First: A Brief History Acting;

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   Thespis of Ancient Greece is said to be the world's first actor. Back then, Pisistratus the tyrant established a series of public festivals, including a festival of entertainment honoring the Greek god Dionysus. This included music, singing, dance and poetry. Right around the year 534 B.C. Thespis was a poet at this festival and he was astonishing people with a shtick no one ever saw before. He'd leap up on a cart and recite his poetry. Nothing unusual so far, Right? But as he recited his poetry, he read the words as if they were being spoken by the people described in the poem. For the first time ever people saw someone portray someone else in order to tell a story. He could create the illusion of someone by impersonating their specific characteristics.  

   There was a type of "Theatre" before Thespis came around. However it was not theatre as we know it today. Back then the performance were dithyrambs. A dithyramb was a type of rhythmic poetry sung by a choir in honor of their gods. The choir was likely to wear masks to show their emotion and set the mood. (This is illustrated in a movie called, "Mighty Aphrodite" (1995))  Although a member of the choir did step away from the group to speak, he was speaking in direct address to the audience and he was never imitating another person. But from Thespis' idea came the art of dramatic acting. 

   2,100 years later when William Shakespeare produced his works, (the late 1500s - early 1600s A.D.) performances were still rhythmic. They were written in pros and verse and an iambic pentameter. Though Shakespeare did write in the language of contemporaries, I'm sure the common people standing outside of the Globe Theatre were not speaking in rime all the time. By the time you get to the 1700s performers strived to deliver lines realistically, not conform the sentence to rime and verse. This is the point in history the theater as we think of it begins, I think. But much of what they produced would today be considered, 'indicating'. That is to say to 'display' or 'indicate' that you are feeling perplexed by placing the back of your hand over your brow and sighing. It's real fake.

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   From this point we have the fundamental rules that are the theater 101 stuff everyone knows. These are things like; stage direction, knowing how to read stage direction, annunciating, throwing to the back row, cheat out 45 degrees, always motion with your upstage hand... and so on. These are the rules everyone knows no matter how armature the performer is, so I'm assuming people reading this know that much. I do believe every aspiring actor should learn these rules, I also believe a student of drama should learn these rules first. But learn them just until they are second nature and then forget them completely. Never think to apply them because if you think in those terms, those rules get in your way, all the way. For instance, if you "Throw to the back row" on a modern stage you will look FAKE because nobody "Throws to the back row" when the person they're talking to is standing a foot and a half away. That would look and sound FAKE. Why would you do that when you are most likely wearing a microphone? Another example; You are probably not going to cheat out to the audience 45 degrees on a film set because on film we can see a scene from multiple camera angles. So there's no need to look FAKE. And as well, you don't cheat out 45 degrees if you're doing theatre in the round or performing on an extreme thrust stage. As I said, know the rules because you may have to perform in a big space with no sound system even in modern times. But most times you won’t. If you only follow these, theatre 101 rules, and learn nothing else, your performances will seem as stiff phony and dated, just like a play from the 1700s, all indicating!

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   There are 3 great movements throughout the history of the craft of acting, in my opinion. These are, Stanislavski, Meisner and Strasberg. I'd like to give a brief overview of some of their teachings that have helped me.  

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   During the 1890s there lived a man named Konstantin Stanislavski in Moscow, Russia . He was credited for elevating the craft of dramatic acting from stiff performances with plenty of indicating to an extremely realistic portrayal of the play. His teachings made a play, for the first time, seem more like you're eavesdropping on a gathering, rather than seeing actors on a stage. Not FAKE! 

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He talked about;

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   -Given Circumstances-

   Understanding the world of your character is absolutely vital to creating believable performances. The first step is to go through the script and write down ALL the facts about your character; Where am I? What point in history am I in? What is my social status? When growing up, what was my parent’s social status? Did I know my parents? Why? What do I do for a living?  Married / Single / Dating? And why? What are the details of my environment? ...And so on.

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   -Magic if- 

   This is being able to imagine a characters given circumstances enough to understand what your character might do in any situation that could arise. Then when something happens in the play you can fully understand how they would respond because you know so much about them and the world they exist in.

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   -Tasks and Objections-

   Once you have the Given Circumstances and Magic If, You can unpack your character's Tasks and Objections. Your Character always wants something and has to resolve a conflict to get it. Always ask yourself, "What do I want?" You may have heard it, "What's my motivation?" (Put another way, "What want is motivating my character.) 

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   In the mid-1920s in New York City Stanford Meisner developed an approach where the actor focuses not on themselves but instead concentrates on the other actors in their environment. He had exercises based on repetition like this one: You and your scene partner just repeat the same sentence over and over. You keep doing this until you have a scene playing out. For example; You say, "That dress is red" and your partner says, "That dress is red". Repeat; The words diminish in meaning every time they are repeated until they are completely meaningless and all you have left is the connection between two people and that's where the real story is playing out. Because in many cases the words are not the focus, even though you are speaking. I too believe many times the words we say are not the point you wish to get across. For instance, "Yeah!" could be delivered as if it were really, "Fuck off!!!"  Also in order to help fully understand how the characters came to this point, he also encourages students to improvise any relevant scenes that happen before the play begins. He liked a 'group' approach.   

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   Also becoming active in New York in the 1920s but born in Poland, Lee Strasberg had an approach where much of the actors work happened off stage. In 1951 he became director of The Actors Studio in New York City and he developed his 'Method'. Strasberg's method requires actors to use a technique called, "Substitution". Substitution means to temporality become the character they are portraying during the whole course of a production. This encourages the actor to use their imagination, censes and emotions to conceive of characters with unique and original behavior. This is all to create performances grounded in the human truth of the moment. Strasberg argues: How can an actor who grew up middle class in New York truly understand a character who grew up poor in the south? He further argues: The actor achieves this by immersing themselves, as much as possible, in the circumstances of their character. This not only includes responding to everything as your character all day long, but also may include, living without air conditioning, spend time living on a farm, work in a factory, befriend people like ones your character may have known or whatever. But be reasonable, you're not going commit yourself to a mental hospital for a month because you're doing a community theatre production of, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". Moderation is okay.

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   These are the three great movements and the teaching that stood out to me. All three are good for preparation but what about your time on stage. Here's my personal proses. Here's where I try to put my head;

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   After knowing your character inside and out and now on the stage, at all times the primary focus of my entire being is on, what do I want? ("I" meaning my character) And then what do I have to do to this person to get it? How do I compel my scene partner to get what I want? Think of it like a missing verb. In your head you are always thinking, I want to "Fill in the verb" you. Your verb might to; bribe, seduce, persuade, convince, scold, flirt, dismiss, strong arm, stonewall, understand, beat, and punch... and so on. What verb would your character choose to compel someone to do whatever's needed? If you focus on that there is no need to focus on what your face and body look like. Not only your words but inflection and body language all fall into character without you in control or knowledge of any of it!  Nothing but; I want to BRIBE you. "I can arrange that". Or I want to PUNCH you, "I can arrange that". I want to SEDUCE you. "I can arrange that". Change the verb and you change the delivery. Never think about blocking or projecting or can the back row hear me or how you're standing. The only thing on your mind should be the "want" of your character. Knowing your character requires preparation and should already be second nature allowing the reaction to be a true reflex. 

   The best performances come when the actor has nothing on his mind except the thoughts of his character and no part of his mind on the performance or the camera or the audience watching. Be warned, if someone in the audience of your play complements some gesture you made during one performance and you consciously try to reproduce it the next performance, you will rune the moment because your mind is on the actor on the stage and not the character in the story. No need to "make" expressions on your face. Never think about flashing a "look". Just think about your scene partner and think, I want to VERB you! That is the rule I follow.  

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   This is an exception to the rule;

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   There is a time when that rule goes out the window, at least to a degree. The exception is, comedy! I think it's far easier to get your audience to cry than it is to get them to laugh. Now to be clear, the funniest performances are ones that are real and true. Take Woody Allen comedies of the 80's and 90's, very realistic acting. But there are specific times you need to play the part 'tongue-in-cheek'. Tongue-in-cheek means you exaggerate certain characteristics for comic effect. To give an example of when a character should be played tongue-in-cheek let's look at, "Home Alone" (1990). In Home Alone everyone in the film is played very realistically except for the two burglars. It is important that the burglars are so stupid that it's not realistic because our hero is only ten years old. If you played the burglars realistically then we are not laughing, we are terrified for Kevin. "The Three Stooges" (1930's-60s) are another example of tongue-in-cheek. If you play the parts straight it's not slap-shtick, it's just violence. However even though you may choose to play a character tongue-in-cheek, you don't want to go 100% tongue-in-cheek. Even when playing comedy you still want to play it with a foundation of acting without thinking of your performance. You have to find the right balance of both. Also with comedy you have to be aware of your timing in order to get the laugh. And you have to be aware of the audience interrupting your performance with their laughter. Also you have to be in your own head if there is blocking to produce slap-shtick. Remember, in comedy you have to find a balance between "The Method" and "Tongue in Cheek". Too much 'Method' and you lose the comedy and too much 'Tongue in Cheek' and you tear the performance. (Tearing a performance is an old Vaudevillian term witch means to, pour so much into a performance you rune it / To overdo it) 

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   One interesting thing about comedy is that every comic scene generally has two character in the archetype. The two characters are, "Uptight" & "Out of Sight". Uptight is always panicking and feels out of control and Out of Sight is either in control or doesn't care one way or the other. Out of Sight never loses his cool. Here are some popular examples of this template from the 20th century: "Cheech and Chong" - Cheech = Uptight and Chong = Out of Sight, "I love Lucy" - Lucy = Uptight and Ricky Ricardo = Out of Sight. "Dennis the Menace" - Dennis = Out of Sight and Mr. Wilson = Uptight, "The Duke's of Hazard" - Boss Hog = Uptight and Sheriff Roscoe Coltrane = Out of Sight. However in "The Dukes of Hazard" when Sheriff Coltrane talks to Bo and Luke than the sheriff becomes Uptight and the Duke Boys take over the Out of Sight roll. This happens all the time, as well. An individual character can change from Uptight to Out of Sight when in the company of another character. Example; A boss is a bully to his employee but then becomes a wimp always begging for forgiveness when his wife comes around. Understanding Uptight and Out of Sight will help you find the comedy in any scene.

  An interesting archetype used once in a great while is an old Yiddish formula that was employed by, "The Three Stooges". They used an archetype called, "The Chmiel, The Schmechel and The Prosecutor". It works like this, The Chmiel dose something bad. The bad thing blows up in the face of the Schmechel who did nothing wrong. Then the Prosecutor comes along sees the mess and blames then punishes the innocent Schmechel.

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Other exception to "The Rule I Follow" would be; musical comedy, opera, rock opera, Children's shows, the monster in a horror film and heavily stylized works. 

  

  A few final overall notes;

   Always play your character honestly; If you're playing Adolph Hitler you can't just play him as 'evil'. You have to understand why he thought he was doing was the right thing, even if you as the actor find him repulsive and detestable. What in Hitler's life happened that differs from your childhood that caused this behavior. What must that have been like?

   And also;

   Always remember the subtext. If a person breaks down and cries in public in reality, they don't just start balling like a baby dose. In reality, humans are always fighting to maintain dignity right up to the point a situation becomes life threatening. So, as you negotiate through this scene, you may find you are more likely to fight back the tears rather than just let go and scream. So often, fighting back tears gives a better performance than a full throttled cry. And the same goes for rage or anger. It is tempting to play 100% rage the whole scene because it feels like your emoting. You can't play an emotion. You get what your character needs.

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   I hope this helps you understand how I approach a roll. I hope it helps you if you wish to perform anywhere. This kind of preparation and then mindset on stage helped me a lot. I think it's the way to go!

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 Break a leg!

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-D. Hawes