The Difference Between Want and Task (Action)

A question that commonly arises in class and on my blog is:What is the WANT and what is the TASK and how do they actually differ? So, today’s blog at aimed at answering that question and thanks for Tommy for bringing it up again.

The WANT belongs to the character. The character WANTS the other character(s) in the scene to DO something. That WANT belongs to the character and is entirely literary. So if the character of Marge wants Homer to take out the trash because it’s his turn and they agreed that if Marge cooked dinner that Homer would take out the trash, that WANT belongs to the character of Marge. It is her WANT, not in any way yours.

Why?

Because you the actor are not Marge, therefore you do not have the same WANT. You don’t care whether Homer takes the trash out or not, in fact, there isn’t anyone called Homer. There’s Dave, the actor playing Homer and you do not want him to take the trash out. The WANT is not yours, you literally do not WANT him to do it. There’s no desire, there’s no intent behind it.

On the other hand, the TASK or the TASK is something that YOU the actor CAN DO in the scene. It is something that you can do without pretending that you WANT what the character WANTS. So, instead, we transform the character’s want of ‘take out the trash’ into something that you can do, that does not require belief in imaginary circumstances OR for you to pretend that you have any desire that you don’t have.

So my task in this scene as Marge is ‘to get someone to hold up their end of the deal’ – Marge cooked dinner, Homer agreed to take out the trash, and now he’s trying to get out of it. So, I will play this scene like I’m trying to get Dave to hold up his end of the deal. It’s universal, it is simple and it doesn’t require me to make anything up. I’ll just treat Dave like he needs to hold up his end of the deal. If I can think of something that will help me with that, like getting Dave to show up to rehearsal/class on time, which is what you had both agreed, then you’ll have some help with the tactics that you’ll need to employ when you want to achieve your TASK. After that, chase the action/task, live in the moment and respond to what your partner does.

In brief: The WANT is what the character WANTS the other character(s) to do in the scene, it tells you why they are in the scene and what they are doing. The TASK or Action transforms that WANT into something practical that you can DO that will bring you into line with that WANT without you having to pretend that you have the same WANT.