Limitations

Sarah asked if the technique of Practical Aesthetics was too stripped, if approaching every scene simply doing an essential action, may be truthful, but wouldn’t it mean that all your performances were going to be the same character, just in different situations? How do I add the extra layer of character? Say, if I was to play Ophelia, how can I honestly portray this meek, stifled young woman without any knowledge of the norms of the period for women?

An interesting question and one that was equally leveled at Method Acting in the past, because if we create from ourselves, surely we are going to end up only portraying a limited range of characters?

Actually, that’s the very point. We are only ever ourselves. Character is an illusion that we create and it is created with the complicity of the audience. Character is the sum of characteristics, which are the things that we do, our own personal character is just a bundle of habitual action. It’s how we are recognised – by the things that we do. Acting involves augmenting or suppressing certain parts of yourself in order to attain the illusion of character. And you can do that infinitely because it all depends upon the requirement of the scene.

It also suggests that those who ‘create’ character somehow to do it from outwith themselves. But everything is you, and they can only ever produce character from choices made from within themselves, influenced yes by the script and its requirement.  But there is no layer of character, there is only the illusion of character.

The Ophelia example is an interesting one and it brings up a basic misunderstanding in the acting process. Let’s take it in two parts. How can I play a meek, stifled, young woman? How do you know that she’s meek, stifled and young? Something occurred in the script that gave you this impression, and you will give that same impression to the audience if you truthfully carry out the actions of the character. Second part – Without any knowledge of the norms of the period for women how can I play Ophelia? Firstly, Ophelia isn’t meek because of the social norms of the period, she is meek because Shakespeare wants her that way. Secondly, which social norms and which social period are you referring to? Hamlet is a play set in Medieval Denmark, and no one knows what the specific social norms were then. The other choice is to set the play in a sort of Shakespearean Denmark of the 1600s, because in essence Shakespeare is called ‘a man for all time’ because he wrote a play about his own time that was set in Medieval Denmark. The script tells you all the social limitations you need to know about. She is trapped inside this prison of Denmark and this prison of Elsinore AND she’s a female in a man’s world (treated like a child, because she IS just a kid – it is often guessed that she is around 15 and Hamlet is 30) AND she’s surrounded by royalty (but isn’t herself and so her position is constantly one of the outsider) and the Prince Hamlet, a much older guy is so inconstant with his affections that it tears at her heart every time she sees him because she doesn’t know how he will be with her and he has been away in Germany and now he has returned and seems to be in love with her again and her brother is sent away (her only friend) AND her father is killed by the man who she loves. There’s plenty there to be getting on with, that is implicit in the play and tells you precisely how choosing your objective/action/task or whatever you want to call it will help you to play her.

Also, what if you got a wonderful book called ‘Social Norms for Women in Medieval Denmark’ – would you be able to act upon this knowledge? Oh well, women in Denmark would always lower their eyes when they met a man. Okay. But that doesn’t tell you anything about Ophelia. That only tells you about accepted norms in Denmark, which we can already agree isn’t really the world of the play because in essence it’s a reflection of 1600s England. Okay, so let’s get a book on Social Norms and Manners in Elizabeth England and what do we learn? Again, lots of general things about physical customs which might help (actually, I have a book like this and there is nothing wrong with a bit of research) but again, this reduces Ophelia to ‘all women’ and the play isn’t real and the character of Ophelia is specific to the world of the play that Shakespeare has invented and how does knowing that women in Shakespeare’s time had to bow to each man they met help to create a character? In the end, it’s just you bowing.

It is a fallacy that good acting has to be in some way accurate. Just as a bad true-life drama cannot be made good by accuracy to ‘what actually happened’, good acting is far from being about accuracy to convention or time. The question is ‘how do I know how to behave like Ophelia?’. Comb the play for all the clues and moment to moment, with the words of the writer and the actions that you have derived from the script, be truthful in your pursuit of Ophelia’s objectives and truthful in your relationship to the other actors and the audience will be compelled to believe in the unique illusion that you have created. Each character you play is unique because each calls upon you to reveal different sides of yourself in different circumstances, to use different tactics with differing urgency, reacting to each new moment on stage or camera in a different way because that is what living truthfully as an actor is about.