Verbs, Wants and Technique
Tommy asked:
Does an objective always need a verb in it? And is it possible for acting to be entirely intuitive rather than requiring technique? Do we always need to use technique?
Technique of any kind is only useful – if it’s useful. If an actor can truly understand the script intuitively burrowing beneath the surface of the words, discovering the actable elements without loss of substance or nuance, then technique is redundant. My experience is that many actors have the action part of acting, the behaviour, the doing, that is their instinctive part.
But please remember that acting is more than just human behaviour. It is also the capacity to glean from the script what is needed for the scene and that cannot often be found without some tool to mine for it. Instinct and intuition are vital for the actor but without a strong grip on the screen/play, we are just ‘making shit up’. I have rarely met an actor that can dissect the play accurately enough purely based on instinct without some kind of tools to open it up. Personally I don’t care how the actor learns text skills as long as they do, of course I think that PA does it best, but I’d be happy to work with any actor who had a firm hold on the script.
Another point is about the verb, there is little or no point in using a verb like this. Verbs are great as potential tactics for a scene but fixing a verb into the objective is deadening to the scene. If you are fixed on the verb persuade, you have limited yourself to how you will play the scene.
And here’s a further point:
It is my belief that the character and the actor have separate goals in the scene. The character may want his wife to agree to getting a dog, but you need some kind of task that takes it away from being about a non-existent dog for a non-existent daughter to a woman that isn’t your wife. Instead, we would universalise it to something you could truthfully do to the woman standing opposite you. Such as ‘to get someone to come round to my way of thinking’, ‘to get someone to take a risk’, ‘to get someone to come onboard’. – they immediately bring the actor into action and it’s universal enough that he/she intuitively knows how they would do it and it doesn’t take an act of self delusion to get us there. The verbs come in useful if you don’t know how to achieve this task.
I hope that helps!