Tag Archives: Rehearsing

Researching the Role: The Playwright’s Opinion

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Writers, quite frankly, don’t know everything about their works.  They know more than you do, at least at the outset, and perhaps even on closing night.  But they don’t know everything.  This means that it is possible that even if they know more in general about their own play, you might know something specific that they have somehow missed.

typingHow can they possibly miss anything about something they have given birth to?  Because there are moments for every writer when his experience is that he is channeling his characters, when they speak without being asked to, when they do unexpected things.  When this happens, you have as good a shot at understanding what is going on for them as the playwright does; more, perhaps, because you haven’t started with the preconceived notions that he may have when he sat down at his desk to write.

Since characters have multiple layers and motivations, everything the playwright thinks about a character may be true, but what you think may also be true.  And sometimes it is entirely possible that the playwright thinks he wrote one thing when in fact he wrote another.  I recently spoke with a novelist about one of his character’s motivation in a particular scene.  His explanation took me entirely by surprise, as I interpreted the events very differently.  His explanation may have been what was in his head when he wrote, but that doesn’t mean it’s what he put down on paper.  If he had, I probably would have received that message on some level.

However, give the playwright credit (at least initially) for knowing what she was trying to do and keep an open mind about her opinions.  Sometimes a playwright will include notes about the play in the playscript, either before or after the script itself.  Don’t ignore these pages simply because there is no dialogue on them.  Make sure you’ve looked at every page in the script so that you’re sure you’ve read whatever the playwright wants to share with you, and do this in the first week of rehearsal.

A week or two into rehearsal, do a little research about the play and previous productions.  Don’t get obsessive about it, but if the playwright has been interviewed by anyone regarding the play, read his responses and give them consideration.  Girl-at-ComputerCheck out reviews of major productions and see if that cast was taken to task for not doing something or praised for being wise enough to do something else.  Yours is a different production; you don’t need to imitate what was successful elsewhere.  But sometimes a review will highlight what is particularly challenging in a play, and it’s a nice reminder of what you need to pay attention to.  All plays have inadvertent “traps”, I’m convinced, and if you don’t know what the “trap” of your play is, you’re apt to fall into it.  If the trap isn’t obvious to you or your director, a reviewer or a playwright may be able to point it out to you.

What do I mean by “trap”?  Well, that’s a topic for another day . . .

See Researching the Role here.

Researching the Role

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Not everything in a script is going to be self-evident or otherwise within your knowledge base.  This means you have to do some research.

I am surprised by how many actors don’t do the research necessary for their roles!  They will go into opening night not understanding a word, a line, or a reference.  You need to understand the words and the world of the play, as well as what makes your character who she is.  And that means research.

libraryFortunately, the internet makes this work a lot easier than it used to be.  If you identify at the beginning of rehearsals what you aren’t sure about, you can answer most of your questions in short order, which will help guide how you use your rehearsal time.

So what sort of things should you look into when doing your research?

Word definitions.  This may sound obvious, but I see too many actors saying lines that they do NOT understand and making no attempt to learn what they mean.  If you can’t define a word in ten words or less, look it up.  Don’t assume you know what the word means because of the context in which it’s used.  Look it up so you’re sure you have an accurate understanding.

Sayings.  Sometimes you’ll come across a phrase or imagery that seems peculiar.  These are often common sayings, but being common doesn’t mean that everyone knows them, so don’t feel inadequate if you don’t.  If you do an internet search, you’ll probably find some etymology for it.  If nothing else, ask the rest of the cast.  Sometimes I’ve just been particularly dense about a line, while my fellow actors know exactly what it means and are happy to enlighten me.

Double entendres.  Sometimes words or phrases have two meanings (and the second one isn’t necessarily risqué!)  If a word or phrase can be interpreted two ways, it probably isn’t an accident that it’s in the play.  Consider what insight the second meaning might give you about the play or your character.

Names.  Sometimes the playwright chooses a name that, because of its meaning or its association with a fictional or historical character, sheds some light on the nature or experiences of the character you are playing.  It’s your job to make that connection, because if it exists, someone in the audience will, and they’ll know if something is missing from your characterization.

Place and Time.  If a play takes place in a city, state, or country you haven’t been in, you need to learn something about that locale.  If it happens in an era not your own, you need to learn what the social rules where then, and to understand what the politics and current events of that time were.  Don’t assume that your own experience translates to places and times you don’t know.  Any references to real-life places, people, or events should be explored as well.

Foreign Words.  Occasionally foreign languages appear in a script.  Sometimes the translation is provided, but sometimes it isn’t.  Be sure you know what the words mean and how to pronounce them correctly (or incorrectly, if that’s appropriate to your role).

Occupations and Illnesses.  Don’t assume that because your character is a teacher or a doctor that you know what that means to him.  The odds are that someone has blogged or written a book about his on-the-job experiences.  Teaching at a prestigious boarding school is different from working at an inner city school.  Working in the Emergency Room is different from being a Sports Orthopedic for the NFL.  Unless you share your character’s career, learning something about it will help you to understand both what attracted him to that field and what his daily experiences are like.  The same thing goes for illnesses.  Was your character once an anorexic?  Read up on both the disease and recovery.  Playing the lead in “Whose Life is It, Anyway?”  Study both the right-to-die arguments and what it is like to be a quadriplegic.

Historical Accuracy and Context.  If the play deals with a real historical events or real historical characters in fictional events, you need to do a LOT of research.  The more you read about the life of your character or the circumstances of the play, the better your performance is apt to be.  Believe me, the playwright has done extensive research, but it is impossible for her to include all the background information that informs her choices as a playwright into the text itself.  So crack the books!

Adaptations.  It should probably go without saying that if you are doing a play that is adapted from a book or has sprung on some level from a poem, you should read the source material.  It SHOULD go without saying.  But I’ll say it anyway.

See The Playwright’s Opinion here.

Big Verbs vs. Little Verbs

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Big Verbs encompass the whole play and reflect your character’s overall goal, objective, or motivation.  (These are three different terms for the same thing.)  Big Verbs are about what your character wants that he thinks will make him happy.  In a well-written play, it is the thing that he wants most in the world; it is, at that particular moment in time, the single thing he thinks will make him happiest.

Semi-Big Verbs encompass large chunks of the play, such as an act or a scene, and are typically the strategy that your character employs to get what he wants.

Little Verbs cover the individual beats of the play and are the tactics that your character uses to achieve his goal.  They are strategy in action.

blanche duboisLet’s look at Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire:  Blanche has lost her job and home and has fled to New Orleans to find sanctuary with her sister.  Her Big Verb, her want, is to find basic security – a roof over her head and food to eat.  Her Semi-Big Verbs are her strategies for getting that:  to charm her brother-in-law into letting her stay; to get her sister to align herself with Blanche’s cause; and to marry Mitch.  These are broad stroke strategies she has to achieve her goal of finding a home.

How she goes about impressing Stanley, co-opting Stella, and marrying Mitch are the Little Verbs, the tactics she uses.  For instance, with Mitch, she flirts, she flatters him, she seduces him, she evades him, she lies to him, she begs him, etc.  Each time she meets with resistance, she changes tactics.  She may change tactics because she is trying to approach him from a variety of angles.  But each Little Verb is what drives each of the smaller beats of the play, all in service of getting Mitch to marry her, which will achieve her goal of finding a home.

If you can put yourself into Blanche’s shoes and believe, for the space of the play, that have lost your job and your home through shameful circumstances, you won’t have to think too much about what you feel in these scenes.  All you have to do is fight like hell to find a way to get a roof over your head.  If Mitch seems like both manna from heaven and your last chance, and you do your best to get him to the altar, the emotions will take care of themselves just fine!

As for Dora in Equus, “to justify slapping Alan” is her Semi-Big Verb for the scene, and all the other verbs for each beat are Little Verbs.  Dora is in conflict with the doctor, who saw her slap Alan and whom she thinks blames her for Alan’s plight, but she is also in conflict with herself.  Her inner guilt makes her swing between attacking the doctor when she doesn’t want to admit her complicity and acknowledging that same complicity in moments when she can no longer deny it.  Inner conflict is a very powerful force on stage.  So the “roadblocks” she runs into that make her change tactics are both what she receives from the doctor while she is speaking (a raised eyebrow, or a stoic refusal to be taken in by her explanations) as well as her own fear of acknowledging that she may have contributed to Alan’s crime by how she raised him.

See Playing the Verbs Part II here.  See Playing the Verbs Part III here.  See Why Playing the Emotions Doesn’t Work here.  See Why Playing the Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier than Acting Emotions here.  See Choosing Verbs here.  See How to Learn to Play the Verbs here.

The Hardest Part of Acting

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As with most complicated activities, acting can be distilled into a few simple concepts.  If we could only fulfill these simple requirements, 90% of the job would be done.  Well, 80%, anyway.

The easiest thing to do is to play the verbs.  It’s very challenging in the beginning, but far and away is the easiest thing to learn.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s very freeing and very easy.

The next easiest thing to do is to allow emotions to flow through you without constraint and without censoring them.  It’s about a willingness to leave the door open to whatever emotions may arise in the course of a play, to give them freedom to exist fully, and to allow them to dissipate naturally.  And to let them be no matter how personally uncomfortable they may be.  It’s an art learned over time.  (More on this in another post.)

But the third concept, hands down, is the toughest to do:  to react ONLY to what you receive from your acting partners.

Reacting means giving up complete control of what comes out of you, and to let it be guided strictly by what you receive from whomever is in the scene with you.

No one wants to do this.  We ALL want to control our own destiny.  We want to actively create our performance.  We have all sorts of ideas about what we should be doing when.

Throw them out.  All of them.  (Well, not all.  But for our purposes right now, yes, toss them all.)

Portrait of the young woman blindfoldYour job is to listen to your scene partner as if you’ve never heard these lines before, as if you know NOTHING about what happens in the play.  Stop looking at the play as if you are an English student  writing a paper on it.  Pretend you know nothing about the other characters’ motives or what happens later in the play.  Let yourself be surprised by whatever they do, and react to what you get.

It’s a difficult task, but not impossible.  As with all new activities, it won’t happen overnight.  Be grateful, initially, if it happens a few times during a scene.  That’s a huge accomplishment, it really is!  As you practice it, you’ll find it happens more and more frequently.  And you’ll gradually learn how to put yourself into a state of mind that makes it easier and gives you the best shot at doing it throughout a scene.  When you’re in “the zone”, listening and reacting mostly takes care of itself.

But initially, you need a third party – a teacher or a director – to help you identify when you are reacting to what you are getting from your scene partner as opposed to when you are controlling the scene.  Actors are often convinced they are listening and reacting when, in fact, they aren’t.  They don’t realize the extent to which they are anticipating the next moment until I point it out.  The first time they look puzzled, but do the scene again.  The second time they give a guilty giggle, as they recognize what I’m talking about.  The third time out, they start to see just how hard this is to do, and I see the “Oh my God, this is really hard!” flicker through their eyes.

It is.  Just not impossible.

See Act Without Expectation here.  See The Open Door Reading here.

Choosing Verbs

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Choosing verbs can be challenging.  We tend to go for nouns, not verbs.  We’ll throw the verb “to be” in there so that it seems like a verb, but it’s actually a passive verb serving the noun.  We move from “I want happiness” to “I want to be happy”, but it’s really just a noun in disguise.  Your acting is better served, instead, by choosing active verbs.

Let’s take a common motivation in plays:  “I want love” or “I want you to love me”.  Passively stated, right?  loveI want this thing called love to come to me.  But remember, acting is about action.  It’s about characters actively pursuing what they want.  So we have to state this desire to be loved in a more active way.  Here are some examples:

Child’s love:  If a parent is withholding their love, we will typically turn cartwheels to get it.  “I want to prove myself worthy of your love.”  “I want to make you finally tell me that you love me.”  “I want to show you that I am lovable.”

Romantic love:  “I want to win your heart.”  “I want to fix our marriage.”  “I want to make you stop having an affair and love me instead.”

Parental love:  “I want to make my son proud of me.”  “I want to protect you.”  “I want to give my child all the things I never had.”

Notice that for some of these, I have used the verb “to make”.  Instead of saying “I want my son to be proud of me”, I say “I want to make my son be proud of me.”  The former puts the focus on the son’s feelings; the latter puts it on what I will do to make my son proud of me.  Perhaps I will stand up for what I believe at great personal cost because to do so will make my son proud of me.  Perhaps I will work hard to achieve something in order to win my son’s admiration.  But it isn’t about my son feeling proud of me; it’s about what I do to create that feeling in him.

If asking yourself what you want leaves you feeling baffled, try thinking in terms of “why am I saying this?”  None of us talk just to talk.  Even those who seem to do so have a reason – silence is scary because it means dealing with your feelings is a common one.  So what you want to figure out is “what is your character hoping to achieve by saying what he does?”

Sometimes you’ll find several beats within a scene that seem to have the same verb.  If so, it’s a good idea to try to find synonyms so that each beat has a different verb, giving it a slightly different tone.  Often, choosing verbs that allow you to escalate is useful.  For instance, you might go from Explain to Persuade to Convince to Sell.  Flirt to Tempt to Seduce.  Ask to Barter to Offer to Buy to Beg.  Inquire to Probe to Push for an Answer to Demand.

The verbs that may jump to mind first will probably be ordinary ones, like explain or understand or ask.  If you can change them to more specific verbs (like Probe, instead of Ask), your acting will become more powerful and interesting.

See Playing the Verbs Part II here.  See Playing the Verbs Part III here.  See Why Playing the Emotions Doesn’t Work here.  See Why Playing the Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier than Acting Emotions here.  See Big Verbs vs. Little Verbs here.  See How to Learn to Play the Verbs here.

Why Playing Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier Than Acting Emotions

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When you choose what you want, which is always expressed as a verb (“I want to . . .”), you’ll find there are Big Verbs and Little Verbs.  The Big Verbs govern what your character wants in the entire play, or in an act, or in a scene.  The Little Verbs govern what your character wants in a single Beat.

Let’s go back to Dora’s monologue in Equus.  I’m going to choose “To justify my actions with regard to Alan to the doctor and to myself” as the Big Verb for the monologue (and the scene from which it comes).  As for the Little Verbs for each of the beats I identified in a previous post, they are in boldface below and precede the dialogue in the beat:

(To establish why you don’t understand my situation)  Look, Doctor:  you don’t have to live with this.  Alan is one patient to you:  one out of many.  He’s my son.  /  (To explain what this is doing to us)  I lie awake every night thinking about it.  Frank lies there beside me.  I can hear him.  Neither of us sleeps all night. /  (To complain about your unfair attack)  You come to us and say, who forbids television?  Who does what behind whose back? – as if we’re criminals.  /  (To defend myself)  Let me tell you something.  We’re not criminals.  We’ve done nothing wrong.  We loved Alan.  We gave him the best love we could.  /  (To concede we aren’t perfect)  All right, we quarrel sometimes – all parents quarrel – we always make it up.  /  (To defend my husband)  My husband is a good man.  He’s an upright man, religion or no religion.  He cares for his home, for the world, and for his boy.  Alan had love and care and treats, and as much fun as any boy in the world.  /  (To demonstrate that I am not a stupid woman)  I know about loveless homes:  I was a teacher.  Our home wasn’t loveless.  I know about privacy too – not invading a child’s privacy.  /  (To concede that my husband may have contributed in some small way)  All right, Frank may be at fault there – he digs into him too much – but nothing in excess.  He’s not a bully. . . /   (To blame Alan)  No, doctor.  Whatever’s happened has happened because of Alan.  Alan is himself.  Every soul is itself.  If you added up everything we ever did to him, from his first day on earth to this, you wouldn’t find why he did this terrible thing – because that’s him; not just all of our things added up.  /  (To make you understand)  Do you understand what I’m saying?  I want you to understand, because I lie awake and awake thinking it out, and I want you to know that I deny it absolutely what he’s doing now, staring at me, attacking me for what he’s done, for what he is! /  (To blame the real culprit – the Devil – and thereby back off of blaming my son)  You’ve got your words, and I’ve got mine.  You call it a complex, I suppose.  But if you knew God, Doctor, you would know about the Devil.  You’d know the Devil isn’t made by what mummy says and daddy says.  The Devil’s there.  It’s an old-fashioned word, but a true thing . . . /  (To apologize)  I’ll go.  What I did in there was inexcusable.  I only know he was my little Alan, and then the Devil came.

Why is this more helpful than playing emotions?  Certainly there is some anger in this piece, but if you choose to play the anger, you’ll be inclined to be angry throughout the monologue.  Once you look at the individual beats and their verbs, however, you can see why anger doesn’t work well throughout.  Just think of these beats in terms of aggressive/defensive, and you’ll find they seesaw between these two positions.  The aggressive verbs?  Establish, complain, demonstrate, blame.  The defensive verbs?  Explain, concede, make you understand, apologize.

The verb “defend” can be either aggressive or defensive, depending on how you choose to play it.

Once you understand that Dora uses a variety of aggressive and defensive tactics to justify slapping her son, it is easier to see how the emotions she feels throughout the speech are in constant motion, conflicting with and contradicting each other.  This inner torment can be fascinating to watch.  We never know what to expect from Dora.  We like her one moment, pity her the next, hate her in the third, sympathize in the fourth.  The whirlwind of emotions that pass through her keep our attention, keep us thinking about this extraordinary story Shaffer has presented us with, trying to sort out the moral and ethical questions it raises, to figure out who’s the “bad” guy.

seesawThe seesawing happens so quickly and often that even if we could accurately identify an emotion per beat (and “anger” doesn’t work for all of the aggressive verbs), it isn’t a practical approach.  To make a conscious switch from one emotion to another takes too long and is unbelievable to watch.  It’s your conscious brain making the switch, not your subconscious; in real life, it is always the subconscious which is in charge of your emotions, and your subconscious makes all such switches in an instant.

Try to make the switch with your conscious brain, and the audience will see the wheels turning in your head.  That’s all it takes for them to stop believing in you.

If you stop worrying about whether you are using the right emotion (should I be angry? Irritated? Defensive?) and simply try to accomplish your verb, the right emotion will come along all by itself.  (Assuming, that is, that you’ve left the door to your emotions open.)

Let’s take the first beat to see how this works:  “To establish why you don’t understand my situation.”  Or maybe I decide to rephrase that, to replace “establish” with “explain”.  Or to use “To put you in your place.”  Feel free to try on different phrases, like you’re trying on different shoes, until you find a phrase that really resonates for you and feels “right”.

Whichever phrase you end up with, I can imagine any number of emotions that might come up as a result, and they are the adjectives and adverbs we are inclined to act.  Angry.  Resentful.  Frustrated.  Hurt.  Exasperated.  Sarcastic.  Superior.  I can also imagine two or more of these co-existing during the beat, depending on exactly what verb I choose.  But the magical thing about playing the verb is that I don’t have to pay much attention to the emotions or figure out which is the “right” one.  “Explain” and “establish” are going to bring up slightly different emotions without me having to pre-plan anything.  “Putting you in your place” will naturally bring up a very different set.

Playing verbs is infinitely easier to do than playing emotions and adjectives.  I don’t have to choose the “right” sort of anger (and anger, as with all emotions, comes in a wide variety of shapes and sizes.)  All I have to do is try to explain something.  Or defend my position.  Or concede a point.  Or blame someone else.  Which is very simple and straightforward.

See Playing the Verbs Part II here.  See Playing the Verbs Part III here.  See Why Playing the Emotions Doesn’t Work here.  See Choosing Verbs here.  See Big Verbs vs. Little Verbs here.  See How to Learn to Play the Verbs here.

Playing the Verbs, Part III — Raising the Stakes

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One of the keys to good acting is figuring out what your character wants, slavishly sticking to trying to get it, and not worrying too much about how you feel.  If you really know what you want, why you want it, and everything hangs on your getting it, then most everything else is going to fall into place without you having to work too hard.

Let’s go back to our party; notice that each option begins with the word “because”.

“I want to make sure this party comes off perfectly, because I will feel embarrassed if it isn’t successful” or “because if I can’t control my world, I won’t feel safe and will freak out” or “because if it is successful, I will get the job I want more than anything in the world, the one that will both set  me up for the rest of my life and make me happy to go to work every day.”

What do I want?  To give a perfect party.  Why do I want it?  “Because . . .”

As for “everything hangs on your getting it”, this is about what we call “stakes”.  Every character has something at stake, which means that whether or not they succeed at something MATTERS.  I mean REALLY, REALLY MATTERS.

Whether I am fourth or fifth in line doesn’t matter much if I’m making a bank deposit, I’ve got time to kill, and there is plenty of money already in the bank to pay my bills without bouncing a check.  If my family is starving and there are only four loaves of bread left at the bakery, it does matter.

Whether I am hired for a job doesn’t matter much if I’m already employed and simply looking to move up the ladder, but it matters a ton if I’ve been out of work for eight months, my unemployment has run out, and I have a child who needs a life-saving operation.

Whether a man asks me out for a date doesn’t matter much if I just think he’s cute; but if I have fallen head-over-heels in love with him and want to bear his children, it matters a great deal.

poker chipIn each of these cases, I can RAISE THE STAKES for my character by choosing the second alternative or something like it.  The higher the stakes for your character, the better.  When everything seems to hang on whether or not you what you want more than anything in the world, it’s fun theater to watch!

A good way to do this is to think in terms of Life and Death circumstances, at least figuratively.  The higher you can build your house of cards, the more things you can hang on whether or not you succeed, the more it becomes a tightrope act.  And the audience is on the edge of its seat.

Let’s take the first “I am bossy, because”, which is to avoid embarrassment.  This is good, but the stakes aren’t high enough to be as interesting and dramatic as possible.  We can amp up “embarrassed” by changing the word to “mortified”.  But even this isn’t enough.  To really make this work, you have to understand WHY your character is mortified.  Does her self-esteem depend on appearing to be perfect?  Has she never failed at anything?  Does she feel inferior to all her invitees, and “knows” they will judge her as being inadequate if the party isn’t perfect?

Whatever you choose, make the consequences of failing to get what you want as dire as possible.  If this party isn’t successful, will she be ostracized by the group?  Is the party for her husband’s coworkers, and her husband will be furious and withhold his love if they don’t walk away impressed?  Or better yet, is their marriage on the rocks and depends on this party being a success?  Will her husband file for divorce if someone leaves the party unhappy?

Or does his getting a promotion depend on her impressing the boss with her social skills, and they need his promotion to buy their apartment, which has just gone co-op?  Or to pay for private school for their children?  Or to bail her mother out of jail?

Sometimes the playwright will clearly define what your character wants and why he wants it so badly, but more often than not, it is written “between the lines” and is part of the subtext.  If the playwright doesn’t explicitly tell you either the desire or the reason for it, then you are free to choose whatever you like.  Just be sure that nothing in your choice conflicts with any of the information the playwright does give you.  Your choices must always make perfect sense in the context of the play.  But make clear choices that give you something to go after and a compelling reason to do just that!

See Part I here.  See Part II here.  See Why Playing the Emotions Doesn’t Work here.  See Why Playing the Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier than Acting Emotions here.  See Choosing Verbs here.  See Big Verbs vs. Little Verbs here.  See How to Learn to Play the Verbs here.  See An Example of Why Verbs Make a Difference here.

Playing the Verbs, Part II – Going After What You Want

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Untrained actors act the adjectives and adverbs; trained actors act the verbs.

“Acting the verbs” means figuring out what your character wants and trying to get it.  This is really pretty simple, although it requires a large shift in how you look at a scene.

Instead of thinking of your character as being “needy”, think in terms of “I want you to love me.”  Instead of thinking of your character as being “bossy”, think in terms of “I want to make sure this party comes off perfectly, because I will feel embarrassed if it isn’t successful” or “because I need to control my world in order to feel safe” or “because if it is successful, I will get the job I want more than anything in the world.”

myriam-hands-on-hipsI hope you can see that the three options I’ve given for why your character might be bossy are very different, and will probably produce different results.  The sort of “bossy” you are will change, because what is driving it is different.  But if you just play “bossy”, you’re apt to go for the same kind of “bossy” no matter who your character is or why he is doing what he does.

And let’s be honest:  in your real life, do you ever decide to “be” bossy?  No, you decide you want to give the best party ever.  You decide that the people around you are incompetent or slow or uncreative, and they need you to direct them.  You have a strong attachment to your vision, and you want to see it achieved.  You may end up bossing people around and irritating them in the process, but it’s not like that’s what you’re striving to do.  You’re just trying to give a really good party.

EVERYTHING we do in our real lives is in service of getting something we want:  a quart of milk, an answer to a question, an experience, a job, love, pleasure, prestige, power, money.  No matter how trivial the goal is (I want to read a book I am enjoying; I want to snack on something to take off the edge before dinner; I want to straighten that picture on the wall because it’s driving me nuts), EVERYTHING we do is to get something we want.

It’s the same for your character.  EVERYTHING your character says or does is in service of getting something she wants.  It isn’t about feeling her emotions.  The emotions are simply a by-product of who you are, what you want, how you try to get it, and whether or not you are successful in getting it.

See Part I here.  See Part III here.  See Why Playing the Emotions Doesn’t Work here.  See Why Playing the Verbs is (Ultimately) Easier than Acting Emotions here.  See Choosing Verbs here.  See Big Verbs vs. Little Verbs here.  See How to Learn to Play the Verbs here.  See An Example of Why Verbs Make a Difference here.

Why Acting the Emotions Doesn’t Work

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All actors begin by acting the emotions of their characters.  Emotions draw us to the theater, so we think that is where we have to start.  I’ve talked about some of the reasons why this isn’t effective:  it is superficial, tends to lead to one-note performances, and often keeps us from finding the more interesting choices.

But the biggest reason why it doesn’t work is what my actress friend Sharon mentioned at dinner the other night.  Emotions are always IN motion.  They change in split seconds, flicker through you and mutate into another emotion so quickly and often so dramatically that they can’t be captured intentionally particularly well.  It is also impossible to consciously act two emotions at once, while we regularly feel multiple emotions concurrently.  Our conscious brain is the tortoise, while our subconscious is the hare.  Trying to act the emotions tends to iron out the wrinkles in a performance, and the wrinkles, quite honestly, are much more interesting than the Botox version you otherwise get.

At last week’s class, Nora asked if it is possible to act an emotion without actually feeling it.  There are actors who regularly do this, and unfortunately, there are professional actors among them.  But as Davina noted, the audience knows the difference between an actor who is actually feeling the emotion on some level and one who is pretending to do so.  Audiences are infallible lie detectors; they know when you’re faking it.

“Well, if I’m not supposed to play the emotions, what do I do?  My character is emotional, I can’t just ignore that!  If I do, how can I possibly feel the emotions so the audience sees them?”

Simple.  Understand enough about who your character is and where he is coming from, and then just try to get what you want and keep the conduit to your inner emotional life open.  If you do that, the emotions will not only take care of themselves, they will also show up in far more interesting ways than if you strive to be angry, resentful, disappointed, gleeful, etc.

Yes, the major emotions you have identified in your first read-through will probably end up being a part of the scene, but if you don’t focus on them but INSTEAD focus on getting what you want, all the subtleties of emotion that we regularly experience will come through as well.

This is acting distilled to its simplest components.  It’s good, sound theory, but it IS theoretical, not practical.  So next time, I’ll talk about how to translate it into something practical!

Playwrights are literary (and how this affects acting beats and performance)

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A good playwright doesn’t just know how to develop a plot, maximize conflict, and create interesting characters.  All these things help plays to be successful, but playwrights aren’t merely practical creatures.  They (the good ones, anyway) also know how to use literary devices to their best advantage on stage.

The kinds of literary devices I’m about to talk about help to focus the audience’s attention on what is important, as well as to make what is happening as clear as possible.

Here is the monologue from Agnes of God that Davina is working on, along with the Beat marks she is presently using.  They are slightly different than the ones she started with, because it became clear that the literary choices of the playwright help to determine the Beat divisions.agnes1

Dr.  Livingstone:  How dare you march into my office and tell me how to run my affairs – how dare you think that I’m in a position to be badgered or bullied or whatever you’re trying to do.  Who the hell do you think you are?  /  You walk in here expecting applause for the way you’ve treated this child.  /  She has a right to know!  That there is a world out there filled with people who don’t believe in God and who are not any worse off than you!  People who go through their entire lives without bending their knees once – to anybody!  And people who still fall in love, and make babies, and occasionally are very happy.  She has a right to know that.  /  But you, and your order, and your Church have kept her ignorant, because ignorance is next to virginity, right?  Poverty, chastity, and ignorance, that’s what you live by.

What are the literary devices John Peilmeier uses in this monologue? 

REPETITION.  Repetition means at least two of something.  It’s typically used to emphasize something, and Peilmeier uses it (forgive me) repeatedly in this monologue.  Two examples:  “how dare you” and “She has a right to know.”

GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES.  We talked about lists of threes in comedies, that three is the necessary number for a joke to be funny when it involves a list of some sort.  It doesn’t just apply to jokes, however.  When a writer wants to emphasize a point, he often builds to it by using a list of three.  Such lists can be used in a number of ways, but typically they escalate upwards emotionally, as in big, bigger, biggest.  (Choose to use them differently if you like, but be sure that you recognize that there are three related items which need to be delivered with some sort of variety in order to be effective.)

This monologue has a number of lists:

  • How dare you/how dare you/who the hell – forget that the third element doesn’t begin with “how dare you”, it is nevertheless the climax to this list of three.
  • Badgered/bullied/whatever you’re trying to do
  • People who/people who/people who
  • You/your order/your Church (and notice how each element is tied to the Mother Superior)
  • Ignorant/ignorance/ignorance
  • Poverty/chastity/ignorance (notice that “ignorance” is part of two separate lists)

FRAMING.  Framing is when the repetition begins and ends a thought.  “She has a right to know” is used to frame a list.  Just in case you forget where she started, why she made the list, Peilmeier reminds you by hammering it home with the closing frame.

A less obvious frame is in the last two sentences.  It is an implied frame, because it begins with “you, your order, and your Church” and ends with “that’s what you live by”, which is another way of saying the list that begins this section.  Just in case you forget that Dr. Livingstone is directly accusing the Mother Superior, the phrase “that’s what you live by” brings you back to where she started.

Peilmeier uses these devices to make sure you get his major points.  Words in a play can fly by, and you don’t know which words are the most important ones unless the actor and/or playwright help to underline them for you.  Peilmeier presents the actress with some great tools in this monologue; your job is to use them to their best advantage.  Don’t swallow any of the repeated words, and make sure your audience knows you are giving them a list.  The need to give them some variety in delivery will also help you explore the emotional underpinnings to your character at this moment.

With regard to choosing the beats when you find literary devices like this, make sure you include them in one beat.  Lists, frames, and repeated words typically belong in the same beat.