They Call it Text Analysis

They call it Text Analysis, but I always think that sounds rather academic. In Practical Aesthetics, we have some clear concise questions that we ask to help us understand the scene of a play or film. The question that really helps the actor to begin unlocking the scene is:

What does your character want the other character to do as a RESULT of their actions?

We call this THE WANT. (and you won’t find it in the Practical Handbook for the Actor because it was added after that book was published)

Sometimes it’s known as an:

• Objective

• Desire

• Need

• Goal

• Target

Characters want things for themselves, but they usually want them from other people. David Mamet says “The character’s got to want something specific”. No matter what they say, they’re after something, they’re seeking a goal, they’ve got an objective. As Mamet says:
“People may or may not say what they mean, but they always say something designed to get what they want.”

The essential part of the WANT question is what does the character WANT the other character to “DO”.Your character wants the other character to do something. Your actions on stage must aim to glean a response from the other actor to parallel the drive the character feels to achieve something from one of the other characters, occasionally themselves. This can range from my character wants the other character “pay them attention”, to “lend them money”, to “do their dirty work”. It’s important to keep it very simple and write (in order to identify it, to articulate it) it in physically achievable terms. See how I was able to write the WANT in THREE words each time. Try to keep it minimal. I sometimes change the tense to first person so ‘pay me attention’, ‘lend me money’ or ‘do my dirty work’ – thinking from the perspective of the character, but as a recent anonymous commenter pointed out it’s probably better to have the WANT in the 3rd Person.

The WANT compels the character to action. Having a strong WANT will give you a very big clue as to how to construct an effective ESSENTIAL ACTION. Using a strong want to create a strong ESSENTIAL ACTION will compel YOU to action.

By answering this question with the “DO”, it makes the WANT something tangible. However, remember that the WANT is something that the fictional character desires, something that drives them, their motivating force.

The reason that other actors look silly asking “What’s my motivation for this scene” is that the motivation is provided by the playwright for the character alone. You will never have the same desire as the character in the play. The WANT is not yours, it is a target for the character and although the audience may be aware of it through the writing of the script, your job is to find a strong and fun ESSENTIAL ACTION that aims to capture it. In the pursuit of that action, you will create become compelling and come to life, you will begin to live truthfully.

Your character’s desire is the reason that they are in the scene in the first place. All character’s have a WANT. Your job is to discover the most practical WANT for the scene and find the strongest universal ESSENTIAL ACTION for the scene.

WANT offers a way to help you to bring the character to life by bringing yourself to life with something concrete to do, but it is not your want and so the essential action is what converts it into something simple and truthful for you to do. Others can’t understand how simply this works. Life is goal and action, so it is in the scene, without goal and action there is pretense and entropy.

To You, the Best

Mark