if you are flicking a light switch on and off.

Most relationships are not straightforward, grounded in one particular emotion.  How many times can we fairly answer the query, “Tell me about your relationship” with, “Well, it’s complicated….”

“I love Mom, but she drives me crazy with her nitpicking.”  “I love my brother, but I can’t help resenting him when Dad praises him to the skies.” “I love my boyfriend, but he doesn’t always give me what I need, and that makes me anguished, frustrated, or furious, depending on the moment you ask.”

If you’re this last woman, the same man makes you feel joy, love, grief, frustration, fury, heartbreak, worry, and fear – and sometimes, all at the same time!  Human beings are perfectly capable of juggling such complexity of emotions.  On stage, it’s harder, because you have to layer those things together intentionally, whereas you’ll do it naturally and instinctively in your real life.  But if you want to create characters who seem like real people, this is exactly what you must do.  When you create a flawed and contradictory character, you will probably create an interesting, watchable, and believable character, one who enriches the play you’ve been given.

See Part I here.  See Part III here.

The Four Emotions, Part I

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There are four primary emotions:  Anger, Fear, Joy, and Sadness.

four emotionsAsk a toddler how he feels, and you are apt to get “I’m mad”, “I’m scared”, “I’m happy”, or “I’m sad” as a response.  As we get older, we start to delineate gradations of these main emotions, but every feeling still falls into one of these four major groups.

Jealousy is a form of Anger.  Worry is a form of Fear.  Excitement is a form of Joy.  Hurt is a form of Sadness.

When we read a scene for the first time, we typically respond to what we feel is the primary emotional element involved.  Now, you and I might disagree about what that element is.  What we identify is at least partly going to be a function of who we are as individuals, something separate from whatever the playwright has put into the scene.  (I’ll talk more about that another time.)

This is good.  Whichever primary emotion you relate to, go with it initially.  But don’t try to fine-tune it yet.  If you think your character is driven by Jealousy, then get in touch with all the Anger you can muster about the scene.  If you think your character is worried out of her mind, don’t go for Worry; go directly to Fear.

Don’t be afraid of the Big Four.  Don’t avoid them just because they are such huge emotions.  Sometimes we get so fancy about how we define the emotional life of our characters that we shy away from the strength of these primary emotions.  Don’t.  Go with them.  Indulge them.  Find out what they have to tell you about the heart of the scene.

Remember, you’re in rehearsals, and you’re in the early stage of rehearsals.  You can afford to make mistakes now.  You aren’t committing to anything.  You’re simply exploring.  You’re going to the edge of the boundaries, and perhaps even beyond them, so that you can be sure where the boundaries are.

So when I read the confrontation between Willy Loman and Biff at the end of Death of a Salesman, I might respond primarily to Biff’s Anger.  If that is what hits me first and I am playing Biff, it is likely that I will be inclined to focus on that aspect of the scene, to play up the Anger whenever possible.

That’s not the only emotion going on in the scene, however.  By the end of it, Biff is in tears, a big clue that Sadness is also a part of the scene.  As Biff, I might start the scene with Anger, but ultimately I’ve got to make my way to Sadness by the end of it.

Be careful, though, not to assume that it’s an either/or proposition.  That when I’m feeling Anger, I can’t possibly feel Sadness as well.  Or vice versa.  Different, or even conflicting emotions, can co-exist.  I’ll talk more about this in Part II.

See Part II here.  See Part III here.

Justifying the Text, Part III

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The examples I’ve given you for justifying the text are the obvious ones.  If I start to cry, it’s not that hard to figure out that it’s because you slapped me, or humiliated me, or told me you’re leaving me for another woman.

What about the less dramatic moments in a scene?  Do I need to pay too much attention to your response to me then?  Or should I just worry about my own responses?

Many actors do just that, while simultaneously acknowledging the importance of their scene partner in their choices.  “So-and-so made me mad when she said that, and that’s why I . . .”  “But I think my character wouldn’t respond that way.  I mean, she said such-and-such to me . . .”

Clearly, we think the choices we make about our own lines are at least partly driven by what we’re getting from others, and yet we forget that they feel the same way.  That to really close all the loops in a play, we need to look at our role from the other characters’ viewpoints.  To make sure that everything works together flawlessly.  If there is a puzzle piece that you can’t fit into the picture, you’ve missed the boat somewhere and need to start over.

magnifying glassA play is a large mystery for the actor to solve.  In a well-written play, all of the clues you need to solve the mystery are provided by the playwright.  They might be hidden from view, but they are there to be discovered.  Playwrights do not provide red herrings, nor do they spring new information on you in the last scene before Jessica Fletcher identifies the murderer, without which you could not have figured out whodunit.

Many of those clues about your character are in the other characters’ lines.

Here’s the golf analogy.  An amateur plays a hole from tee to green.  How do I land the ball safely in the fairway?  How do I get the ball on the green from the fairway?  How do I get the ball in the hole once it’s on the green?

A professional golfer plays the hole backwards, from green to tee.  Where do I want to land the ball on the green to have the easiest putt?  Where do I want to hit the ball from the fairway to give myself the best chance of putting the ball on that spot on the green?  What club do I need to hit, and how do I shape my shot, to get the ball to that spot on the fairway?

So yes, you should read each scene from your character’s point of view.  But you should also read each scene from the other character’s point of view.  How are they responding to your character, and what does that tell you about the kind of person your character is and about what is emotionally going on for your character right now?

See Part I here.  See Part II here.

Justifying the Text, Part II

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If I get angry in a scene with you, is whatever you’re doing sufficient to make me start yelling at you?  Yes, there’s probably something going on internally in me that is feeding that anger.  But it is likely that you were the straw that broke the camel’s back, that either something you said, or the way you said it, or a combination of both, made the dam burst for me.

The first option is taken care of by the playwright.  It is your job to add something to it by the way you say the line.  Because leaving the responsibility for provoking me entirely in the lap of the playwright isn’t the best choice.

Why?

Let’s say a play is two hours long.  If you’ve never tried to write a play, you may not realize how short a period of time this is.  time bombIt may seem to you that there is a lot that happens in the play, and there probably is.  But it is also likely that the play was much longer in its original version, and the playwright had to take a stern red pencil to it.  The editing process removes all the extraneous stuff, all the wonderful but unfortunately unnecessary pieces, from the play.  A good playwright will leave in only the essential moments, the essential words, that which most strongly moves the story forward.

Given that all that is left in the final script is “essential”, it is important that we, as actors, make sure that the audience gets every bit of it to the fullest extent possible.  Remember, the audience is meeting these characters and this situation for the first time.  They have no history with the characters, but have to learn the important facts of their lives and temperaments very quickly.  They continue to receive new information about the characters throughout the play, and need to integrate it in to what they have already learned.  This is a lot of work.  The playwright and actors work in conjunction to make it as easy as possible for the audience to navigate this new world.

Remember how only 7% of the meaning of conversation is conveyed by the words?  If the actor doesn’t put in the emotional subtext, the audience will never get everything out of the play they are meant to get.

This means focusing their attention to maximize what they receive.  It means being very clear about what we deliver to them.  A muddy performance doesn’t do anyone – the playwright, the audience, or you – any favors.

Clarity doesn’t mean simplicity.  Elegance, yes, but we are aiming for complex, interesting characterizations, not simple ones.  Making broad strokes at the obvious may make why I am crying or yelling abundantly clear, but it doesn’t necessarily make it believable.

See Part I here.  See Part III here.

Justifying the Text, Part I

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In acting, “Justifying the Text” means making sure that whatever the playwright has written in the dialogue makes sense to the audience.

If you come into my living room and I say, “Please, sit down,” and nothing indicates that you don’t sit down, the odds are very good that you do sit.  If you don’t sit, the audience will spend the next two minutes wondering why you don’t, and they’ll miss everything that happens in that two minutes.  So to justify the text, you should sit.

If I say, “Sit down,” and then say, “I said, sit down!”, then sitting down when I say it the first time is probably a mistake, because if you did sit then, I’d have no reason to say, “I said, sit down!”  So standing after my first line and sitting after the second line is probably called for.  And this, too, is called justifying the text.

If I ask you if you’d like coffee, and you say yes, then the odds are that I’m going to get you some, whether the script indicates this or not.  Unless you have a line at some point where you say, “And never mind about that cup of coffee you never got me!”

These are the easy, obvious examples of what we mean by justifying the text.  But there are lots of more subtle ways in which we need to justify the text, too.

If you and I have a scene together where I start to cry, you need to look at whether or not you say something that triggers my crying.  It’s not just about me crying on cue, just because the text says I should.  The responsibility for my crying doesn’t rest solely on my shoulders.  We are partners in this scene.  We are equally responsible for everything that happens in it.

cryingIf I cry in a scene, the odds are pretty good that you’ve done something that makes me respond that way, or you are at least a contributing factor.  Perhaps you’ve insulted me about my weakest point.  If that’s the case, then to justify the text, you need to be sure that you’ve insulted me sufficiently to provoke my crying.  Who your character is and what my character is like will have an impact on how you go about doing that, but the connection between your criticism and my crying must be clear to the audience.

Again – if it isn’t, it is distracting to the audience.  An audience is an infallible lie detector.  They’ll notice if there is no logical emotional connection between what you said and what I do.  It bothers them.  They wonder about it.  They try to figure out which actor screwed up.  And they miss another two minutes of the play.

It’s your job to make sure they don’t miss even five seconds.

See Part II here.  See Part III here.

First Person Acting, Part III

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Initially, speaking about your character in the first person may feel awkward and stupid.  I understand.  I regularly feel that way, and I’ve been doing this a long time!  I am completely aware that I am not really my character, that she is in fact a fiction, and so I resist identifying with her.  But quite honestly, whenever possible, I resist talking about my character at all – in either the third OR first person!

My directors invariably will ask me questions during rehearsals that require that I do so, and I do oblige them, but it always requires my overcoming a certain fierce reluctance.

Interestingly, I did discover in the last play I was in that I speak of my character in the third person when I am operating in left brain (conscious) mode, and in the first person when I operate in right brain (subconscious) mode.  But I also know how to translate conclusions derived from third person analysis to first person performance, and I can switch from conscious to subconscious acting in about a second and a half.

BUT while I resist talking out loud about my character in either the third or first person, I think extensively about my character, and I always think in the first person.  For me, there is no harm in occasionally speaking in the third person, but unless you are absolutely certain that you can flip the switch the way I do, it is better to err on the side of caution and learn how to always speak in the first person.  (That’s how I learned to flip the switch!)

dangerous_liaisonsSpeaking in the first person is also critical if you aren’t fond of your character initially.  Perhaps the character you are playing does some despicable things (think of La Marquise de Merteuil in Les Liaisons Dangereuses.)  Or she just isn’t your cup of tea.  She’s stupid, or vapid, or mean, or makes choices of which you personally disapprove.  I know an actress who has a real problem with playing a cheating spouse because of her strong personal commitment to marital fidelity.

It is easy to maintain your disapproval of a character you discuss in the third person.  It’s much harder to do so when you align yourself with the character by speaking in terms of “I”.  It doesn’t make the conflict between you and your character go away, but it forces you to deal with it, and deal with it early in the rehearsal process.  You may never like or approve of your character, but you do have to understand her to do her justice.  And the odds are that if you really understand her, you’ll also find that you like her – no matter how despicable her behavior may be.

Lastly, don’t wait until you’re in the middle of rehearsals, after you’ve done the blocking and gotten used to the rhythm of the play, to start identifying with your character by referring to her in the first person.  Jump in the deep end in the first week, and you’ll find it you make faster progress getting to know your character if you do!

See Part I here.  See Part II here.

First Person Acting, Part II

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Looking at your character in the third person is like trying to understand someone in your real life.  You can’t get into their head from a distance.  Your view of them will always be colored by your own position, and misunderstandings will typically abound.

Let’s say that you are in Kansas, and I’m in Virginia.  I don’t know what it looks like to be in Kansas.  I see Kansas from my Virginian perspective.  An actor from Texas would see Kansas from a Texan perspective.  We filter everything through the lens of where we are.  We can’t help it; that’s how our brains work.

kansasI can’t begin to really get the Kansan perspective unless I go to Kansas.  Unless I see what the world looks like from there.  I have to physically put myself in your shoes (Kansas) to understand why you feel as you do, why you see things the way you do, why certain issues matter to you in a way that they don’t matter to me, as an East Coaster.

At that point, I get some “Aha!” moments.  I stop applying stereotypes to you, stereotypes that come out of my East Coast sensibility, etc.  I open the door to variety, paradoxically, when I step into your very particular shoes.

I also get out of my head.  Script analysis is largely an intellectual activity; as actors, we are searching for feelings.  It is easier to get to the character’s feelings when you are willing to align yourself with your character’s perspective by saying, “I am hurt when my mother says ‘this’ to me, because I want her to love me,” or “I want nothing more than to run away from this situation, but I’d feel guilty if I did.”

That’s very different from saying, “She really wants her mother’s love, but her mother always criticizes her,” or “She doesn’t leave, because she’d feel too guilty.”

Can you feel the difference in those statements?  The first feel more personal, more specific.  You can’t help but get drawn into them.  The second are distant, cerebral, and generic.

Great art tells us something about the general – about being a human being – by getting very specific about individuals in particular circumstances.  Using the first person in your acting puts you one step closer to that specificity.

Changing your perspective in this way also makes script analysis so much easier.  But that’s further down the road . . .

See Part I here.  See Part III here.

First Person Acting, Part I

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We’ve talked about the fact that people don’t really like to feel their feelings, and actors are in no way exempt from this very human trait.  I like feeling my feelings more than the average Joe, but I’d rather keep my distance from them in real life.  Feelings are, quite frankly, uncomfortable.

outofbodyexperienceWhy?  Because to feel them means to not control them, and we all love to control our circumstances.  Because they are inclined to tell us the truth about ourselves.  And we’d often like to avoid that, too.

This disconnect from our emotional lives may make getting through the day easier, but it’s not very helpful onstage.  As actors, we have to dive into our feelings.  That’s how they get big enough to get over the footlights.

(I direct this at the segment of the acting population made up of “underactors”, which is the vast majority.  If you’re an “overactor”, that’s a slightly different kettle of fish.  Everyone falls in one of these two groups.  But that’s a discussion for another day.)

In real life, we have a variety of ways of avoiding our feelings.  Talking.  Keeping the television on all the time.  Throwing ourselves into physical activities, be they chores or games.  As actors, we have different avoidance techniques, and the biggest is the use of the third person when speaking about our character.  “My character isn’t happy in this scene.”  “I think she feels worried.”  “He wouldn’t do that.”

Think about a time in your life when you realized that you habitually respond to certain people or situations in a predictable way.  Someone close to you has pointed out, say, that every time you are criticized, you get defensive in a very particular way.  And one day, you can sort of stand outside yourself in one of those moments and say, “Hey!  I do do that.  Isn’t that interesting?  I wonder why?”  Which probably leads you down the road of a little self-psychoanalysis, all of which is done, effectively, in the third person, because you are observing your own behavior as if it isn’t quite YOU doing it.

This may give you some self-knowledge, but it isn’t going to change your behavior until you add that knowledge to the experience of living, when you can merge it with living in the first person.  And so it is onstage.

When you speak of your character in the third person, you distance yourself from him, and start working toward what you think he should look like, sound like, etc.  But no matter how well executed, those are all externals and don’t get to the heart of the matter.  And the heart is what counts.  Get the heart right — and by “heart”, I mean emotions — and the externals will largely take care of themselves.  You might say a given line very differently on five different nights, but if you’ve got the heart right each night, all five ways will be just perfect.

See Part II here.  See Part III here.

Comedic Action

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI was just going through photos of the first play I directed on St. Croix , a one-act play called “When Men Are Scarce” for Caribbean Community Theatre in 2006.  I no longer remember the name of the playwright, but it was a play from the early 1960s — very Doris Day-ish.  Certainly before the Sexual Revolution!

While very dated, it was a well-constructed play.  We did our best to overcome its age, and we turned it into very physical comedy.  I told the cast that it was, in effect, an episode of “I Love Lucy”, with the brunette in the photo (wose name I’ve forgotten, sorry) playing Lucy, the blonde (Lisa Vaughan) playing Ethel, Mariah Mays playing Ricky, and Emily Van Buren playing Fred.

At the time, WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) bracelets were still in vogue.  So our mantra became “What Would Lucy Do?”  (I gave the cast WWLD bracelets on closing night.)

Some of the physical action of the play was indicated in the script, although not in the quantity or detail that we ended up using.  “Ricky” and “Fred” dressed the set up to look like a romantic dinner had happened.  (We had a lot of props!)  Some of it wasn’t in the script at all:  “Lucy” trying various ways to build a “step” so she can come in through the fire escape window, or pushing the menswear under the loveseat with her foot while pretending the coats aren’t really there.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe real fun of doing this show, for me, was finding ways to really push the envelope and pack the stage with comedic action.  Don’t settle for token activity if you can find a way to enrich the visual with movement, especially if you can use the movement to underscore the emotional context of the scene (which you generally can.)

And when you’re playing comedy, remember that virtually all comedy is physical.  Even verbal jousting, like Noel Coward, is much funnier when you add the physical to it.  Don’t let the punchlines do all the work.  If you do, you are cheating both yourself and your audience.

Check out the Facebook page for more photos from “When Men Are Scarce”!

Why you need to practice onstage physical movements. A lot.

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Activities are typically more complicated than movement.  For instance, I can get comfortable with crossing the stage fairly easily.  But if once I get there, I need to pour myself a scotch and soda on the rocks and drink it – well, that’s considerably more complex.

Not only are there many more moving parts, so to speak, I actually have to pay some attention to the activity.  I have to make sure the ice gets into the glass, not on the floor.  I have to be careful that the soda in the Schweppes bottle doesn’t spray all over when I open it.  I need to be sure not to pour too much “scotch”, unless my character is intent on getting drunk, in which case I need to be sure I do pour too much.  And I need to not overfill the glass and make a mess of things.

If I have a limited number of lines in which to accomplish this, I’ve got quite a challenge in front of me.  In other words, I better practice this early and often.

scotchFirst I have to get comfortable with the action itself.  I’m not in my own home, so I have to get familiar with where things are.  If I’m using ice tongs, I’d better practice moving ice with them so that I can do it quickly and without mishap.  I don’t drink scotch and soda, so I have to learn what the right level for the scotch is in the glass I’ll be using.  I have to practice with both bottles, so I learn how quickly I can expect the liquid to pour.  Do I have to unscrew a top?  How long does that take, and should I have the top almost completely unscrewed as part of the pre-set?

In other words, I need to remove the mystery of the actions.  Even activities that I am ostensibly doing for the first time need to be thoroughly explored, so that I know how to imitate the first-time experience.

Once I’m comfortable with the action, I need to add the words to it.  This will throw all my well-practiced actions into chaos!  I won’t say the lines right, and I won’t do the activity properly.  I’ll be a mess, in other words.  But as I continue to practice, the two – words and action – will start to blend naturally.  I’ll come to understand how the rhythm of my lines fit with the rhythm of the action.  Where I can pause to give my full attention to the action, and when I can momentarily stop the action to make a dramatic point with the words.

But all this explains – I hope – why you need to start experimenting with anything physical, whether it be a change in location or a physical activity, as early in the rehearsal process as possible.