Home Artists Corner FRAMED?

GETTING INTO YOUR CHARACTER
This character possible for you? Know your strengths, etc. Start with the writing. Fill yourself with the character. Find yourself in the character. Explore new areas. Fill in blanks. Be in your environment if possible - ER, bar, etc. Backdrop, backstory. Sense memory e g music. Let props make it real for you. Relationships with others, own language together. Talent, luck, ambition. Fill in blanks of history of your and other characters, know lots about them. Overlap set, costume.

PHYSICAL QUALITIES
  Who am I?
  Who am I named after? Do I like my name?
  My gender? Do I like it?
  My age? What do I think of it?
  How does my posture express my age, health, inner feeling?
  My complexion? What do I think of it?
  My height? My weight? What do I think of them?
  Voice pitch, volume, tempo, resonance, quality? What do I think of it?
  Articulation careless/ precise, standard/ colloquial? 
  Do I have a dialect?
  Hair color and style? Do I like it?
  Deformities? Handicaps? Mannerisms? What do I think of them?
  How much energy do I have? Am I satisfied with it?
  Disease past or present?
  Gestures complete/ incomplete, vigorous/ weak, compulsive/ controlled?
  How do I sit? Stand? Walk?
  Basic rhythm: jerky/ smooth, volatile/ mellow, impulsive/ deliberate, 
       ponderous/ light, broken/ continuous?
  What do I like/ have to wear? How do I wear my clothes? 
  Accessories? Hand props? Why? How do I handle them?
  How do these physical traits affect my movement and speech?

SOCIAL QUALITIES
  What do I do when I wake up each morning?
  My relationship to my environment? Do I like it?
  My education? How much discipline was I subjected to?
  How intelligent am I?
  My childhood? My strongest memories?
  How much money do I have? How much do I want?
  My nationality? What do I think of it?
  My occupation? Do I like it?
  My political attitudes?
  Am I religious?
  Whom would I choose to be if I could be anyone else?
  Childhood heroes? What did I like about them?
  Do I like the opposite sex? What do I like about them?
  My parents? What do I like, dislike about them? 
  What do I still hear them say to me?
  Do I like my family? What do I like, dislike about them?
  How has my mother influenced me? My father?
  What do I think of my brothers and sisters?
  My favorite fairy tale? Why?
  Friends? Enemies? How can I tell friend from enemy?
  What ideas do I like, dislike?
  Hobbies or interests?
  Do I like my children? Why? Do they like me? Why?
  What advice would I give my children?
  What do I like, dislike about my spouse?
  Why did I marry my spouse?
  How do my physical traits affect my social traits?
  How do my social traits affect my wants? My script objective?
  How does the play's time and locale make me feel? Act?
  What will be carved on my tombstone?
  Where was I before my entrances?
  How does this affect my actions verbally and physically?
  What would I like to see or do when I enter?

PSYCHOLOGICAL QUALITIES
  What choices do I face? What choices do I make?
  How do my social traits affect my psychological makeup?
  How do my physical traits affect my psychological makeup?
  What makes me angry? What relaxes me?
  My driving ambitions?
  Instincts? Do I do things impulsively?
  What do I worry about?
  What do I want? What do others think I want?
  What do I like, dislike about myself?
  What do I need? What do I fear?
  Why can't I get what I want?
  Do other people like me? Why?
  How are each of my psychological traits manifested physically?
  How are each of my psychological traits manifested vocally?
  Why do I make each of my stage entrances? What do I want each time? 
  How do these wants affect me vocally and physically? 
  What am I thinking about at each stage entrance?

MORAL QUALITIES
  Are choices I make expedient or based on ethical standard?
  Whom do I admire?
  Will pursuit of my needs lead to a moral choice?
  What is my attitude toward the choice I make?
  How do I express this attitude vocally and physically?

PLAYING QUALITIES
  Why am I included in this play? 
  How do I contribute to the overall idea the playwright wishes to express?
  What metaphors, similes, personifications describe me?
  How these figures of speech relate to my physical, social, 
      psychological, moral traits?
  How are these traits expressed physically and vocally?

Actors must answer every question, although the character in performance may be and probably is ignorant of many.

SUBTEXT: INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF ACTING
Continuous inner soliloquy (thought stream) express the character's inner thoughts, attitudes, responses, talk to ourselves in our minds. People converse inside while speaking to others or doing things. The mind is never blank. Controlling this unspoken soliloquy and setting this internal monologue or score, actors produce an accurate, precise performance without artificiality of direct conscious control, producing an unspontaneous quality. Actors using subtext decide what the character says to himself as if mumbling to himself in character throughout the play. Actors mastering a role can talk out subtext on request even if he never heard of the concept. Subtext develops unconsciously during rehearsal. Subtext makes actors clarify material and define it in terms of the character's inner life. At rehearsal it permits a delicate, accurate way to make adjustments and control inflections of words, gestures, timing of a glance, length of a silence.

Example: a specific line always preceded by the same unspoken words, or score, and followed by the same unspoken words will always have the same basic inflection and meaning. Setting and internalizing subtext as well as text you can set the moment, creating a consistent performance, take after take. Working with subtext score a director can communicate with actors in a specific language permitting adjustments quickly and without unnecessary discussion. It also lets actor and director try a choice, make an adjustment, then return to a previous adjustment without creating confusion or compromising the character's integrity.

TRY:
(unspoken: How disgusting)
No thanks, nothing to drink for me.
(unspoken: - you stupid fool)

(unspoken: He's handsome)
No thanks, nothing to drink for me.
(unspoken: and thoughtful)

(unspoken: Now what?)
No thanks, nothing to drink for me
(unspoken: - Aha! Trying to get me drunk!)

Internally think the framing subtext but speak the line aloud. Notice how it holds the manner and emphasis of the spoken line and reduces the sense of effort and of conscious control.

SUBTEXT MEANINGS
What does the character really say with his line? Paraphrase your speech preceding the line. What's the character's true meaning behind the line? What characters say and really mean or think are 2 different things. People often say something to get something not necessarily because it's truly and literally what they mean.

SUBTEXT AND FILM
Subtext is even more important in film than in theater because the camera photographs what's unspoken, what happens behind the eyes. Effective cinema is not cinematography of actors talking. It's those fleeting moments when the actor's either about to speak or when he hears and reacts to an offscreen line. This is something every experienced film editor can confirm. Editing any dramatic exchange between 2 actors is much more likely to be timed to subtext than to the dialogue lines. Notice discrepancy between what characters say, do, mean, relate to; what the character says about others, what they say about him, what he says about himself.

SCORING THE MONOLOGUE
  Given circumstance from your character's point of view
  What's your character trying to accomplish
  Figure or find something out
  Explain why they did something
  Convince or persuade somebody to do something
  Describe an event so someone else understands, forgives, rewards them
  Your character's objective - what do I want?
  Who do you want it from (receiver)
  Objective directly acts on receiver
  Objective in active form, not "to be"
  Capture your character's real need. Don't get grandiose or convoluted
  Strongest possible objective, raise the stakes
  List obstacles
  How do I get my objective? Action choices, tactics
  Does it work?

*** REMEMBER your character doesn't expect to give a long speech when he begins. Change tactic PRN. Change of tactic is a new beat. Do train of thought, or through line.

Cause of change in tactic
  How, why do you edit or choose what to say or not say to receiver?
  What do they think but not say?
  What do they say instead?

*** REMEMBER when people speak they haven't memorized what they're going to say. Often they surprise and emotionally affect themselves by what inadvertently comes out. Find your words. Make your choices appear to come out of the moment. Don't become so rehearsed and sure footed your work feels false. ALWAYS keep in mind the need to achieve your character's objective.

Guideposts from AUDITION. Relationships. Conflict. Humor. Moment before. Discovery.

Opposites - Whatever you decide is this scene's motivation, the opposite is also true.

CONSISTENCY IS THE HEART OF DULL ACTING. The more extreme the opposite you choose, the more instinctive your reading will be. Inner conflict is life. Resolution is death.

6 STEPS - Uta Hagen, in Challenge to the Actor
1 WHO AM I? What is my present state of being? How do I perceive myself? What am I wearing?

2 GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES What time is it? Year, season, day? At what time does my selected life begin? Where am I? City, neighborhood, bldg, room, landscape? What surrounds me? Immediate landscape, weather, condition of place & nature of objects in it? Immediate circumstances? What has just happened, is happening? What do I expect or plan to happen next and later on?

3 RELATIONSHIPS How do I stand in relationship to circumstance, place, objects, people related to my circumstances?

4 WHAT DO I WANT? What is my main objective? My immediate need or objective?

5 WHAT IS MY OBSTACLE? What is in the way of what I want? How do I overcome it?

6 WHAT DO I DO TO GET WHAT I WANT? How can I achieve my objective? What's my behavior? My actions?

SCORING THE TEXT scene by scene
1 Who am I? - character analysis
2 Where am I? - time, place, given circumstance
3 What do I want? - immediate need; objective & super-objective
Written at top of scene, worded in terms of receiver.
4 What do I do to get what I want? - actions & tactics

Written before line of dialogue; 1 word that fits the phrase "I want to make ____ do ____." The character can play an action for more than 1 line of dialogue. Several action choices can constitute a tactic. An action is more specific in terms of adjustment than a tactic. Generally a change in tactic signals a new beat for the actor.

What do I do when I get what I want?

What do I do when I don't get what I want? - obstacle; how I overcome it.

DIRECTING LEXICONS Languages for directors to use with actors in order to shape a scene and in an effort to make an adjustment.

A) A return to the grammar, syntax and meaning of the text. Punctuation; sentence sense. Comma = up glide; period = down glide. Pause /= beat.

B) Inner monologue; using parenthetical as a framing device for the line or to shape a beat. Lines don't change, choices do.

C) Action choices, tactics, objectives, raising the stakes to shape moment to moment choices in a scene. To get what you want raise the stakes so it matters and grounds you and you work harder.

D) Add dimension, detail and texture to the character's world and given circumstances; imbue the character with a rich, resonant virtual reality.

E) Subtext. Inner monologue, discrepancy between what a character says, means, does. What he says about himself and other characters, how he relates to other characters and what they say about him.

REHEARSAL JOURNAL
Literal story. Essential story. What kind of person am I, go through journey as I would. What I say I am. What others say about me. Advocacy of character, don't judge externally. Given circumstances of scene. Objectives this scene. Moments before, after. Start of scene. What do I do when I achieve my objectives? What do I do when I don't achieve my objectives? Tactics and actions, true to character. Ramifications of action choice: effects to family, esteem. Reversals. The IT in the scene. Boos and yays. Action choices. Blocking. We put our props different places until we found what worked.

SCRIPT ANALYSIS - A PRACTICUM FOR THE ACTOR
Shaping a scene, an actor asks several questions that lead to the thread or through line to comprise the character's journey as he moves from scene to scene through the play. Not only will the answers to these simple questions help the actor understand & internalize the character's through line or spine, but perhaps, more importantly, they enable the actor to make active choices that shape or arc the scene to maximize what's inherently dramatic (i e interesting) in the text.

1. Look at what happens to your character at the end of a scene, how the scene actually ends for him. Get as far from that ending as the text allows. Let what happens to you take you by surprise. Getting this distance from the scene's ending will give your character somewhere to go and also create a more interesting, less predictable scene.

2. Find the event for your character in each scene. Remember an actor can't play a scene to satisfy the writer's need for exposition, something must happen to your character in ea scene, and your job is to find out what that something is. To find this event, ask yourself What condition exists at the end of this scene that didn't exist at the beginning? e g a change in the relationship, in a circumstance, in a mind set or reality, etc. Then decide at what point this event actually takes place. That exact moment is what I refer to as the actor's It. You find usually the It occurs towards the scene's end. That point in a film is when the editor usually goes in for a CU because at that point we want to see the change, we want to see what is happening behind the eyes.

3. Once you have an idea of the arc and event of your scene, shape the moment to moment tension with as many dramatic reversals as you can find in the text. We call these reversals Boos and Yays. These mini-reversals are inherent in most good work, but you must learn to look for them. By playing the reversals in the moment to moment work of a scene, and in terms of your character's objective and POV, you'll take your audience through a surprising, compelling, dramatic journey. This method of script analysis will also keep you from falling into the common acting traps of playing the end of the scene at the beginning, giving equal weight to every moment in a scene, and defusing or losing the tension or dramatic action inherent in the text.

FINAL POINT: This method of analysis empowers an actor, enabling him to make analytic choices and decisions in terms of his character; choices playable, constructive, and most importantly made independently (PRN) of a director.

EXAMPLE
Remember the IT in the scene is the event which furthers dramatic action.

BOOS AND YAYS - The Cherry Orchard, Chekhov. Lopakhin will finally propose to Varya, she's thrilled. YAY. He dances around the question, she acts distracted, busy packing to leave. BOO. Lopakhin again tries to muster up courage and begins the proposal. Eager, Varya hangs on his every word, she wants this. YAY. Someone calls him and interrupts. BOO. Lopakhin loses his courage; says he's coming, leaves (IT) Varya's left alone, crying. BOO.

Play against the obvious. Act with your body, open to the camera. Commit 100% to the action. Action choices: I want to make my partner ____. Play the relationship. Listen actively.