The job of an actor is to analyze the text for action and live truthfully under the imaginary given circumstances of the play. Acting is the passionate pursuit of an objective. On stage, you are what you do.
The Five Questions list will help you make acting choices that guide you towards action. Focusing on action (as opposed to focusing on emotional condition) results in your attention going wholly to your scene partner. This is what will bring immediacy and moment-to-moment playing to your work.
Once the asking of these questions is made habitual, you will then be able to communicate with other actors on a gut level, and give yourself something physically doable at all times on stage. When approaching character work, keep this in mind: I am a human being, so is my character; therefore we have certain things in common.
I must understand the logic of my character's actions and empathize with the character on my own terms without value judging.
1.) Who Am I?The actor must ask, "Who 'Am I' in relation to everybody else in the play. Keep your answers as simple as possible. When first asking this question, focus on your character's likes and dislikes. People should be the first thing in your likes and dislikes. If you obtain your like, it'll please you. Dislikes will bring you displeasure. This way you can begin the process of building a point of view and being vulnerable to what others in the play or scene do to you.
Writing a biography for your self is helpful. How do likes and dislikes affect what you are doing to those around you in the present moment? This will help you narrow down your choices and aid you in identifying the changes in action. Personalize the Who I? by identifying relationships with others in the play. What do they mean to you? Look for clues throughout the text.
Don't psychoanalyze your character. You don't have to justify what you do in the play with a lot of psychology, just do it. The primary reason you are doing it is because the author wrote it. Psychoanalysis sanitizes your character and prevents you from making active, visceral choices. Know the world of the play intimately, not what it means. Personalize it and make it immediate by daydreaming. The real source of your talent is the power of your imagination.
2.) Where Am I? And When am I There?Establish a detailed environment. This will involve two elements: characteristics or constant factors (the size of the room you are in, the type of furniture you have, etc.) and conditions or changing factors (the weather, the temperature, etc.) When the conditions alter,your actions will alter.
Don't forget the fourth wall; this is important inorder to keep yourself grounded. Your body will react to anything thatyou leave out in order to insure comfort and survival. This question also includes What Is Around Me ? and Who Is Around Me ? Your relationship with the objects and (as previously stated) people that surround you will dictate your actions and secondary activities.
All relationships are physical. All relationships change. All relationships are based on need. Find the necessity for your relationship with these things or people. The objects and people that share your space must be endowed with a specific past, present, and future in order to truly inhabit the world of the play.
Knowing the period in which the play takes place as well as the time of day will inform and limit the range of your actions. It gives you a historical perspective and is crucial to the world that the playwright has established.
3.) What Do I Want?This is your objective. Acting is the passionate pursuit of an objective. Here is the magic formula: I want to get ______ from someone else. From super-objectives (through-lines for the entire play) to objectives within a scene, all needs are based on the actions and the physical triggers that your scene partner provides. Let others and the environment affect you so that you get your attention off of yourself. You will find out whether or not you are getting what you want by simply looking at your scene partner.
You must decide what your superobjective is and then construct each individual objective to bring you closer to that superobjective. A strong objective will pull you through an event in the play and should help you string events together. Remember that needs from scene to scene are going to change, otherwise the play will remain static.
Don't mistake an emotional condition for your objective. Make sure that your objective. is fully personalized by finding the necessity of that particular need. Personalizing also means comparing your needs with those of your character's using "What If'’s" and "As If’s" as tools. If you have trouble answering the Who Am I?, these tools will be helpful.
The difficulty in pursuing an objective (and executing an action) lies in dealing with that which is actually happening in the other person.The objective that you choose:
• must be physically capable of being done.
• must be fun to do.
• must be specific: Stanislavsky said, "Generality is the enemy of all art".
• must have it’s test in the other person: the focus goes off of you and is put on the other person.
• can't be an errand: choose an objective that keeps you working off of the other person at all times and is something that you could possibly fail at.
• can't presuppose a physical or emotional state in you or the other person.
4.) What Do I Do To Get What I Want?This is action. The definition of an action is how you want to make someone feel. In order to get _____ from someone I must make them feel _____. Calming someone down is not an action. It's behavioral, meaning that you are primarily concerned with your own behavior and are not affecting your scene partner. Making someone feel calm is an action. Another non-action: to make someone cry. To make someone feel so bad they might cry is an action. Emotions result from personalizing your objective and playing strong actions on others.
Your own emotional condition is not important. If you focus on making someone else feel something, the audience will get how you feel as well. Be clear about your Who Am I? and your likes and dislikes so others actions can affect you and you can be vulnerable to them. If you are vulnerable to how others make you feel, you will respond naturally without having to dredge up emotion or waste time preparing.
When using actions, make sure you ask: "What does this particular action mean to me?" Then the action will be personalized. When an action lands, let it drop in and resonate inside so that when you send an action back to your scene partner, there is a release of energy.
Once again, taking an action in doesn't mean you display how it makes you feel. "Indicating" is defined as energy going into the display of your own feelings. When an action lands, let the energy fuel your next action versus letting it dissipate. Once you get used to playing actions, this will happen instantaneously. Remember that actions can be both physical and verbal depending on the given circumstances. With some texts, such as Mamet or Shakespeare, actions are almost entirely verbal.
Whenever you get blocked on an action you are exploring in rehearsal, go back to your superobjective and what you like or don't like about your scene partner. Then go for making someone feel good or feel bad. An action is not a tactic. It is a doing. Stay with an action as long as you can.
Action changes are called beat changes. There must be a reason to change your action and it must come from your scene partner. If you don't get the response you want from your scene partner, change the hows or the adjectives. Example: I want to make someone feel loved in a harsh way or a sweet way, etc.
There can be an enormous amount of variety in the way you choose to display an action. The how will define your character. There are thousands of hows. Actions remain consistent from performer to performer but the hows will be different. A distinct how will help you bring your own personality to bear on the action because only you will have chosen it!
5.) What Do I Do After I Do or Do Not Get What I Want?This question helps you with continuity by stringing together the events of the play.
The Five Questions are the given circumstances. Think of them as the rules of the game or the journey of the play. Don't play the givens. Exist within them.
Remember that clarity of objective and action will do all the work. Your scene partner, the environment, or a strong image is always your source. The Five Questions are visceral not intellectual. You must continually reinvest in them during rehearsal. Rehearsal is the process of accustoming yourself to the actions you have chosen to play. As the playing of these actions become habitual, you will also discover new actions. During performances, you will be able to act freely by leaving your homework at home.
Playing” the TextWhen you approach a text, remember that it is there to give you a semblance of spontaneity. Actors bring an immediacy of the moment to the text otherwise it remains literature. It exists to support action. Find answers to the Five Questions, don't "play the text" (dump energy into the language or focus on the descriptive quality of the language) or "play against the text" (spend time looking for opposition). Think action not language. You don't have to have a thought for every line, have the thoughts for the action. The text will take care of itself.
SubtextMost of the time the objective, the actions played, and the text will merge perfectly. Someone saying "I love you" when they wish to make someone feel loved is a good example. When objective, action, and text don't merge and when the text isn't as important as the action that is being played underneath it, we have what is called subtext.
Imagine a seduction scene with two people talking about nothing but the weather. Each wants the other person to feel a certain way, but what they actually say to each other isn't as important as what they are doing to get what they want. Being aware of subtext and focusing on action will prevent you from falling into the trap of "playing the text".
Moment Before and ImagesThe moment before is the incident that precedes your entrance or launches you into action at the top of a scene. Prepare for an entrance by stringing preceding events together. Use your imagination to remind you of the moment before. Ask what has brought you to this moment? What is the first thing you want?
Again, your primary source is your scene partner.
If alone on stage, use an image outside of yourself that affects you enough to launch you into action. The text will give you images that create a state of being. Exist in this state of being but don't play it. Play actions back to that image. Images aren't passive, they do things to you.
Example: in Act III of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, Yelena has a monologue where she is alone on stage and fantasizes about being seduced by Astrov. She's talking to the image of Astrov and the image of him making love to her affects her strongly. The image of Astrov must be made very active for the monologue to work. He is doing something to Yelena and she's doing something back to him. Astrov then walks in on Yelena in the middle of this daydream and she is very embarrassed. Her level of embarrassment depends upon how potent the image of Astrov was and how strong the corresponding actions were.
NecessityRaise the stakes for yourself by determining the necessity of the objective/action. How important is the objective/action to you? What will happen if you don't get what you want by making someone feel a certain way? How important is your scene partner? Keep your answers simple. Ask "what do I want and what is the necessity?" as opposed to asking "why do I want it?" You can ask "why?" forever. It is an intellectual question, it is too complicated and keeps you from doing and discovering through doing. Think of necessity as the visceral "why?"
Example: Yelena's monologue from ACT III of Uncle Vanya
Objective: I want Astrov to make love to me.
Action: make him feel desired.
The Necessity: I need him to take me away from my boring husband and passionless life.
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Mr. Brown is a middle-aged handicapped black man in a wheel chair. He endlessly listens to music, reads books and looks out the window to oversee the roofs of neighboring houses in Harlem. Nothing breaks his monotonous loneliness except for the visits of two helpers - a young Russian woman-social worker and a young black man-home attendant – who merely do their duties. But in Mr. Brown’s imagination they all have a passionate affair. The home attendant loves the social worker but is very jealous of her because she is madly in love with Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown himself is in love with the home attendant-boy. These “relationships” develop gradually over continuous visits of two helpers. And in Mr. Brown’s world their passion is expressed through the dance. Unable to withstand the energy of love and possession Mr. Brown kills the home attendant and sinks into a prison of his loneliness and wheel chair.
