Some actions are deliberate and conscious, some are
immediate, reflex responses to the want or the need and a person may not even
realize what they are doing until they have already engaged in the action. What all actions have in common is they
are focused, in one manner or another of achieving the objective. The fun part for the actor can be
trying out a hundred different possibilities in rehearsal and then decide what
suits the moment the best.
Eventually the objective and the action will work together in what
Stanislavski calls “the score” of a role:
the symphony of wants and actions that play the character each night in
performance. It’s important to
notice the things that allow us to try different actions and also the things
that cut off action or make us feel stuck. In rehearsal, try to maximize free access to the want and
let the action follow from the impulse.
Like the score of a piece of music, where different phrases and
movements have different durations and colors, so the score of a role will have
actions of different lengths and tactics.
Dramatic action is engaging for an audience when a character is totally
committed to finding the right action to achieve the objective. This means that the actor is usually
trying different actions to get results.
Each moment eventually has to be crafted for performance. Too many actions can confuse the
throughline of actions, and too few can make the action stall. In rehearsal generate as many as
possible, making sure that you remain flexible enough to let go of any actions
that really interfere with the scene rather than supporting it. When does an action change? -- when something else is
needed. This usually shows itself
in two ways. 1) when it is clear
that the current action is not getting you what you want, or 2) when you have
achieved the objective and a new objective takes its place. A good director will be on the
look out for the shifts that make the scene most engaging and will accompany
the actor in the investigation of many possible actions. Often a young artist will get in the
way by judging. A course of action
is suggested or tried out and the investigation is stopped too soon with a
comment like “this character would never do that.” Leave decisions like that for later, and accept the sad
truth that in face of some of our most immediate and most pressing wants there
is very little that a human being will NOT do. The dark comedy “Burn After Reading” seems to be a veritable
study in rash actions that destroy lives all spurred by one character’s
obsessive want for cosmetic surgery.
Try a variety of actions for the same end. Have fun and have courage as you explore and leave the
sorting out for later.
Life story: I
always ask my students to ride the subway and to observe impulses. As a teacher I’ve found that this opens
up the work to beginning students, and as an actor I find it crucial when I
study for a role. One night ,I was
on a fairly empty subway train. It
is amazing what people will reveal in public, or perhaps they don’t even
realize that they are revealing it; they are simply continuing a string of
actions that began before they moved to a public space. I watched one couple in the
middle of an argument. Neither of
them were particularly attractive but the man seemed to think he was in a
different category than his companion. The woman was silent and unmoving as she listened to the man
try to address her objection to his infidelity. He had a long string of actions that he tried.
Defending his autonomy “why should it matter to you what I do when I’m away?”
Belittling the concern: “she
doesn’t mean anything to me.”
Denying responsibility “it just happened, we were drunk.” Deflecting “you always do this.” None of these had any results. She remained unmoved, stern, jaw
clenched, brow furrowed. Then… and
I wish I did not witness this… he looked at her and realized that none of these
actions were getting him what he wanted.
He paused, changed his tone of voice, and almost sang the words “I’m
gonna marry you.” Immediately her
face melted, her tension released, and she looked at him with very wide
eyes. The subway car pulled into
my stop and as I was getting off the car I wanted to give her a piece of advice
in the form of another action: Run!
But it was too late, she believed him.
Work Story:
I’ve had the great privilege to work for several years on Fragments of a Greek Trilogy. The original production was
developed by director Andrei Serban, composer Elizabeth Swados, and the actors
of the Great Jones Repertory of La MaMa.
It was the hope of Ellen Stewart, the founder of La MaMa to create a new kind of theatrical
experience that was not dependant on words to tell the story. Ellen’s vision was to have a kind of
theatre where people from all over the world could stand side by side and
experience the show in a way that was not dependant on what language they spoke
or understood. In order to do
this, they began with ancient languages that no one spoke, and eventually for The Trojan Women Elizabeth composed
language based on the sounds of many different languages. By removing a cognitive understanding
of words, the process made the actors work on conveying the essential action of
each scene in other ways. The
language of the play was the language of actions, and the words became music
that underscored and supported each action. It didn’t matter to the audience
that they did not understand the meaning of the words, the actions were enough
to engage them, and to tell the story in a way that was clear… at least enough
for the New York Times to say “no words were needed.” When we performed in Korea, a man who saw the show
recognized a group of on the street the next day. He spoke no English and we spoke no Korean. He came over to us very excitedly and
said the name of the show pointing to us as if to confirm that we were the same
people he had seen the night before, and we nodded yes. Then he conveyed his experience to us
without a shared spoken language.
He pointed to himself,
placed his hand over his heart and fluttered it, and then brought his
hands to his face and traced several lines from his eyes down his cheeks. We understood each other quite well.
Further investigation:
Stanislavski lays out the process of establishing the
“score” according to objectives and actions in his book Creating a Role. It outlines his process for
analysis, emotional experience and physical embodiment of the action of a
play. It’s a foundational work for
understanding this kind of work with objectives and actions.
Suggestions:
1. Go to a public place, bus, train, or anywhere that you
might be able to watch a conversation as it unfolds. See if you can see the different actions from moment to
moment, the way they are laid out in the story above. Distinguish between the objective (what they want) and the
various actions (what are they doing to get what they want)
2. Select a page at random from your favorite novel or piece
of literature and make a list of all all of the active verbs used on one
page. Look at the list in the
sequence as you have written it down and see if you can imagine an objective or
an aim for all of those actions or for any cluster of three or four actions.
3. Go back to a role that you have done before, a script
from a show you’ ve done, or a monologue that you have prepared. See if you can keep the objectives that
you decided on and try to pick a different set of actions that still aim at the
same objective.
4. Before you go to sleep see if you can go over the day in
your mind and list 10 significant actions you did that day. Keep a new list each day for several
days and then see how the lists compare and contrast.
5. Go back to any list of actions (either from these
exercises or from your own work,) select the first ten, and see if you can
articulate the opposite action. (examples:
follow/ lead, convince/dissuade, praise/condemn, cajole/enfuriate.)
6. Recall a moment when you were at your best and a
different moment when you were at your worst. Try to remember things that you did in these moments and
then compare the actions.
7. Listen to a symphony and imagine the music having an
action. As the music changes from
movement to movement or from phrase to phrase, name the action of each new
section.
Other suggestions:
watch a movie in another language without subtitles and see how much you
can understand from the actions,
repeat some of the suggestions for the previous section on objectives,
this time noticing instead the actions people use to achieve their objectives.
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