Frequent Acting Problems: 2 – Connection
When I’m teaching the Step 4 Scene and Technique Class, I see the same problems time and again. These areas must be addressed until they become habituated and when you have them locked in, you will progress not only to the next Step of our STEPS Training Programme, but your acting will step up a gear.
Today’s topic:
CONNECTION TO THE CHARACTER
The next big problem is that people are not connected to the right type of behaviour for the role in the scene. If they try to act out the words, their behaviour will be reduced to animating words without any kind of physical, emotional or psychological connection to the role at all.
Whenever actors have no connection to suitable behaviour for the scene, they pretend, they convey and they play the state they think us required, rather than living truthfully.
Finding a personal parallel, a daydream that helps us to connect with that behaviour is a powerful and proven way to make that connection.
There are several CONDITIONS, parallels that the daydream needs to have in order to inform their behaviour in the scene.
CONDITION 1: DON’T COPY THE SITUATION - Forget the dramatic situation the character is in, you are not in that situation. How would you behave if your mother was sleeping with your dead father’s brother and you’ve just killed her faithfully and trusted advisor? Who knows!?
The audience can’t see what’s in your head and just like a magician, the illusion and the technical trick are two separate things. If you create a personal parallel, a dream, you can create the right behaviour for the scene without having to pretend to be in the same situation as the character, as long as the following conditions are met.
CONDITION 2: TASK - The character’s desire is not your desire, so you translate the desire/goal/want into a universal goal that we call a TASK. The TASK is something that the actor can do that doesn’t require them to believe in the imaginary circumstances. If the character wants someone to accept their apology, that apology is fictional, instead, get a SECOND CHANCE from the other actor and the illusion will be created. Do it like you would to someone of a similar relationship type – to ensure the right behaviour. And that leads me to…
CONDITION 3: RELATIONSHIP TYPE: You must draw your behaviour from the relationship type. First, ensure that you identify the relationship type is how your character sees the other character. PARENT, AUTHORITY FIGURE, SIBLING, FRIEND, BOSS, RIVAL… It’s not how you objectively see them, but how your character sees them. In the film SINGLE WHITE FEMALE, the characters are flatmates, but one of the characters sees the other one like SIGNIFICANT OTHER, so that this creates strange behaviour when the actor plays the scene as-if the other actor is their lover, their significant other, but they aren’t, the synthesis is creepy…
CONDITION 4: ENVIRONMENT: This one is simple. Our environment shapes our behaviour. If you are in a restaurant and you want your lover to ACCEPT A DIFFICULT TRUTH, you don’t shout and bawl (they might), you do it with hushed tones, you don’t want attention from other patrons or to spoil other people’s meals. Environment shapes our behaviour.
CONDITION 5: STAKES: If you don’t have the right stakes, you are not fighting like the character is. If your character’s stakes are life and death, then you need to parallel those stakes, without them, you do not act with the urgency and energy that you need to bring the character to life for the audience.
When you find a parallel that includes the same TASK, RELATIONSHIP TYPE, ENVIRONMENT and STAKES, and not the dramatic imaginary, fictional circumstances, you produce behaviour that works for the scene. Is it at simple as that? No, you still need to learn to embody that behaviour, but it’s a starting point.