THEATRE IActing

ABOUT THIS POWERPOINT

The following information matches with your Chapter 4 study guide.

While reviewing Chapter 4, answer the following: Page 156, Summary & Key Ideas #1-9 Page 156, Discussing Ideas, # 1-3 Due at end of class

For Homework: Commit to memory “Theatre Etiquette” on pages

158-160; there will be a quiz next class on the etiquette roles of the actor and production crew

ACTING IS A PART OF THE THEATRICAL ILLUSION OF REALITY

Acting should never be so real that it loses the Theatrical Illusion of Reality

Theatre is not life, and acting is not life Theatrical illusion of reality is the balance

Both are illusion that are larger than life If both are too real, the illusion is destroyed and

replace by what is normal Onstage, normal is boring Too real = Overacting, Bad acting, etc.

TWO MAJOR APPROACHES TO ACTING

Actors play their parts to where they actually weep, suffer, or struggle emotionally in front of the audience.

They become the part they play and experience all that their characters experience

Personal inner reactions form the actors’ emotional response

Performance based on acting technique; analyze the plays’ structure and the personalities of the characters; Uses the learned skills of acting movement, speech, and interpretation to create the role

Emotional response is not allowed; Actor does not actually live the part but acts it so well that the illusion of living the part is created

The process of study, analysis, and creative imagining forms the assumed personality

Emotional/Subjective Acting Technical/Objective Acting

KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKI• Russian• The most renowned

acting teacher and director; was an actor as well

• Created “The Method” – most influential acting theory• Focus is on emotional identification

• “The Magic If” • Ask yourself what would you

do if the events in the play were actually happening to you and you were intimately involved in them.

Online Acting Exercise

TYPES OF ROLES IN A PLAY Leading roles = The main

characters in a play 2 Main Types:

1. Protagonist – main character, must solves the problem that arise sin the play or be defeated in the conflict

2. Antagonist – opposes the goals of the protagonist

Other types of leading roles:

1. Juvenile – term for a young male lead; 16-30

2. Ingénue – a young female lead

Leading roles can also be referred to as the principals

Supporting Roles More challenging and

demanding, although not the main roles

Serve as a foil to the main characters:

Foil = A character with whom another character is compared (usually the protagonist

Both leading & supporting roles can be one of 2 types of parts:

1. Straight parts = actors resemble in appear and personality the characters the playwright had in mind

2. Character parts = include some distinguishing trait, idiosyncrasy or personal type; rarely resemble actors portraying them

CHARACTERIZATION OCCURS IN 2 STAGES

First, you attempt to grasp the fundamental personality of a part

Then, you project that personality to the audience in such a way that your character become a living, convincing human being

Characterization is the substance of acting!

CHARACTERISTICS OF ACTING

Pause: A lull, or stop in dialogue or action in order to

sustain emotion while the body is still ; also called a beat

Versatility: The ability to change style or character with ease

IN ORDER TO UNDERSTAND AND INTERPRET A ROLE FAITHFULLY, YOU

MUST STUDY THE PLAY CLOSELY Know what kind of person you are in the play

and why you behave as you do. Understand what your character what your

character wants and stands in the way of getting it

Understand the setting of the play by studying the place and the historical period. You also will need to know the director’s

interpretation of that period

CREATING A CHARACTER SKETCH

o When studying your character ask the following questions – at minimum:

1. What does the author say about your character in the stage directions?

2. What do your characters’ lines reveal?

3. What do other characters say about your character?

4. How do other characters respond to your character?

In this class, we use renowned actress Uta Hagan’s “Who Am I?” from her book Respect for Acting to create the biography or sketch of the your character

Another approach to character analysis is called Role Scoring This process consists of

answering a series of questions, similar to the “Who Am I?”

SCORING A SCRIPT Scoring a script is another useful tool in Character

Analysis. The term comes from a musical score which has similar markings to indicate inflections.

Things marked include:

Tempo Rhythm Pauses Style Interpretation Pronunciation Emphasized words and phrases Movement Stage business There are no strict rules for script scoring….it’s just

important that you do it, and you understand it!

THERE ARE TWO STAGES TO BUILDING UP YOUR PART:

1. When the director gives the cast his or her own view of the play, its characters and their relationships, its them, and its style

2. You study the play and the characters, developing your own concept of the part

2.

To help you to understand your part better you can use types of sources:

1. Primary Sources: Studying a person’s

posture, movements, habits and voice inflections that is the same or similar to the character you are playing.

2. Secondary Sources: Reading books and

researching a character outside of actually knowing the character or a similar person to the character.

THERE ARE 16 KEYS TO CHARACTERIZATION

1. Internalizing Knowing how the character thinks and feels

2. Externalizing Process by which the true personality of a character is made visible to an audience

through careful interpretation, nonverbal expression, voice quality, pitch, rate, and physical action

3. Concentrating Ability to direct all your thoughts, energies, and skills into what you are doing at

any single moment

4. Observing Watching others to pick up their characterizations

5. Emotional Memory The recalling of specific emotions that YOU have experienced or observed

6. Projecting Projecting inner feelings to the audience; “reaching out” to the last

person in the last row of a distant balcony

7. MotivatingThe why of characterization and the what your character

wants to do8. Stretching a Character

The process of making a role unique, individual, and interesting—taking the character beyond the norm

KEYS TO CHARACTERIZATION (CONT.)

9. The Consistent Inconsistency Emphasizing a characters personality trait that makes him or her different from

others

10. Playing the Conditions Playing the condition o of the elements of time, place, weather, objects, and the

state of the individual—affect eh manner in which characters meet their objectives and deal with obstacles

11. Playing the Objectives All the ways and mean that a character use to reach a goal

12. Playing the Obstacles Facing the crisis or obstacle that stand in the way of an objective as the character

would face it.

13. Playing the Object How an actor uses objects onstage to project character – using the literal props

14. Energy The fuel that drives acting

15. Focus Directs the actor’s attention, action, emotion or line delivery to a definitive target

16. Uniqueness The difference that sets an actor apart from anyone else on stage or anyone else’s

interpretation of his or her character; shaping a personality that is special unto itself

PHYSICAL ACTING According to the experts, the majority of our daily communication occurs through physical action.

Another term for this is body language. 

UNDERSTANDING BODY LANGUAGE FOR THE STAGE, TYPES AND USES:

As you work on your physical acting, you will want to develop a Master Gesture -- A distinctive action that serves as a clue to a character’s personality 2 Examples:

1. Peculiar walk or laugh2. Position of your feet while you are standing, walking or sitting

When moving on stage, actors should “lead” with a part of the body that is appropriate for the character’s personality. A Leading Center can be either slight or exaggerated, depending on

the character and the style of the play. Common Onstage Movements:

1. Entering2. Exiting3. Crossing4. Sitting 5. Standing

Onstage movements send Messages to the audience. Moving from one stage position to another is called a Cross For each move onstage, there is usually movement in the opposite

direction by another character called the Counter-Cross

STAGE POSITIONS AND GROUPING

The positions and grouping actors onstage are very important because they convey the sprite of a situation without any lines being spoken.

There are 4 basic stage techniques: Sharing a Scene:

In order for two actors to SHARE A SCENE, meaning they are equal with another actor when sitting or standing parallel to each other, they must CHEAT OUT, by pivoting his/her torso and turns their face towards the audience.

A shared scene should be played three-quarter front or in profile. Profile scenes are weak, and do not allow the audience to see you.

Giving the Scene: An actor crosses downstage and then turns slightly upstage toward the other

actor, shifting the audiences’ attention to the upstage actor

Turning the Scene In: Actors who are not key character shifting the angle of their bodies upstage and

look directly at the scene's key character, focusing the attention of the audience on the center of the action

Taking Yourself out of a Scene Truing away from the audience into a three-quarter back or full back position

drawing attention away from oneself Additionally, Stage Business is an essential part of acting and involves

the use of hand props, costume props, stage props, other actors, and even parts of the set.

VOCAL ACTING

PITCH AND INFLECTION: Vocal Response: The vocalized way you as

an actor resend to your acting partner in any given scene

You must match or counter the actions given to you on stage

May not match up to what you have rehearse d on your own.

Most characters can be classified as either “pitch up, "which are confident characters, or “pitch down,” which are self-conscious characters.

Related to the rising and falling pitch are patters are the four Inflections:

Rising Inflection– indicates questioning, surprise or shock

Falling Inflections– signals the end of statement

Sustained inflection– staying on the same note; suggestions calmness, decisiveness, or steadiness of purpose

Circumflex inflections-- intonation of 2 or more vowel sounds for what ordinarily is a single vowel sound. 

GETTING ONSTAGE

Your chief responsibility as an actor is to memorize your lines!There are 2 approaches to memorization:

1. Whole-part memorization Learning the play as a whole; focus on

individual lines after meaning of the play or scene is understood

2. Part-whole memorization Learning the play line-by-line; focus is on the

cues

Subtext is “meaning between the lines”

ACTING TECHNIQUES

No actor could have experience every emotion demanded by roles he or she assumes. Therefore, once must use various other acting techniques to portray such emotions. These include:

Substitution Recalling a similar life experience in order to

understand the current on-stage character’s experience

Improvisation Impromptu portrayal of a character without

preparation or rehearsal Sometimes scripts often include incomplete

lines or one-side telephone conversations. The actor must imagine the rest of the line. These are called cut-off lines and fade-off lines