The Top Ten Problems With An Actor’s Performance

This is an exploration of the 10 Common Problems that I find with an actor’s performance. I’m sure it doesn’t apply to ALL actors. We all have our blockages and limitations, but all actors will recognise that they struggle with some of these problems. By expressing it here, I hope that we can attempt to continue to develop a language by which acting coaches and actors can explore, develop and improve their process of working. When we know what each other is talking about, it makes this all a lot easier!

ONE: NO EMOTIONAL CONNECTION TO THE ROLE: Regular readers and students of our school might be surprised to read that I’m starting off with a discussion of emotion. It isn’t a dirty word to me because a personal, emotional connection to the role is absolutely necessary if you’re going to bring the scene to life and find the right pitch for it.

The trouble is that I see performance after performance where the actor was simply desperate to fake the right emotion in the hope that the audience would indulge them and ‘let them off the hook’ for their inability to connect emotionally with the requirements of the role. Any workable, practical acting technique should teach the actor clear and practicable ways to connect emotionally to the role.

TWO: NO CONNECTION TO THE SCENE PARTNER(S): I see this everywhere. The actor is not connecting with the other actors. They are simply acting AT, but not responding TO, what their scene partners are doing. Even if the character is trying to ignore another character, the actor must be aware of what they are trying to do to the other scene partner and what their scene partner is doing to them. So often, actors are simply pretending something AT the other actors – without a connection though, it just looks fake.

THREE: DISCONNECTION FROM THE SCENE: This actor has not correctly analysed the scene for action. They do not understand the scene and therefore, they do not know what the character is trying to do to the other characters in the scene. This disconnection from the scene forces them to offer a lively and animate improvisation of the scene (using the lines) each night, but it is empty of the true intent of the scene, and the audience applaud the actor’s performance of a con-trick, rather than their organic performance of the character in the scene.

FOUR: LEAVING YOURSELF NOWHERE TO GO: If you peak too early in your performance, if your character becomes too weak or too strong or too vulnerable, or too sad too soon, you leave yourself nowhere to go for the rest of the performance. It’s absolutely imperative that you do not allow any bold colours to emerge too early on in your performance.

FIVE: CHECKING HOW YOU’RE DOING – Sam Mendes said in an interview that the theatre actor must constantly be asking ‘how’m I doing?’, so that they can repeat it again night after night. I cannot imagine a more dead and occifying view of acting. There is no performance monitor, that will simply pull you out of the scene. If you have properly prepared in the rehearsal process, you don’t need to know how you’re doing. In fact, even worse, actors are often the worse judge of their own performance, so if you’re checking how you’re doing, you’re probably wrong.

SIX: LACKING IN TRUTHFULNESS/INORGANIC/DON’T BELIEVE IT: Yesterday, I watched the great BBC drama Occupation. It was a moving, harrowing and sometimes very funny portrayal of three men’s journey after they are part of the UK Army occupation of Iraq. In the final part, Warren Brown, the actor playing Hibbs (a former professional sportsman) delivers a eulogy for a dead soldier, and reads from Gilgamesh. During this scene, you would most commonly see an actor focused on portrayal of emotion, wringing out the emotion. Instead, he read, and he read like a human being reads, he read with confidence, but with the simply truth. He wasn’t performing, he was just reading. Simple, organic truth. Not pretend, not scenic truth, not artistic truth, just truth.

I recently watched a series of Show Reels on the Internet for actors across the UK. I struggled to find a moment of truth amongst them. For a chance to see this for yourself, simply turn the sound off, and watch, you’ll SEE when the acting doesn’t ring true, you’ll see where the commitment to performance creates an artificial, inorganic moment. Truth isn’t difficult to find, but giving up the pretend requires bravery, and not many actors are willing to take that step.

Actors do not need to fake, it isn’t necessary, the artificial can never compete with the organic.

SEVEN: ACTING FROM THE NECK UP: Very simply, from the jutting neck of the actor, they ignore all physical impulses from the body, aside from those that occur from the neck upwards. There’s a huge amount of acting going on from the top of spine upwards, but the body is not involved. This can be easily overcome through a number of exercises that require the entire body to act and react with chosen tactics.

EIGHT: PLAYING YOUR JUDGMENT OF THE ROLE – You’ve read the play, and you play the scene with that in mind. You also judge the character. Othello is noble and good, Iago is treacherous and evil. So, you play Iago as an evil character and by playing the judgment of the role, you crush all depth. Whatever you know about the character needs to be hidden from the audience and revealed in good time, when the scene requires it.

The same goes for a scene where something happens at the end that is important. Many actors will indicate the ending through their playing of the scene. This must be strongly avoided at all costs.

NINE: SHOUTY, SHOUTY, SHOUT-SHOUT ACTING – A scene is emotional, so the actor gets louder, as the actor peaks, they leave themselves nowhere to go but to shout and storm, and generally make noise. It’s very unpleasant to watch and very dissatisfying for the actor.

TEN: VOICE/SPEECH – Not usually a problem for amateurs and student actors – not speaking up (volume), not speaking out (projection) and not speaking clearly (articulation and annunciation) are a very common problem. I spent my first two years as a lecturer in Northern Ireland asking, instructing and insisting that people speak up. Without projection, without clarity, you may as well not speak.

Of course, there are many MANY more things, but if as an actor, you can address THESE things, you have a fighting chance of improving your performances in the future.