The Acting Blog

A Grammar of Acting

This grammar helps us to speak the same language, to develop a vocabulary for discussing the work that we do and the work of others.  A shared vocabulary allows us a solid foundation for understanding how acting works and how to develop our skills.

When you have a language, you can enter into a dialogue.  Dialogues empower us to learn and change. Without this grammar, without a shared language, we will find it difficult to engaged in this learning dialogue.

ACTOR: Someone that takes action.

ACTING: Acting is living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play (Sanford Meisner)

ACTION¹: also known as a TOOL or a TACTIC

ACTION²: Behaviour, the things that you do, made up of WANT, ESSENTIAL ACTION, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY and PHYSICAL ACTION.

ANALOGOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: Parallel Circumstances that help us to understand what we must do and how we must behave in the As-IF.

ANTECEDENT EVENTS: Events that occurred before the play begins.

As-IF: Developing parallel circumstances so that you understand the context for how you will play the scene, offers stakes and tempo-rhythm elements for your ESSENTIAL ACTION.

As-IFFING: An exercise used to habitualise the TACTICS of the ESSENTIAL ACTION into your body.

BIT: An individual section of the play script/text

BIT CHANGE: When one BIT of the scene changes to another because the character’s ESSENTIAL ACTION changes.

BEAT: What it sounds like when a Russian says ‘Bit’ and so, BIT has been replaced generally by BEAT and BEAT CHANGE.

CHARACTER: The sum of a person’s characteristics, the total of what they do.  The sum of their actions².

DIRECTOR: Someone who directs the ACTION² of the play

DRAMATIC ACTION: The conflict of will as the Antagonist(s) strive to achieve their goals and what they do to try to achieve them.

ESSENTIAL ACTION: What your character wants from the other reduced down into a single powerful, actable sentence. Each Essential Action has 9 Criteria.

THE FACTS: An effective way to arrive at a summation of the GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES: The term comes from Stanislavski and refers to all of the unchangeable facts of the scene.  These facts are not open to interpretation; they are external influences that affect the situation of the scene. The writer, director and all the actors should be able to agree on these circumstances, as they are FACTS.

HABITUALISATION: The task of making something into a habit and therefore capable of being done without thought.

IN THE MOMENT: Now, not before, not before after, but RIGHT now.

LITERAL: A basic description of the scene – given without interpretation.  A summation of what’s happening concluded into a single phrase.

MOMENT-TO-MOMENT WORK: Responding truthfully to what occurs in each moment, rather than based on what you did earlier in rehearsal.

OBSTACLE: What hinders your task IS your task.

PHYSICAL ACTION: Another name for a TOOL or TACTIC.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: Physical doing.  Making a pot of tea.  Killing Claudius, Undressing, Crossing the stage to pick up an object, or waving hello, these are all PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES.

PLAYWRIGHT: The ‘maker’/’wrighter’ of the play.  The person that puts the pieces of the DRAMATIC ACTION together.

PRACTICAL AESTHETICS: A practicable theory of art.

RELATIONSHIP: The relationship type, be it PARENT, CHILD, TEACHER, STUDENT, EMPLOYEE, EMPLOYER, FRIEND, STRANGER etc that is between the characters in the scene that helps the actor to understand HOW to behave under the Imaginary GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

REPETITION: An exercise created by Sanford Meisner to teach actors to listen to each other and respond to each other truthfully.  It helps to develop spontaneity of action and reaction in the moment.

REPETITION WITH ACTION: The exercise played from the perspective of the ESSENTIAL ACTION.

SCENE ANALYSIS: A way of tackling any scene by asking several essential questions:

1. 1. WHAT’S THE CHARACTER LITERALLY DOING?

1. 2. WHAT DOES THE CHARACTER WANT THE OTHER CHARACTER TO DO?

1. 3. WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION?

1. 4. AS IF: WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION LIKE TO ME – IT’S AS IF…..

SCRIPT ANALYSIS: The overarching analysis of the play/screenplay to align the actors with the Dramatic Action the writer has constructed.

STAGE BUSINESS: Incidental PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES performed for dramatic purposes.

STAKE: What your character has to lose in the scene, what you have to lose in your AS-IF.  Often generated in class/rehearsal by the question:

WHAT IF YOU DON’T?  – WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES

TACTICS: The things that character/actor does to get what they want.  The things the actor does to the other actor in terms of TRANSITIVE VERBS that aim to produce the result required by the ESSENTIAL ACTION.  It must immediately be capable of being done to another human being.  TACTICS should be played based on what the other ACTOR is doing and not planned in advanced.

TEMPO-RHYTHM: A way for the STAKE to create speed of motion by setting a time signature.

TRANSITIVE VERB: A verb that can be done to someone else in Practical Aesthetics these are known as TOOLS or TACTICS.

TOOL: Another word for a PSYCHOPHYSICAL ACTION or TACTIC.

VOLLEY: To automatically fire the same ‘YOU CALL’ back in REPETITION when it isn’t necessarily true.  The term is taken from tennis when the ball is hit back over the net before allowing it to bounce.

WANT: The desire, the underlying need that powers the character through the scene.  Expressed in SCENE ANALYSIS as: ‘What does the character want the other character to DO’

To You, The Best!

Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2010

Tweet me

Tags: Acting, Acting Coach Scotland, Acting in the Moment, Essential Action, Glasgow Acting Classes, Repetition

The SIX Rs of Acting by Mark Westbrook

These SIX Rs are at the heart of acting, of course, there’s more to it, but these SIX Rs are very helpful.

Resistance
One of the actor’s greatest enemies is their natural resistance to change, to new things, to unknown, to things that threaten their basic instincts.   On the one hand, we all have boundaries to protect us from the ravaging Sabre Toothed Tiger (biologically) and (more recently) sleazy producers, but resistance is generally problematic.  Sometimes resistance prevents us from experiencing something new, often it prevents us from releasing ourselves, making ourselves vulnerable and going to new places as an actor.   I have met many great actors crippled by resistance, resistance can occur in learning new things, experience new things, accepting ideas or changing.

Resilience
Parents constantly ask me ‘what does my child need, what’s the one thing they need to make it in the arts’, and I always say the same thing and it refers to all of us, ‘resilience’.  You are going to have sand kicked in your face, you will have a crisis of confidence, you may go months or years without earning a living from the art you love, only resilience will see you through it.  Otherwise, you’ll give up and become a high school teacher, cos it’s easier and it’ll be closer to other people’s vision of you as a ‘grown up’.  At every point on your journey, it will be easier to give up than to keep going, resilience means to keep going.  As you get older and it becomes less and less socially acceptable for you to be broke all the time, it will get VERY hard.  That’s when resilience will really come into its own.

Repetition
Repetition is a vital tool that is still NOT regularly taught in the UK Drama Schools. How they could begin to teach acting without the core skills that are developed through this exercise is beyond me.  You can really learn to ‘adapt’ in the Stanislavskian sense to your scene partner if you are not used to it and faking it (which is what you do if you can’t do it for real) just doesn’t match up to it.  The ability to take action based on the truth of the moment  and based in what the other actor is doing, is an essential skill.  The fact that it doesn’t come into three years of most British actor’s training is remiss to me.  Simple repetition is unusual, scary, uncomfortable, and hard to relate to acting, but later as it develops, it becomes essential.   Find a good repetition teacher and you have won half the battle.

Risk
Risk is difficult and especially hard (well, okay, impossible) if you are already resistant.  You don’t want to look like a fool, you don’t want to make a mistake, yet without making mistakes, without willing to get it wrong, then you will never really reach any truly spontaneous moments in your acting.  As Joseph Campbell said ‘where you stumble, there you shall find your treasure’. It’s so important to allow yourself to stumble.  Stop thinking about getting it right, put your focus on the right things and let everything else take care of itself, with time and efficient practice (under a good teacher,) you will start to allow risk into your work and risk’s reward is spontaneity.  A truly spontaneous moment comes as a shock to the actor. Take risks, as Sanford Meisner said ‘If you’re afraid, give in to it and be wrong’.

Rehearsal
Traditionally, rehearsal is a time when you repeat something over and over until it sticks.  Rehearsal suffers from the terrible etymological relationship to the word ‘recite/recital’ which means ‘repeating from memory’. From this, we lose the need for our rehearsal process to be about exploration, experimentation and discovery.  Rehearsal is a terrible term for what it is that we do.    It reminds me of the Mamet quote ‘what you practice, you will perform’, so if your rehearsal is the ossifying process of setting in stone everything you are going to do in performance, you are making concrete those things that need to live spontaneously in front of the audience.  How could you possibly convince an audience that this is the first time you’ve said these lines if you’ve said them hundreds of times in the same way?  You may do it sometimes, but you are working against the grain constantly, you are defying the truth in every moment.

Instead, rehearsal should be about learning the actions to take, so that you tactics can remain fluid and based on the actions of your fellow stage/screen partners.  In essence, as Megan, one of my students mentioned in class this week, we are preparing to work by instinct. Again David Mamet offers us a great quote for this occasion, rehearsal is preparation for performance, so to learn to be immediate, to learn to live truthfully,  ‘we prepare to improvise’.

Reviews
There are many reviewers that know a lot about acting and there are many that do not.  You must ask yourself what value you place on the opinion of others.  A reviewer works for a newspaper, a newspaper needs to maintain (in this climate) circulation.  Their desired outcome is different from yours.  But many reviewers offer very fair, very enlightened reviews, and some are just plain rude.  I don’t think I’ve ever received an inaccurate review, when it was bad, they said so, and I agreed.  Mamet offers a great quote on reviews without trying to attack the reviewers and it’s something we can all learn and grow from as actors:

“The great reviews are never good enough and the bad ones are devastating” David Mamet

Decide long in advance of your first reviews how you will deal with them, read them or don’t read them.  Decide what value you place on them.   And then take action.

To You, the Best

-Mark-

Mark Westbrook is an Acting Coach based in Glasgow, Scotland.

Tags: David Mamet on practice, David Mamet on Rehearsal, David Mamet on reviews, Mark Westbrook on Acting, Meisner on being afraid, rehearsal, Repetition, Resilience, Resistance, Reviews, risk

Practical Aesthetics Guide Part 2

Let’s turn our attention to the key elements of a Practical Aesthetics Acting Class:

The Practical Approach

A Practical Aesthetics Acting Class focuses (in contrast to the ethereal and internal ‘Method’ approach) on what the Actor is actually doing or trying to do within the scene and in the moment.

Acting is about action then, and as such it’s the actor’s actions that construct the dynamics of ‘character’ as perceived by the audience. A Practical Aesthetics Acting Class helps the actor find key goals to pursue within each and every scene, with the complete freedom to be natural and truthful every time.

Voice & Body – The Foundation

Since the voice and body are the actor’s instruments, a Practical Aesthetics student will learn simple and effective techniques to optimise these instruments, to encourage a state of readiness and flexibility.

The body and its muscles, including those affecting breathing and clarity of speech will be lightly stretched and relaxed – tension in mind and body can be the enemy of even the best actors.

Likewise, expect a Practical Aesthetics Class to give you some fundamental exercises to warm the larynx, and some verbal gymnastics to loosen the jaw, tongue and lips.

Since it’s said that only seven percent of our communication comes solely from the words we choose, the remaining ninety three percent is greatly influenced by vocal nuances of tone, pitch and rhythm as well as body language.

Repetition Technique/Exercise

Warming up of voice and body is fundamental across all types of actor training. However, it’s in the next phase of learning known as the Repetition Technique or Repetition Exercise, where the Practical Aesthetics acting student begins to specialise.

There is little benefit in explaining the mechanics of this exercise in detail – like a good script it’s designed to be acted upon not talked about. However, the Repetition Exercise has at its core one of the most valuable tools of any great actor’s craft – the development of observation skills.

Great observation skills are truly invaluable to an actor, for they encourage an alert attentiveness, an ability to absorb minute details of communication (particularly in its non verbal form) and crucially, to react truthfully to what they have in front of them.

It also has a style of approach which encourages two actors to engage with each other in a specific form of dialogue which prepares them for the later activity of setting out to achieve a goal or ‘essential action’.

The Repetition Exercise can be fun, demanding and occasionally gently competitive, and the student learns to use the other person to influence how they behave – something that runs throughout the different stages of a Practical Aesthetics Acting Class.

When the most wonderfully electric scenes are carried out by fine actors on the stage and screen, they are fresh, alive and full of energy. That’s usually because the actor’s are reacting off of each other. This avoids the notion of ‘deadly theatre’ where a play is exhaustingly rehearsed in the same manner and tone, and the actors become automatons and leave the audience bored and unengaged.

Acting is re-acting, and the Repetition Exercise is an invaluable process to practice that skill.

In the next blog, we’ll explore Script/Scene Analysis

Tags: Meisner, Practical Aesthetics, Repetition