Throughout my acting and screen acting classes, I have developed a stronger understanding of both performance and technical process. This essay will document my growth as an actor, focusing on how my skills have evolved through practical exercises, monologue exploration, and on-camera experience.This reflection highlights not only the technical skills I have gained, such as character development, emotional truth, and screen technique, but also the personal growth that has shaped my development as a performer.

Uta Hagen

In our class with Alex Palmer, we focused on a new technique formed by Uta Hagen. Uta Hagen’s acting technique is grounded in one simple but demanding idea: acting must be truthful. Rather than focusing on imitation or exaggerated emotion, Hagen encourages actors to behave honestly within the imagined circumstances of a role. In her influential books Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor, she challenges performers to look inward and to observe their own habits, emotions, and responses and use them as tools for creating believable characters. Her technique asks actors to connect personally to the work through substitution, sensory awareness, and specific physical actions, allowing performances to feel lived in rather than performed. By blending imagination with real human experience, Hagen’s approach helps actors bridge the gap between themselves and the character, making each moment on stage or on screen feel authentic and immediate. 

Hagen’s acting techniques encourage actors to avoid over-intellectualizing their processes and instead root themselves in rigorous observation of daily life. The five key elements of Hagen’s technique are substitution, transference, specificity, authenticity, and preparation. (Ates 2023)

This new technique really challenged me and others to see a different approach to acting as throughout our training so far we have worked mostly on techniques such as Meisner, which challenges the techniques explored by Uta Hagen as instead of drawing consciously on personal memories, Meisner encourages actors to respond instinctively to what is happening in the moment. Through repetition exercises and improvisational work, actors learn to quiet self-conscious thought and allow genuine impulses to show form the behavior of others.

In the next class we expanded on The Fourth Side and explored Changes of Self. This exercise was very similar to the first but instead of one phone call we had to take 3 separate phone calls in the same time space, with differing emotions and moods for each one whilst still focusing on the specific spots used in The Fourth Side. This forced us to find a variety of vivid and clear shifts of character in a short space of time. I struggled more with this exercise as I felt I couldn’t make it feel natural when I was having to constantly change states of emotion. I found that if I incorporated what was happening in the phone calls to my character’s mood shifts it helped create a through line and a story, which was very engaging to watch when other peers performed. When I performed I had rehearsed and felt comfortable in the space and it felt very natural even though the circumstances of the exercise seemed heightened and intense, however I incorporated scenarios from my personal experiences when I have had multiple bits of information given to me that are wildly contrasting in positive negative ways, and thinking how that affects me from being extremely happy to angry or annoyed or upset. Whilst I felt the character shifts were clear, I was told my performance was not too intense or unrealistic and had a sense of realism and intimacy. From this exercise I really felt as though I was enjoying being in the space, as previously and especially working in Meisner, I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen during the showing, however with Uta Hagen I felt comfortable in knowing exactly what I was doing due to having rehearsed the exact same thing over and over, which allowed me to be less tense and more free in my body and acting choices.

In the next weeks we focused on adding more and more layers to every step, with the next being Moment to Moment, in which the actor has to “lose” an item and find it within 2 minutes. Of course we as the actors know exactly where the item is placed and the exercise challenges us to search for it and make it feel honest and believable. The item of course had to be of value to us at the time as the exercise requires high stakes and the challenge for me as it usually has been so far is trying to make it not too over the top and “acting” like but rather grounded in reality. I found after the first few weeks I allowed myself more to focus less on “What will I perform for the showing?” and more on “What has happened to me before that I can relate to this?”, which has really helped my process of being given a brief or task and making it my own without having to overthink or fabricate something entirely new. For this task I chose to lose my lanyard in which I need to get in and out of the main Conservatoire building, as this is something I regularly need in my own day to day life, and have had experiences losing it and frantically searching for it. It was little improvements to my mental process that I felt have had some of the most impact on my mentality as a performer, as linking the work to my personal experiences really speaks to me more than trying to feel a feeling out of nowhere as seen in other techniques previously. 

We carried on adding more and more of the steps including Endowments, Bringing the Outside In, Finding Occupation While Waiting, Talking to Yourself and Talking to the Audience. Whilst I felt this was fun and useful to do, personally I felt these were more like additions to the initial tasks and just kept building on the technique of using your own personal experiences and incorporating it with the stage craft and technique you already have. I found the first few weeks extremely fun and engaging and felt like it really changed my mindset as a performer, and the last steps felt more niche and situational which was also very useful but I felt less universal. As an actor I think I find more depth in connecting my experiences and past feelings to the stage instead of trying to force the characters feelings into my own, as I become more natural in my own body and also more natural to watch, that creates a more connected and engaged display of my character, without me having to try and fabricate those emotions on the spot. I believe it to be much healthier and easy to access for me using Uta Hagens techniques compared to what I have done previously such as Meisner, as they both focus on the same goal however they approach it in very different ways, and whilst I have found Meinser to be useful in the past I really resonate with the work we have done this year on Uta Hagens techniques. 

Monologue Bootcamp

This section refers to two separate classes, however I have put them together as I think the topics discussed relate and link to both. 

This class was focused solely on monologues, how to perform them and what process and techniques we can take and use for learning and performing them efficiently and effectively. Our first term was focused on classical monologues and we began our first classes just examining  texts and their structures and how the phrases were presented. We were introduced to a technique called Thinking on the Line which is a concept that refers to an actor actively thinking and discovering each thought as they speak, rather than delivering a memorised speech in a fixed or rehearsed way. When performing a classical monologue, it is especially important because the language is heightened, structured, and often unfamiliar to modern speech patterns.

In a classical monologue such as those by Shakespeare thinking on the line means allowing each line of text to form the next thought in real time. Instead of knowing exactly where the monologue is emotionally heading, the actor responds to the ideas, arguments, and images as they unfold through the language. This helps the monologue feel immediate and alive, rather than rehearsed. I feel it is important with classical monologues because whilst the language is tough for an audience who may have never seen the text, the way the actor can display the imagery and emotion through the process of thinking can tell the audience what is happening and how the character is feeling without the audience even having to understand what they are exactly saying. This was evident within our first exercise as we got up and spoke the monologues as usual however we could only move on each individual thought. This forced us to pause and break between thoughts and break them up as new thoughts, rather than the whole text becoming one. Whilst it seems simple it was actually quite difficult however it was surprisingly effective especially when watching others show the exercise. Whilst I did not necessarily know what they were saying in terms of language, I could decipher what the character was feeling and sort of understand their situation and circumstances. In the context of the exercise obviously there was not much to understand in terms of context of the plays and scenes however if this were incorporated into an entire piece I could understand how this would greatly improve the understanding the audience could have when watching a classical piece such as a Shakespeare play. 

We also worked a lot on imagery through the text, and I think this also supports the idea that an audience can understand what a character is saying/feeling due to how the actor is picturing the images in their head, as Shakespeare’s imagery is one of the main factors of meaning and emotion in his language. He doesn’t just tell the audience what a character thinks or feels. He shows it through concrete pictures drawn from universal things such as nature, the body, war, disease, religion, and life in general. I felt this was really effective for me, as I often struggle relating the classical language to myself or living, real characters. Using this mentality and technique I believe it forces the actor to focus on the deep rooted reality of what the character is thinking, as the flowery and sensory language feels like an outpour of their genuine feelings and intentions. I also found it helped me find things to do and explore with, as looking at wall of text is sometimes daunting especially when I feel I am not too experienced with classical texts, however focusing on the imagery within the monologues it gave me pictures that I could imagine, translate and feel myself, allowing me to understand what the writer truly meant by their choice of words. 

Performing my classical monologue was daunting to me as like I previously stated I have, like many others, previously had a mental block when it comes to classical or old English texts, such as Shakespeare, however actually breaking down, translating the text and truly understanding what the character is saying, what they are conflicted by and how they feel at that current moment really allowed me to dig deeper into the true state of mind that they are in. In the past it has seemed like the language had always been a barrier for me to ‘get in’ to the work and really experiment and relate to the character I was playing, but once I had a rounded and deep understanding of what they were actually saying, it helped me so much not only in areas like picking up lines but also in the embodiment and confidence on stage. The ability to see an image and translate it to someone sitting in the audience is an extremely effective way of expressing how they feel about something. If you truly see it they can see it, especially in your eyes as they say ‘the eyes are the windows to the soul’, which I do believe to be true.

After we had explored and performed our classical monologues, we shifted onto looking at contemporary monologues. This was something I had more experience with as I have worked much more with recent monologues than I had with classical monologues. I felt as though I had a lot more freedom with this type of text and picked a comical yet still heightened piece. I picked this because I wanted to explore how to take a piece of text that seems outrageous and somewhat unrealistic, and make it seem like I as the character am totally serious and engrained in the reality of the play. This is something I always struggle with in terms of performing monologues, as I often feel like I am ‘over performing’ or hiding behind a character, which is something that I believe I do a lot when doing showings in front of peers.

When I first workshopped my monologue in class, unsurprisingly I did exactly this and leaned into the comical language and subtext within the text. Whilst the language is funny, my feedback was that the real comedy of the piece is within the characters’ seriousness, and that the things they are saying which sound crazy and comical to us are actually very real and undeniably true for them. It seemed that, unlike the classical monologue, where the language displays the inner feelings of the character using vivid and clear images, contemporary monologues create interest by hiding things between the lines, and using subtext to make the audience think or feel. For example if someone is crying on stage, it may be sad; however a character trying not to cry on stage is often even sadder for an audience, as we can relate to them on a personal level. I found that in my monologue, that was the key to the comedy, as the text I was saying was so contrasting to how I was saying it, allowing the audience to laugh AT the character, as when an actor knows they are being ‘funny’, it lessens the humour as the audience won’t believe in what they are saying. Once I practiced and experimented with this idea I instantly felt more comfortable and less like I was ‘acting’, which I also felt like related to my classes in Uta Hagen’s technique, as I stopped thinking as the character as a character and instead started to see them as myself, allowing myself to fully believe in the circumstances they are living in, which in feedback I was told created a rooted and connected performance and allowed the comedy in the monologue to speak for itself rather than me having to force it. 

I think throughout this monologue bootcamp, the biggest take away for me is that no matter what the piece is, the actor should always approach the text as if the dialogue and characters are completely serious and rooted in reality, no matter how outrageous they may be, because if the actor doesn’t believe in it, why should the audience be any different? I also must start exploring the pieces and characters I play more deeply, as I have found that having the knowledge they have can allow you to actually understand and relate to the same circumstances they are in, making it easier for me personally to connect with the dialogue, which really does make a physical and also emotional difference when performing. 

Screen Acting

Screen acting is a completely new and daunting field of acting to me as I have never acted in front of a camera, or really had much involvement at all with film since my love is more in theatre, however I found that what I really enjoyed most about this class was learning about the process of creating and working on a scene, and the additional layers working with cameras, lenses and lights add to the work. As an actor, I dislike being on screen, as I am most comfortable performing ‘larger than life’ as you would expect more from a musical, and I admit that I feel uncomfortable in front of a lens due to all the tiny details it picks up from the actor. It creates an extremely vulnerable feeling, which is actually one of the best parts about screen acting, as it allows the performers to include levels of subtlety and detail that simply cannot be captured on stage.  Whilst I acknowledge that, I feel that I must doubt myself to be capable of capturing that detail, which is why I feel uncomfortable doing it, and it is something I really want to push through and work on to open new fields of work and creativity within my career. Whilst from an actor perspective I didn’t particularly enjoy performing for the camera, I loved the collaboration of all the moving parts behind the scenes. I realised that it is much like theatre in that way, as there is just as much going on backstage as there is onstage. I felt being able to use different tools like detailed lighting, a variety of camera angles and different lenses expands the level of possibility when experimenting and making work, and by observing those things I am also understanding how the actor work around and with these elements, which is something I never considered only having done theatre, where most of the time backstage and onstage are completely separate. In the future I do hope to work in the screen acting field as I think it is very similar to what I know yet so new to me that I want to explore and experiment and challenge myself to expand my skillset and open myself to more opportunities.

Reference List

Ates, A. (2023) The Definitive Guide to Uta Hagen’s Acting Technique. Available at: https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/the-definitive-guide-to-uta-hagens-acting-technique-68922/.

Berry, C. (1987) The Actor and the Text. London: Virgin Books.