I have wanted to do some detailed text workshops for a while and with the summer showcase in mind, there was no better time to start.
Tanushka and I wrote 6 mini scenes with no stage or character directions. The plan was for the students to get into pairs, pick a scene and create their characters from the small about of text that they had been given. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I have based these workshops on three easy steps:-
1) The text itself
William Shakespeare was a master of creating character through pace, rhythm, structure and composition of a line or lines. His characters literally, with study, leap off the page. Therefore, the words themselves are a good place to start - before character, before the scene or before anything else. What do the words tell us about the characters or the world of the scene? What can we glean from the language and rhythms used?
As this was the first in a series of workshops, we kept it very simple. One example below:-
A: Yes.
B: No.
A: Please.
B: Yes.
A: No.
B: Yes.
Six lines of dialogue and a world of discovery for the actors. So where do we start with this? Well, on the face of it there seems to be disagreement between the characters. But is that the obvious choice? Where could they be? What could they be doing? Are the characters human? What difference does pace make to this scene. The text itself gives us very little clues but what it does allow is a huge amount of diversity in performance. For example, what happens to the scene if we read it extremely quickly or add long pauses between lines? These are all choices that the actors have the freedom to make. Which leads me to -
2) The context or world of the text
Where are these characters? What makes sense to the text? This will have a profound affect on the performance. For example, it will be a very different portrayal if we set the scene in the future, in a dystopian Germany than it would be if we placed it in medieval England on the eve of The War of the Roses. Are these two aliens who are busy discovering English? The imagination is completely free to create context around the text but the key is to recognise that the performance will be different if the context is different! The sub-text or if you like, the unspoken meaning, will change depending on the context or the world - and this leads me to:-
3) The character
Once we are familiar with the words and have a good idea of the situation or the world where they are spoken, we can begin to explore the character. How does the character speak in this world? What motivates them? Why are they saying what they are saying and who are they saying it to? There is something that professional actors call, 'actioning' - this is basically where I place an 'I want' before every line. This 'I want' gives me an action to play on the line and gives me a wonderful place to start with a strong vision for what my character is doing and why. For example, if I take the action for character A as, 'I want to eat her pie,' then that gives me something strong to play. It means that I make a strong choice as an actor.
The key to all of this is that at this stage, no acting choice is wrong. Rather, making a strong choice is powerful - no matter what it is. It is then down to the director and actors to look at what the best and most suitable choice is for the scene or play as a whole.
These are three simple steps but they succeed in the task of both empowering the actor and giving them clear guidance on how to create a living, dramatic scene. From what on the face of it can seem a boring or difficult piece of text, we can pick it apart and take control.
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