Tempo-Rhythm

I must confess, I find the idea of Tempo-Rhythm fascinating. I recently spoke about it in an audio blog that I delivered to my students via the Members’ Area of the Acting Coach Scotland website. I’ve spent some of today reading about it in various places, Benedetti’s Stanislavsky book ‘An Actors Work’, being a newly translated place to explore Stanislavski’s thoughts on the topic. Again, reading the chapter on Tempo/Rhythm, I’m amazed and astounded. It’s a great thing to be aware of, but oh, how they make it sound like licking snails. I usually like how Benedetti explains Stanislavsky, but I don’t always think what he’s saying (Stanislavski or Benedetti?) makes sense, and in this case, the book suffers from the flowery written prose style that both men use:

Some choice passages from the book:

“Tempo is the rate at which equal, agreed, single length-values follow each other in any given time signature “ p463

-Webster’s dictionary describes TEMPO in English as ‘the rate of motion or activity’. A great definition for the actor.

” Rhythm is the quantitative relationship of active, agreed length-values in any given tempo or time signature ” p463

-The Encyclopedia Britannica describes RHYTHM in English as ‘the regularity of an recurrence’. An equally valuable explanation for us.

So, to us, Rhythm-Tempo might mean the combined rate of motion and regularity of recurrence. How fast and how often.

There then follows pages and pages of Tortsov using Music and Numbers to make Rhythm-Tempo seem scientific.

Finally Tortsov gets to his point that is useful to actors “Tempo is quickness or slowness. Tempo can curtail or extend an action, shorten or lengthen speech. Performing an artion, speaking a word demands time. Quicken the tempo and there is less time for either. That means I have to act or speak faster. Slow down the tempo and you have more time to act and speak and so greater opportunity to do and say what is important. ” p465

It’s horrible to read and is teaching actors in the most unnatural way possible through complex theory, when a simple answer would be just as good. It suggests that if you understand your own tempo-rhythm, you can help create a different one for your character. Nice idea.

Now, I do think it’s an important thing to consider, I just think that it’s handled badly. It’s laughable to imagine actors wandering around trying to work out what Tempo and Rhythm their character does things at. Yes, I know, I know, you’re an artist, you create, you build character. Well, it’s hilarious, it is 100% fake work. It feels like work cos it keeps you busy, but so does masturbation, but I wouldn’t want to see that on stage either.

I’d like to offer an alternative consideration for Tempo-Rhythm. Let’s first off imagine that Tempo-Rhythm is inherent in our activities, it’s not something that we NEED to play with. Although it is fun yes, to talk around at different tempos and different rhythms to explore how writing a page of your journal feels done with a completely different tempo-rhythm. It’s fun, but it isn’t really necessary. So that’s my point, it isn’t the grad school of acting techniques, it’s the junior school of fun-play. It has confused, robbed, befuddled and ‘inspired’ actors for years and it’s better off left to itself own devices.

However, let’s examine how tempo-rhythm IS important. When you try to achieve something, the drive behind that will gives us a Tempo-Rhythm. If we connect that drive to something we can appreciate and understand psycho-physically, then our body’s own Tempo-Rhythm will stand for the character’s without the need to ‘create’ it.

What really powers our Tempo Rhythm in life are the stakes that we face, what do we stand to lose and how does that connect psycho-physically to what we are doing. If we have understood the scene (can you spend all that time fannying around making up Tempo-Rhythms and still give the script it’s due – in three weeks? I doubt it), pared down the character to its most essential behaviour, routed in action, if we have understood what it means to the character to do this action and the context and the stakes and the relationship to the other character, then our Tempo-Rhythm should be powered by that incredible, dynamic relationship between those elements.

BUT what about devising? That bastion of the democratic university drama department…well, devising is different, devising is a completely different set of skills. It is combining the creative skills of the writer (standing up and away from their desk) with the interpretive skills of the actor. It is a completely different activity, it is deriving content, it’s just a completely different game.