The Actor Gets Ready: Blog 44

Good morning!

I have been on a bit of a roll here over the past few days, looking at routes of emotion and how to access the actor's palette. So today I am thinking about the move to deepening character, and finding a truthful imaginative reference point that absorbs the creative mind in bringing a fictitious character to life.

I was chatting to a colleague about the relative time spent on the different aspects of creating character in a rehearsal process. How much time to spend on developing the 'back story' and how much on repeating and refining the dialogue!

Its a fine art actually, and there are no simple answers. In my process however there are some absolutes in terms of territory to be covered, and in this there are no short cuts. Once upon a time, about 15 years ago in another land I used to get 5-6 weeks of rehearsal on a show! Imagine that. Indeed I believed that it was impossible to make a good piece of drama in anything less. After all I grew up in the shadow of the stories of my great heroes, like Peter Brook who could secret himself and his actors for months on end. And then dear old Mike Leigh! Total immersion being the only answer. And of course the results were usually great. How could they not be? 

2013 is a different country indeed. Thanks to the squeeze on money, we, like many other industries have had to work faster, smarter as they say, be more productive, dare I even say cut corners? can these economic rules really apply to making art to? Surely not? 

Well like it or not, and in spite of our precious sensibilities, the answer is 'do or die'. Its uncomfortable and distasteful maybe, as we are mostly purists perhaps. But of course the converse is also true. 

I love the story of the plumber and repeat it often. You call her out because you have a blocked pipe. She arrives, taps the pipe and knows exactly where the block is and unblocks it. It all takes precisely 3 minutes. She wacks a bill for £90 in your hand and leaves. You reluctantly pay up and then stand there looking at the bill with your mouth open, she was only here for three minutes! How can that be worth £90?

In my book its actually about the recipe and the ingredients, and less about the exact apportionment of time to each area of concern. Basically these are the elements that I include in my process and believe are essential. You can take a week on each one, or an hour, but you need them all to make your character. 

The Actor Gets Ready! (Nod here to the Great Master Stanislavski whose book An Actor Prepares is a key text)

1. Familiarity with text: Do your homework before rehearsals. An absolute MUST
2. Research the territory. Go on a little 'look see' on the internet, amongst friends, anywhere, to locate a model of your character, ie; someone who you have a hunch may carry some of the characteristics.
3. Prepare your body, mind and imagination and emotional tools ready to work.
4. Let go of resistances, or at the very least make them conscious so you can work with them.

The work of the Director and Actors in Rehearsal

1. Emotional and physical mapping
2. Storytelling - the character's history
3. Physical landscapes, the character's territory (literal environment) excursions.
4. Archetypes - the collective access to character, decision making.
5. The physical dimension  - body changing.
6. Character and relationship web
7. Voice and tone, the language in the mouth and in the body.
8. Metaphor
9. Carving the energy.
10. Sharing the space and tolerating dissonance
11. Making the dynamics work
12. Defining and setting.
13. Repeat, repeat, repeat!
14. Share and criticise.
15. Present. And watch the audience for feedback.

A little cryptic I acknowledge, and each point is full of many others, exercises, conversations and questions. But I guarantee if you go through all of these in a process you will almost certainly unlock character and dynamic in response to the narrative arc of the piece you are making. You could spend ten years going through each stage  or a week if you like me are now constrained by time! There's nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.

Finally to return to my colleague's comment about rehearsal process. If you stay in the 'back story' part of it for too long, you will end up with egg on your face as the actors won't know their lines, their motivations in practice in a scene, and it will all look like a load of self indulgent twaddle! So make sure that the greatest amount of time is spent in shaping, reviewing and repeating for goodness sake!

Have a great weekend.