Introduction

In Actor and Text classes this term, we have explored a wide range of acting methods and techniques used to create a process when developing a character while looking at new texts. We have looked at a range of practitioners, the most important and most useful being Uta Hagen and Stanislavski; by using these processes and being able to better understand a character, I can create the well-needed character depth to fully embody a different person to myself and understand the world around them as well as what may influences and affect their actions and objectives. By using this method, I can easily identify the key information I need to apply to my character even without full context given within a text. These are techniques we have used over a wide range of genres like Shakespeare, plays, and musicals. Being able to have a secure process that I can apply to any genre has improved my learning and I am able to apply these skills to each discipline of my craft.

Table Read

During our first week, we looked at the text for Punk Rock. Our aim for this task was to develop our skills in quickly finding facts about our characters from a short extract of a play, but to also to develop our skills in a table read. I worked on a two-man scene with Theo where our challenge was to look at the dynamics between our characters: we worked out that they were in a relationship by the stage directions and lines spoken to each other. We then moved onto working with a larger group looking at the opening scene, I was given the character Cissy. After giving the scene a table read, we delved deeper into our characters and I used Uta Hagen’s 9 questions method, as seen in Source Material 1. The aim of these questions is for an actor to “explore and define” (Hagen 1973:83). Her aim is to provide context about the text/character “which encourage actors to behave realistically in imaginary circumstances – to develop practical tools for actors” (Ates 2019) These questions aided me in creating a depth for my character. With a better understanding of the character, I was able to bring Cissy to life and understand how she would interact with others in the scene. I was able to make better acting choices with true intention. I really understood her status, although my natural instincts in the table read were close. This quick process allowed me to better understand who she was and better embody her character. It also showed me that these questions can be used even when you do not know the full context of a play. I can now apply these skills to any unseen text.

(Hagen 1973:82)

Scene Experiment

During this session of Actor and Text, we looked at the play The Importance of Being Earnest where I worked with Aaron to develop a scene between Jack and Lady Bracknell. We decided to gender-bend this scene and I read as Jack instead of Lady Bracknell. We looked at analysing the text for things like status, punctuation, tension points, relationships, objectives and obstacles. We analysed what we found from these and what each one showed us. We found that Lady Bracknell lead the conversations they were having and showed dominance over Jack. We also found that the main obstacle of the scene is that no matter what Jack says, Jack cannot change the outcome, which effects character choices as this gets in the way of his objective. Lady Bracknell is messing with him as she is a bull in a china shop, but overall, they are both each-other’s obstacle. After analysing the text, we looked at workshopping different emotions onto the scene and each character. We found that giving the characters different emotions not only changed the status of the scene at points but also gave us interesting character choices to make. This task taught us that the obvious is not always the most interesting choice you can make with a character. We found that keeping just one emotion for a character throughout did not work in all instances as it would affect the character’s objective, so we worked together to see which emotions worked together to keep the characters exciting. I found it most surprising how much fun you can have with such an old English text and how experimenting with emotions really heightened the British humour. We also looked at the ways punctuation altered the text and found that Jack’s sentences rarely had full stops, mostly just commas. I could analyse that Jack is aggravated by the situation. The punctuation for Lady Bracknell on the other hand had more full stops, showing she has clearer thoughts and giving her time to react/reflect more.

World building introduction & Walking the text

For our introduction to world building, we looked at the text of Romeo and Juliet. World building is a technique by Constantine Stanislavski where the focus is to understand and build a world around your characters in a play asking yourself who, what, where, when and why? Stanislavski believed an actor should be able to “reproduce feelings you must be able to identify them out of your own experience” (Stanislavski 1936:24) which by researching world building you can find similarities between you and your character to make you performance more authentic.By understanding a character’s world, you can make informed choices as to why you character may act a certain way, and you can really live it. Stanislavski believes it is important to be able to form a decision and to support new character choices, giving them a reason to action. I applied this technique in class through the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. I worked with Theo exploring the play’s time period, religion, political context and gender. By looking into the world around Juliet, I was able to make informed decisions about her like how women of the time were controlled by men, which would affect the way she would address Romeo. I also found that the political context of family feuds and the importance of being loyal to family informed me of how serious and how controversial Romeo and Juliet’s choice is to pursue their relationship, which heightened the stakes in our scene. I enjoyed the process of working with heightened scenes and the rhythm of the text. We had positive feedback on our performance of text as our motivations and aims were clear in the scene. This was supported by our work completed around world building and informed us on our choices.

During this session we also explored walking the scene, a task that involved us looking at punctuation and completing different actions at different punctuation. We would stop for a full stop and change our walking direction for a comma and for a question mark. This exercise gave me a different way of breaking down a text but also so me as an actor can understand the importance that punctuation holds within a text. It gives you context into a character’s thought process, how they may be feeling and how the flow of the speech may be happening. From walking Juliet’s monologue, I could interpret how she was feeling. The broken-up speech by commas shows she is conflicted and unsure of her thoughts, or she is not thinking straight. The only full stop comes at the end of the text as it is the only sentence, she is truly sure she has made her decision and can now think clearly again. As a performer, this would encourage me to perform the last sentence with a sense of certainty compared to the rest being more broken and unsure. Being able to analyse the punctuation informs my choices as an actor and helps me stay true to a writer’s intentions.

Full process

After individually applying the exercises and structures to a text, we had to combine them together to inform specific choices within the text. We applied this to both Juliet’s monologue as well as on my own monologue from Les Miserables. The most important thing I found was to use world building, especially in Juliet’s text, as this helped to develop many of my choices, such as the way the text would be delivered. I made the choice to be softly spoken with a gentle tone, as many women of that time period would have spoken like this. However, as the scene goes on and she begins to rebel against her family I decided she would begin to speak louder and more carelessly as if no one was listening. I also looked at the punctuation in the text and used the walking the text exercise to see how Juliet’s thoughts were working. From this I could infer that her thoughts were all over the place because she was rebelling against her family. The process provided me with the structure to make specific choices through the text as she is such a complex character. I was able to make a variety of interesting choices which made her strong and certain in her decisions. Overall, this process gives me the chance to truly embody my character but also so I can create work that is unique, individual and interesting to watch.

Applying the process elsewhere

After learning the full process, I was then able to take it and apply it to further work. I took part in an R&D project called You, Me and The Rest of The World where I was tasked to develop a whole character in the short span of a week. This process provided me a structure to follow one of the exercises I used, like walking the text which gave me a deeper understanding of how my character felt in the scene. The punctuation showed me that my character was unsure of what they “were saying and had great hesitation before they spoke, as they did not want to say the wrong thing. Without these exercises, I would not have ignored the punctuation and skipped over pauses in the text, which adds a dynamic to the scene that was not there before. For the same scene I also used the world building tasks, however this was a workshop, so I had to use my imagination to fill in a lot of the gaps. Even though the information was not given to me, I was able to give my character a depth they didn’t have before, and I was able to fully embody them. How they think, how they move and how they would react to their partner in the scene. This project gave me the opportunity to challenge my skills with getting last minute material and attaching given circumstances in the moment. The artistic vision was noticeably clear, which gave me the chance to easily apply this process to the work. Overall, it helped me with connecting to the characters and gave me a deeper understanding of actioning.

Conclusion

Overall, I have found developing this process so useful to my development as a performer. It has given me an insight into approaching a text and has taught me about finding depth within a character. I particularly found Stanislavski’s world building exercise immensely useful as it gives me a way to build context for my character and to really visualise the world around them. Comparatively, I also find Uta Hagen’s 9 questions method equally as useful because it gives me a base to find character information and it provides me with a place to start, giving me depth to embody my character. Other exercises like walking the text and looking into text punctuation help me to understand not only how a line should be delivered, but it also gives me an insight into a character’s mind and what they are thinking. I plan to use these exercises on all ranges of text as they are adaptable over all genres and styles. I will continue to use them to develop my skills and character development not just throughout my training but also for the rest of my life. In conclusion, creating a strong process for me to take with me to all new texts I approach has strengthened my depth of understanding as an actor.

Bibliography

Ates, A. (2019). The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique. Backstage.com. Available Online: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/the-definitive-guide-to-uta-hagens-acting-technique-68922/

Hagen, U. (1973). Respect for Acting. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Stanislavski, K. (1936). An Actor Prepares. Read Books Ltd.