What’s the Actor’s Task? – Part 1

“The actor’s essential task is to reproduce a credible reality-verisimilitude on stage or screen, founded on acute observations of the world.”

Carol Penney

I found this quote about acting on the Internet and wanted to explore it on the blog. It says that the actor’s ESSENTIAL task (that is the most important thing that an actor has to DO) is to reproduce a credible reality. It then uses the very fancy word ‘verisimilitude’ which means the appearance of truth, and ends off with saying that verisimilitude is ‘founded’ or based upon ‘acute observations of the world’.

I find this whole quote fascinating. To sum it up: the actor’s job is the recreate the appearance of truth based on what they see in the world. But where is the mention of the script? The source of most of the actor’s work? (I’m not speaking of devising here). It does not mention it. The script is ignored. But why? Because to this type of actor, the script is just another tool in the ‘creation’ of their performance and their performance is equal to, or more important, than the script, so the script is not essential.

Do the actors not exist in a credible reality? What is incredible about their reality? Does the creation of an entirely fictional reality (oxymoron?) fall upon the shoulders of the poor actor who literally only has their physical movements and the vocal undulations of their breath with which to create this ‘other’ reality. It is not even that the actor must create a credible reality, but that they must re-create it.

Is this the actor’s task? If it is, why is it? Who said it is? Can different actors have different tasks? What is the actor’s task? How come the script isn’t mentioned? Is the task defined by the approach, is the approach defined by the task? Worth considering.

NOTE TO SELF: “In order to have faith in his own path, he does not need to prove that someone else’s path is wrong” Paolo Coelho