By Riley Kirman
Introduction:
In this first term I have looked at a variety of different plays and musicals and started my journey on discovering the techniques and tactics to understand, evaluate and properly perform these texts. With the help of Claire Eden in our lessons/lectures I have began to understand the level of depth and detail that these works are written with, this has helped me greatly in being able to perform these texts with the level of intention that the writers thought of when creating them. For this portfolio I will talk about the texts we’ve looked at, the techniques we’ve used and the benefits and drawbacks of each of them as well as where I’ve been able to use them outside of my Actor and Text lessons. As a whole I want to have proven that I understands the techniques and there use cases as well as my understanding on how to effectively use them.
Punk Rock
In our first session we looked at the play Punk Rock by Simon Stephens (2009) [1] which follows “William and his fellow sixth formers are preparing for their mock A-Levels while navigating the pressures of teenage life. They are educated and aspirational young people but step-by-step, as the responsibilities of adulthood draw closer, along with the trials and tribulations life will present them beyond the safe yet restrictive confines of the school walls, the dislocation, disjunction and latent aggression is revealed.” [2] and we explored the idea of a table/sight read, we split ourselves off into different groups (3-4 people) and read through one of the first scenes in the play as a selection of the characters. This idea of the table read was an interesting concept to play around with as it isn’t something that any of my group was unfamiliar with but it allowed us to explore different roles in the scene to help us see the scene from a multitude of different perspectives, this helped me with understanding the play as a whole a lot better than if I was just reading for one character as then you don’t really get a grasp on what all the characters are like in their entirety.
I think as a whole this technique was one that I thought was really good for being able to settle into a character really quickly and understand some of their background and context and then you are able to do that with the next character and then next so it let me to get to know the characters without having to read the whole play. I do think though that with certain texts doing these sorts of sight reads is a bit more difficult based on the context of the scene as a character may be acting deceptively or unlike themselves, so that can trick you into believing that their personality is one way where as it may not be and that is why further research and a full understanding helps.
We also looked at some of the ideas of Stanislavski to be able to develop this text, specifically his ideas “The “Magic If” is an acting technique that invites performers to imagine themselves in their character’s shoes by asking a simple question: What if I were in this situation?” [3] this technique allowed us to put ourselves into the shoes of these characters and really think about how we’d react if we were in their situation and this worked really well for this type of text as we were around the age that those characters were in the play but this techniques does have it’s drawbacks as sometimes the character your looking at or playing are different enough to you or their situation is something you’ve never really had an experience with so I do find it hard to ask myself these questions or struggle to really embody the character using this technique, I do think as a whole though that this is one of the best techniques to be able to understand the character quickly and using prior experiences and this is definitely one that will become easier and easier over time as I go through more stuff in my real life.
In the following lesson we also looked at some of Uta Hagen’s work and her questions which fall parallel to Stanislavski’s
In this image we can see a number of questions that she would ask about the character and the context of the piece, similar to Stanislavski. I want to focus on the idea of given circumstances as they allow me to really delve into a character and I find them personally to be the most helpful when it comes to these questions. These ‘Given Circumstances’ are referring to what is happening to a character in the scene weather that is the situation or the environment itself, this idea makes the characters choices make sense as you’d have no idea why someone did an action if you don’t know what’s going on around them which is why these details matter and understanding these given circumstances is so important. Uta Hagen’s 9 questions lets you look deeper into the character and what is happening as well as their goals, this gives you all the context you’d need to be able to portray them which is why these questions help so much not just with plays or acting but also things like songs as well as you can ask yourself these to understand why you are singing about something and what you mean when you say certain things.
This to me is one of the best techniques we looked at across this term I personally found this one to be one of the most helpful when it came to understanding a character or a moment in the story. I think has a wide range of applicable scenarios and it is very easy to use and understand, using for Punk Rock was ideal in helping me understand the characters as it was a work that I hadn’t heard about before and we only had a brief extract of so it helped with the speed of understanding and developing said scene
Serious Money
We looked at a play called Serious Money by Caryl Churchill (1987) [4] which shows the story about how money only corrupts and ruins people and it shows the effect that it has had on people, it shows the unchecked ideologies of financial greed and its corruption through businesses and corporations. the main technique we looked at with this play was the use of historical research into specific things, the four that we had were; fashion, politics, economics and music. My group focused on the fashion of that time, you can see in this image I researched about the fashion when it came to offices and business men as this story follows a group of business people so it seemed like the way to go as there are a lot of differences when it comes to 80s fashion. Researching into this element of the times was really helpful as we learnt about things like “Power dressing” which “is a form of self-expression that allows you to convey authority and confidence through impeccably tailored clothing. Defined by sharp cuts, clean lines and premium fabrics, it merges modern silhouettes with the unfading elegance of pencil skirts, formal blouses and structured blazers.” [5]. The use of this researched allowed me to put into perspective certain truths about the industry during that time specifically about woman in a male dominated workplace and the things they had to do just to fit in. It’s harder to pick up intricacies like this from this type of a work due to the abstract nature of them.
This technique allows me to have a better understanding of the times and the way that society was, but certain aspects do help more than others depending of the context of the works as not all things from that time will be related to the text making the research helpful to some degree but overly useful in a performance. This is the type of researching that will definitely be moving forward in other works not just in text but also in music as well as with singing you need to understand every word you are signing other wise it loses it’s meaning and the song itself doesn’t have as big of an impact if the actor doesn’t get why they are saying what they are saying.
Romeo and Juliet
The next piece of text I’m looking at is Romeo and Juliet (1599) [6] which obviously follows the story of these two star crossed lovers and their eventual demise at the end of the play. With this text we focused a lot on the language and the structure of it as it is clearly different to other more contemporary works that we have looked at in the past, we started off the lesson with looking at the idea of walking around the room as different characters from the play (e.g Romeo, Juliet, Lord Capulet, the nurse) this got us into the mind set of these characters and let us look at how we perceive them but also showed us how other people in the room saw them as you can see their differences when it came to their gait, for example with a character like Romeo he is the bold character with a lot of swagger about him so broader shoulders and an element of nonchalance about him was the fitting way that I saw to take it but I saw others walking with a bit more intention and purpose which I can also see as he is a very intention and strong willed character so things like that are obviously more circumstantial, another one would be Tybalt who I see as a bit more of a brash character so stronger movements and a bit more of a faster paced walk is how I see him and this was a very clear contrast between my take on Romeo. This technique falls into the ideas of stereotypes and how we see different characters fall into archetypes within plays like someone like Juliet falling into the idea of the lover interest (“he love interest is the hero’s romantic counterpart who provides motivation, conflict, or both, all through the lens of good old-fashioned love.” [7]) or someone like Friar Lawrence being the mentor (“The mentor is an elder who helps the protagonist by providing much-needed guidance, whether in the form of simple life advice or supernatural assistance.” [7). This gives some basic ideas of how characters fit in the story as well as some easy starting to points on how to portray them, the walking really fit with this as the characters do walk how you’d see other characters of the same type walk like Romeo and someone else like Marty McFly both having this swagger as the ‘Hero’s’ of their respective stories.
Something we looked at when it came to the text was looking at the punctuation itself and allocating the punctuation within an action as we walked around the space. Using this text on the right we walked around the space and every time we got so something like a full stop we would actually stop moving and reading for a second and then carry on, for a comma we would change what direction we were walking. This technique allowed to actually focus on the punctuation itself and the meaning behind it. This one was helpful for me as I do sometimes take some creative liberties when it comes to punctuation but doing this builds the habit of using it how to writer intended rather than what I think sounds good.
Appling the Techniques
Using these techniques that I have discussed in this portfolio I have been able to develop my skills as an actor and started my process in being able to easily and efficiently understand, evaluate and process and character/scene/play in order to properly perform them. For example in another acting class I had with Tyrell we had to create and develop a character of our own and I found that using these techniques like their given circumstances, their goals or the questions asked by Uta Hagen I was able to craft a well-rounded character that I could accurately portray whilst walking around Leeds. I was also able to use some of these techniques in ATS as well with developing my songs as the understanding of all the context and the ability to get into the mindset of the character is very important especially when singing as there is no point of singing a song if you don’t understand the references or why you are singing it in the first place.
As a whole I think these techniques that I have spoken about have been instrumental in the start of my journey in developing my skills as a performer and I will bring these forward from now on for future wok so that I can work with the level of detail that is required when performing in its entirety weather that is singing, dancing or acting, you have to have that detail in everything
2,197 words excluding bibliography
Bibliography
[1] Stephens, S (2009) Punk Rock. London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing
[2] Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2021) Punk Rock Production/exhibit. https://www.cssd.ac.uk/events/punk-rock [Accessed 2 January 2026]
[3] Bera, M (2025) The Actor’s Secret Spell: Why the ‘Magic If’ Changes Everything. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/magic-if-acting-technique-explained-78254/ [Accessed 2 January 2026]
[4] Churchill, C. (1987) Serious Money. London, England. Methuen Drama
[5] Perri Cutten (2024) Mastering The Style Of Power Dressing: The Ultimate Guide. https://www.perricutten.com.au/blogs/journal/power-dressing-guide [Accessed 2 January 2026]
[6] Shakespeare, W (1599) Romeo and Juliet. London, England: Cuthbert Burby
[7] Woltmann, S (2025) 12 Common Character Archetypes You Should Know. https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/character-archetypes-list-77831/ [Accessed 2 January 2026]
