FIVE Things that WONT help you Play the Scene
Much of what we are taught as actors is nonsense. It amounts to little more than well-meaning hippie crap. It’s fake work that lets the actor feel like they are doing something useful, whilst instead they simply waste time that could be better spent rehearsing the play.
Here are FIVE Things that WON’T help you Play the Scene:
1) Character History/Back Story: A well-used tool to fill up the notepads of many an acting student, and some professional actors too. When I’m working, I’m too busy WORKING to spend time on distractions. Many teachers and directors believe that this utter waste of time helps you to gain closer knowledge of the character. But these tasks are a WASTE of your time. They do not help you to act. They are a lesson in creative writing. Everything that should help you play the scene should be in the scene. The writer isn’t trying to con you, it’s all there and if it isn’t, it isn’t your job to fix it. It’s your job to find what’s there in the scene to help you play the scene effectively. Many teachers ask you to write fictional accounts of the character’s history based on what you read the play. I say that task is not one for an actor. It is one for a writer and whilst it is fun, it will not help you play the scene. It doesn’t help you understand what you have to DO in the scene. It helps you get lost in irrelevant details.
HOWEVER, it is useful to look at the script, to understand the given circumstances of the play, to understand something of the epoch or historical setting in order to understand the writer better. You can read other plays by the same writer. You can collect together all the details of the character FROM the play. These are useful tasks that will help you to understand the play, help you play the scene and bring the character to life for the audience.
The difference to me is clear, search the script for clues, don’t make up fictional accounts of character’s past. One is essential, the other is fake work (fun to do, but entirely unnecessary).
(Thank you to David for ensuring that I clarify this point)
2) Books: There is only one piece of literature that will help you to play the scene: it is the script of the play or film you are working on. A rudimentary understanding of the play, the scene and the moment is more useful than a library full of books. Books are great for ideas, but in the end, acting is action.
I’m not saying don’t read books. I’m saying they don’t have the solution to your scene. Only the script.
3) Talking: Okay, there must be some period of discussion, some shared understanding of the scene, some basic scene analysis. After this, get on your feet and start acting.
4) Your Performance Monitor: Some schools teach that you can ‘monitor’ your performance and ask yourself ‘how’m I doing’ while you’re playing the scene. BUT, your attention needs to be on your scene partner and what you want from them. That’s the only goal, that’s the target, that’s the only thing you are monitoring. Asking ‘how’m I doing?’ will pull you out of the scene, make you self conscious and harm your performance. Learn to leave it alone.
5) Your character’s colour and other insults to your intelligence: There are many fake acting teachers out there that ask their students to come up with their character’s colour, piece of music, food, or other ridiculous crap. It’s fun to play the game, but it will not help you play the scene in a month of Sundays. The aim is to make you think about the character, if you can work out the colour of the character, you can say something about their characteristics. Instead, read the play, work out what they want, work out their action and you’ll know what you need to know. Your character is not a colour and the charlatans that teach this crap know it, so why did they do it? Because they don’t know how to teach any real acting technique, so they rely on Voodoo and mysticism. They turn acting into nonsense.
FINALLY
I recently found an ad on the internet for an ‘acting coach’ that offered the following ‘essential principles of acting’.
*Triangle Theory
* Sound and Aural Impact
* Power zones of the body
* Fear based Psychosis
* The role of the mind
* Light and colour
Sounds like fun, where do I sign up to throw my money away at these charlatans?
To you, the Best
-Mark-