Tag Archives: acting technique

The Actor: The Playwright’s Co-Creator

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Last week Paul identified the actor as a “co-creator” with the playwright.  I’d like to take that a step further and say that the playwright tells a story with words, while the actors tell that same story with emotions.  The actors illuminate the playwright’s story by attaching emotions to what are otherwise two-dimensional sentences, and thereby give real meaning to the play.  The job of the director is to edit the options the actors present him with so that the choices they make create the strongest, most interesting story possible.

In other words, it’s not just about saying the words.  Anyone can do that.

As long as you make choices that don’t violate the script’s text, the choices are valid and fairly represent what you have to bring to the work as a creative artist.  You and I will give entirely different performances as the same character simply because we each have our own unique perspective, and that perspective tends to guide our choices.

However, we also have to recognize that our perspective is just one of many billions of perspectives, and that our characters may not share them.  What we think we know about our character isn’t necessarily right.  We are inclined to make many decisions about our characters within the first few readings of the play, but those are always made within the context of our unique perspective.  When we do, we usually shut the door on the more interesting and creative choices.

I’ve lived with my husband for 19 years.  He continues to surprise me, no matter how well I think I know him.  How can I possibly think I can understand a character I just met, about whom I only have 70 pages of dialogue as clues, in less than a week?

That’s why I won’t tell you what play your monologue is from yet.  If I do, you’ll start making assumptions about your characters.  As long as you know nothing about the play – including your character’s name – it’s easier to be open-minded.  And so I can use this early time – I think you’ll start working with scenes from full plays that I will let you read in Week 5 – to demonstrate how many more interesting options you have when you suspend judgment, as well as to introduce ways of using space and time to unleash the power of your subconscious.  My guess is that none of you use your subconscious as much as you can, and that is where true creativity lies.

I hope these tools will prove to be very helpful when you start working on 5 minute scenes (standard length for scene study).  The rest of the tools I hope to share with you, I’ll introduce within the context of those scenes.

For those of you who were at tonight’s class (9/17), here’s the assignment for next week.  If you weren’t with us tonight, you can prepare the second part of the assignment below if you have the time, but you don’t have to prepare it, either.  If you only do the homework from the 9/10 class the next time you come, that’s just fine.

I realize that we didn’t do anything with your “memory” homework tonight, due to time.  We may get to them next week.  Or maybe not.  However, you’ll find that if you keep practicing with finding new memories, you’ll become more familiar with what it feels like to search for memories, the right words, things that are difficult to say, etc.  If you know what it feels like for YOU to search for them, you can transfer that experience to your character.  When the same sensations come up for you as the character searching for the details of a memory as come up for you when you do the exercise, you know you’ve hit paydirt.

So, it’s a two part assignment:

  1. Work on your monologue in light of the experiments we did with it in class.  Feel free to try as many different approaches as you can imagine, just to see what the effect is.  Remember, you’ve got no way of knowing what the “right” choice is, so just examine your options.  Try the options that seem to be completely wrong, and see if you find anything good in there.  Finally, choose an activity that supports whatever choices you do end up making, and do both at the same time.  Run it at least three times to see what happens depending on how much attention you give to your activity.  Bring the props for your activity with you to the next class.
  2. Identify the “important” lines in your monologue vs. the “unimportant” ones.  By “important”, I mean plot points, big emotional moments, when your character makes an unsignaled left turn, etc.  By unimportant, I mean the lines that if the audience doesn’t hear, it’ll be okay.  Do this with pencil initially, until you’re happy with your choices.  Then you can highlight them if you like.  This will give you a monologue that looks like a tiger standing on its head.
    Once you’ve made your choices, practice walking around the stage on your unimportant lines, and standing still on your important ones.  You’ll do this in class as well.

And then it’s on to an active monologue (not a memory monologue).  From there, we’ll progress to really clever two person scenes that will hopefully change how you listen on stage.  Which is probably the hardest acting technique issue there is!

A Few Exercises

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If you weren’t at tonight’s class (Sept. 10), disregard the following.  It will apply to you after you attend your first class session, but it is nothing you need to do before that.

If you don’t have time to prepare all three things, then prepare them in the order they appear.

1)      Prepare an activity.  Something simple, like peeling carrots.  Playing solitaire.  Shining your shoes.  Practice it at home at least three times.  This may seem silly, but trust me, it makes a difference.  Do not “write” lines to say.  Speech is not forbidden, but also should not be prepared beforehand.  It should be used only if it arises spontaneously (e.g., if you cut yourself with a knife, you might say “Ouch”, among other things.)  Do not create an imaginary scene partner; the activity is solitary.  The “setting” for the activity should be your home.  The “character” is the real you.  And the activity should last for about 2 minutes.  Bring whatever “props” you need to do your activity (carrots, a peeler, a dishtowel, a bowl, a garbage can or paper bag, a cutting board, etc.)  Do NOT mime any of your actions.  Do NOT use a cell phone, IPad, or any other form of technology as one of your props.  And avoid activities requiring fine motor skills.  It is very difficult to thread a needle on stage, no matter how young your eyes are.

2)      Memorize the monologue I gave you in class.  Resist the temptation to memorize “line readings” with it, but instead just memorize the words as words.  Yes, inflections and rhythm can be helpful in memorizing lines, but doing so limits your performance in ways that are very difficult to overcome.  You will know you’ve really memorized the monologue when you can say the words without stopping except to catch your breath.

Feel free to “think” about your character, but ONLY think about it.  Resist the temptation to “prepare” the monologue out loud in any way other than to memorize the lines.  Remember, while your monologue is from an actual play, you don’t know what that play is or anything about your character or the circumstances that surround your monologue, so you can’t make good “choices”, you can only make some intelligent guesses based on limited information which may or may not pan out.  Instead of making choices, simply explore ALL the possibilities.  For instance, what if your monologue is intended to be humorous?  What if it is intended to be dramatic?  What if you play it as if it is incredibly important?  What if you say it as something very off-hand?  What would be different about it, depending on which choices you might make?

Identify the possibilities, just don’t choose from among them.

Don’t feel like you have to do anything OTHER than memorize your lines.  You don’t.  But if you can’t stop yourself from doing more, then why not challenge yourself to find as many different possibilities as you can?

If yours is a longer monologue and you don’t have time to memorize it all, just memorize the portion that you can.  The length, quite honestly, is fairly arbitrary.

3)      Practice telling your “personal memory”, the one you used in class.  You don’t want it to last longer than 1 or 2 minutes.  Edit it to eliminate repetitions or extraneous information.  Stick to the critical points.  Tell it out loud at least six times, to real or imaginary people.  Feel free to “tell” it to family and friends; just don’t let them give you ANY feedback other than to answer the following question with one word:  “Did it feel to you like I was remembering it for the first time?”  Be prepared to tell it in class as if we have never heard you tell it before.  The idea is to make us believe that you never have told it to anyone before.  I don’t care if it is interesting or funny or has a point.  This isn’t a class on improv or playwriting.

As much as you can, put yourself back into the memory.  Take time to just THINK about it, REMEMBER everything you can about it, before you tell it again.  On your first retelling, describe your surroundings in as much detail as you can.  Colors, shapes, density.  Can you remember any sounds that might have been part of it?  The sound of a passing train, the whoosh of the wind through the trees, the high pitch of your brother’s whistle?  Can you remember what the apple felt like in your hand?  Was it a red delicious so big that your 8-year-old hand could barely hold it, or was it a rotten half-grown crab apple that easily fit in your hand?  Was it soft or hard, smooth, wet, slimy?  Could you smell what Mom was cooking?  Can you identify what she was cooking by smell, rather than simply remembering the menu?  And most importantly, can you remember how you FELT about the moment?  Did it make you happy, scared, ashamed, silly, resentful, etc.?

If you find staying silent for 30 seconds while you try to get in touch with these details difficult, I understand.  But all the more reason you should try to sit still and pay attention for at least 15 seconds.  Trust me (sorry, Troy!), that’s where the magic is.

After this first retelling, which can take as long as ten minutes if you like, you’ll have a much better sense of what is important and what can be edited out, and then you can start practicing the short version.

See if you can find at least ONE SENTENCE in your “personal memory” that you can get in touch with this level of detail.  Just ONE moment like this is sufficient to give any monologue real power.