Guest Blog: David Greenwood from Ubi Sunt
Greetings Blog Readers!
Today is my birthday, so I’ve taken the day off and I’ve got a great blog for you by David Greenwood from Ubi Sunt in the USA. David regularly contributes to my blog in the form of comments, questions, discussions and provocations. We don’t always agree (okay, we rarely seem to agree) but that only serves the greater debate and I’m delighted that he’s agreed to write a blog for us today.
David Greenwood is a member of Ubi Sunt, a performance company in Tucson, Arizona, USA. In conjunction with Prescott College, Tucson Center, David facilitates Actor’s Gymnasium, a free workshop for Actors and Directors.
There are three factors which determine the behavior of an actor on stage. One is the actor’s personality. Two is the particular interpretation of a script or character. And three is the conventions and customs of the stage. Anyone watching an actor on the stage would be able to attribute any and all specific behavior by an actor to one of these three factors or a combination thereof.
Let me explain and define the three factors briefly before touching on the importance of recognizing and understanding them.
Personality would be just as it implies – the total sum of a persons physical and mental being, the way they look, sound, move, think, feel, etc.
Interpretation is the particular decisions made about a character or an event in a play, i.e. this character walks with a limp, or wears this type of clothing, or speaks in this rhythm, or wants such and such thing. Or the characters sit in chairs for this scene or they swing on trapeze in this scene.
Conventions and Customs are those things that are necessary or commonly done given that fact that it is an actor performing on the stage for spectators. Actors face a certain direction (toward the spectators perhaps), or speak loudly (so as to be heard), stands under the light (so as to be seen). Or they shuffle their feet when walking (as in certain stylistic genres of theatre).
When these influencing three factors, personality, interpretation, and convention seem to work harmoniously for an actor, we usually think and feel that it is a good performance. If there is discord or awkwardness between the three then of course we usually feel it is a not good performance.
Given this, it only makes common sense that any training or coaching of actors would include active work on all three of these factors, considered both individually and in combination.
Further, and equally importantly, any comprehensive training or coaching of actors should be done from primarily from the mindset of the actor, not primarily from the mindset of a playwright, choreographer/director, or spectator. Playwrights generally tend to think and imagine in words and dialogue. Directors/Choreographers generally tend to think and imagine in logic and visuals. Spectators tend to think and imagine with satisfaction or not. Actors on the other hand think and imagine in terms of behavior. Behavior is their language and their pedagogy.
Actor training and coaching must consider and an actor’s personality, combined with interpretive aspects, and set under the principles and conditions of the stage – and it must do so from the actor’s primary mindset.
A Guest Blog on Acting by David Greenwood