Purpose & The Actor
“Purpose – It’s that little flame that lights a fire under your ass.” – AVENUE Q.
There are no good or evil characters for you to play. Those judgments will only ensure that you play stereotypes, empty approximations of certain types of behaviour bases on those shallow judgments.
Characters are just goal and action, a want, desire or purpose, and the steps taken to achieve them. And just like real people if your characters lack a defined purpose or if you as the actor do not understand their purpose, they will be empty, flat – literally depressed.
Why is Purpose so important? Because it guides our action, and in context it tells us how we must act.
Seeking the purpose will keep you and the character focused, directed and happy. For it is happiness that drives us all, real and fictional.
Some collected thoughts on the criteria for Purpose:
Purpose means that your character has something that they Want.
Purpose means they want to Accomplish a Change. If your Purpose was ‘I want Revenge’ the change would be from weak to strong, from victim to avenger.
Purpose is unique to the particular given circumstances of the scene. However, purposes are universal enough for the actor to comprehend what it means.
When Purpose is achieved or thwarted there is a significant change in dramatic tension.
Purpose is accompanied by a mental image. When we think about what we want, we use imagery to reinforce our desire.
Purpose is psychophysical and involves both mental and physical action.
Purpose meets Obstacles. It is the nature of wants to meet resistance. How does the character deal with the resistance they find?
Very importantly, the character’s purpose is not something the actor needs to share. The actor learns their character’s purpose in order to decipher how the character goes about putting their purpose into action. The actor’s job is to convert this into something they can do.
When you have decided what you believe the character’s purpose is, you should ask: For What Reason?
I hope this is food thought.