Over the course of the last semester in our Actor and Text lectures I have worked with an actor and director to examine a variety of different texts using lots of different techniques. During these classes my main aim has to try and make my acting appear as natural and truthful as it possibly can. The exploration of drama practitioners whose methodologies and rehearsal techniques focus on naturalism really aided this process for me, one of these being Stanivslaski (1863- 1938). I aim to use the techniques and methods we have learnt in future work that we do to keep building my development on how to understand a character and the world that surrounds them. This is what I have been working on over this first semester, finding my process and how that works to successfully help me embody a character by using my own unique character choices. I have been working with actor and director Claire Eden who has taught, introduced me to and mentored me on the techniques and methodologies that I have learnt about and put into place to improve in creating. a naturalistic performance.
Serious Money
In one of the first lessons we completed we looked closely at an extract from the play Serious Money by Caryl Churchill. Serious Money is set in the 1980s and is about the British Stock Market. During this class we explored the idea of world building and how we can do that to help us analyse the world of the play and use this to create a believable and naturalistic performance. This technique comes from the theatre practitioner Katie Mitchell who uses facts and questions to look at every aspect possible of the world the play exists in to aid the performers in their performances so that they can make it as truthful and grounded as possible. I did this in this lesson when learning about Serious Money by looking at and researching Fashion, Finance, Music, Politics and Society in the 1980s. This was really helpful when we then worked on the script to perform as I felt I had a really clear idea of how to play certain lines and the real stakes in the scene as I was aware of what was going on and the circumstances in the world outside of the scene in the wider world around this specific moment. I felt I could approach the lines a lot more confidently as at first read before we had done this research I was very apprehensive and nervous about this scene as I had no idea how I was going to play it and deliver the lines, but as soon as we did the world building research it made a lot more sense to me how I could make this possible. This is something I then took forward into every script we have looked at since then as it has been something that has been very successful in helping me connect to a script in a truthful way because the more understanding I have about the world the more understanding I can then gain about the character.
You cannot afford to confine your studies to the classroom. The universe and all of history is your classroom.
Stella Adler
Romeo And Juliet
In a later lesson we looked at Romeo and Juliet, a play completely different to Serious Money. Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespeare Tragedy which is written in a very different way to the way we speak. Therefore we started off by looking at how we as performers can make sense of something that is written in a more old English way of speaking. We took the time with one of the extracts to rewrite it in a way that made sense to us and ignored the original heightened text of it. After doing this I feel that it became much easier to perform with the original Shakespeare words because I then knew what it actually meant and the intentions behind it. We then looked at a second extract and with the extract we explored the idea of character building and how we can do that as actors. Stanivslaski was really interested in the idea of character building and came up with 7 questions that can help a performer to explore the motivations and circumstances of a character these are; who am I, where am I, when is it, what do I want, why do I want it, how do I get it and what must I overcome. Other theatre practitioner Uta Hagen was also very interested in this and had her own list of 9 questions, many of which are very similar to Stanivslaski’s but with the addition of a few of her own questions for example, what are my relationships, what is the time and what surrounds me. When doing my own character research I tried to look at a mixture of both of these practitioners’ questions to get as well rounded of a character profile as possible. However I am not always going to be able to know the answer to some of these questions so instead I used another technique of Stanivslaski’s called the Magic If. This is where if there isn’t a definitive answer and it could potentially be helpful to know then use your imagination and think about what it might be and make a decision on what it is going to be for you. This character building research falls hand in hand with the world building research for me as I think together they help me as a performer gain a full understanding of my character and the world that surrounds them which really aids me in being able to create that truthful and naturalistic performance that I am aiming for. However with this extract there was still one thing that was holding me back and that was the heightened text and that way it is written. Although I had made sense of the first extract in the session once we got on to this one I felt I really struggled to make sense of what I was saying. Therefore we did a similar exercise to the one at the beginning of the session and put it into our own words which took a couple of tries but we did it. The major obstacle was then going back to the original Shakespeare text and performing it with the same feeling, intentions and objectives that I had when saying it in my own words. I found this quite difficult but it was slightly easier than when we started it. Understanding Shakespeare/ Old English text is something I am going to keep working on as even though I understand the objectives of my character portraying that through the original text is still a bit tricky for me, I think it’s something that is going to become easier with time and practice as even just after this one session I could feel the improvement coming along already. In terms of the character research questions I have learnt about I think these are going to become a vital part of my process going forward as just from a quick dip into exploring how they can help my naturalistic character choices I can sense how much they are going to aid my journey.
Character Choices
Further on during this term we then started looking at how we can use these techniques we have learnt to then make character choices based on what we know about a character and what world they live in. I did this using an extract from the play A View From The Bridge by Arthur Miller. After completing my world building and character building research techniques I read through the script and started writing down choices I would make that I wouldn’t have had I not done this research. For example at the start I would begin as Beatrice by speaking strong with my intention as she knows exactly what she is saying but quite quiet volume wise as she is a strong woman in a society where she’s not allowed to be, I would also not use any eye contact as she is scared to stand up to Eddie because of the society they live in not because she’s unsure in what she’s saying. Another choice I would make is to use a New York, Brooklyn American accent to set up the world of the play in a naturalistic way as this is where the play is set and is taking place. One more choice I would make is to have a slightly hunched and tense physicality as she is scared of him due to how enforced the traditional gender roles were in society at the time paired with her being very aware of the cracks and strains in her marriage which is what is making her very tense.
Objectives and Walking The Text
We also, over the term, looked at a few other techniques that have also been really helpful and are definitely going to be useful tools in my toolbox of skills and techniques that I can use to aid my performance and learning. For example we learnt about Objectives. Objectives are something that can kind of fall under character research in a way. Objectives are what your character wants when saying a line, sometimes there will be a super objective which is usually a bigger thing that your character wants throughout the whole extract, whereas an objective will usually change line by line or at least every couple of lines. This can be really helpful to know to keep a scene dimensional and interesting to watch as it’s not plain and the same the whole way through instead it keeps moving and shifting. This mirrors how we as humans speak in real life which will then help in creating a naturalistic and grounding performance. We also learnt about walking the text. This is an exercise where you read the text and do different physical movements whenever there are specific pieces of punctuation. For example, whenever there’s a comma change direction, when there’s a full stop, take a pause from walking for a second, when there’s a punctuation mark jump and so on. This can be really helpful in finding a naturalistic flow to the text and also in finding where you feel the pauses make sense and when they don’t for you.
The Process
For me I have found my process through this learning journey and what benefits me to help me achieve the naturalistic performance I was aiming for this term. I start by using Katie Mitchell’s World Building process and then follow that with Stanivslaski’s question and Uta Hagan’s questions to help me with my Character Research. Once I have done that I will then look through the script and figure out what my objectives are for each line and what my super objective is overall. After this I will think about some character choices that may work from the information I have learned and gained. Then I will walk the text and really feel where the punctuation is before then finally getting up and experimenting with what I can do with this script.
Applying The Process
Applying my process has been something that’s has been so helpful when looking at scripts so when we moved on to applying it but to a song I was very excited but apprehensive to see how it would go. It made connecting to a song so much easier. The specificity of the details I then knew from the research I had done made it so much easier to then find those details in the lyrics. I did this for the song On My Own from Les Miserables and the research helped me make some different character choices to what I might have done before this task. For example, when singing the line “I’m talking to myself and not to him” I would sing it in a more spearhead kind of quality as in this moment it is what I believe an emotional peak of the song as she’s realising she is being a bit obsessed with Marius because she knows that he isn’t there but she wants to pretend anyways because of how heartbroken she is feeling. This is just one example of many. I now feel that from these lectures I can confidently say that I have a process full of rehearsal techniques and methodologies that I can take forward with me and use to help me create and embody a character in a naturalistic, truthful and believable way. This helped me learn how to ground myself in a text and successfully portray a character and their emotions.
Bibliography
Churchill, C (2002) Serious Money. London: Bloomsbury
Benedetti, J (2008) Stanislavski: An Introduction. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama
Hagen, U (2008) Respect for acting. London: Macmillan
Stanislavski, K (2013) An Actor Prepares. London: Bloomsbury
Berry, Cicely. The Actor and the Text. Virgin Books Limited, 1992.
Bunce, Liane-Rose. “How to Bring the Words on the Page to Life – the London LAMDA Tutor.” The London LAMDA Tutor, 15 Nov. 2018, londonlamdatutor.com/blog/how-to-bring-the-words-on-the-page-to-life/.
Mroczka, Paul. “Stanislavski Method: Magic If and Illusion of the First Time.” Broadway Educators, All Tickets Inc., 30 Sept. 2013, broadwayeducators.com/stanislavski-method-magic-if-and-illusion-of-the-first-time/.
Ates, Alex. “The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique.” Backstage.com, Backstage, 6 Sept. 2019, www.backstage.com/magazine/article/the-definitive-guide-to-uta-hagens-acting-technique-68922/.
New York Film Academy . “Student Resources.” Student Resources, 2 Dec. 2015, www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/stanislavski-in-7-steps-better-understanding-stanisklavskis-7-questions/.
“Katie Mitchell: Facts and Questions.” Theatre Rehearsal Techniques, 19 Dec. 2016, rehearsalchuckmurray.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/katie-mitchell-facts-and-questions/.
