So much has been said and written about characterization! The word itself has taken on many meanings and interpretations and has even become synonymous with acting. Actually, characterization is the actor’s involvement in creating the life of a character in a play or film. The character obligation is one of the seven main obligations of material.
I think that the entire concept of characterization has been distorted! The popular concept misleads the actor into wearing the cloak of another person, becoming “someone else.” Most actors are taught to separate themselves from the character they are playing. From the beginning they relate on the level of “the character does this, the character is that; he feels . . .” instead of starting with a unity between themselves and that character.
A character in a piece of material is a person, male or female. If a playwright based a character on you and your life, and if the words and actions of the play further described you—your psychological makeup, your personality, and so on—then you would be the character in that play that some actor somewhere would be attempting to create. The character is a person; you are a person! There are similarities and dissimilarities between you, but the basic reality is that if you are going to “play” that character, then you are that character. An actor must never create a gap between himself and the character he is about to play. When he does that, it separates him from his willingness to believe that what is happening to the character is actually happening to him!
For generations, the popular concept and the belief in the theater has been that “the actor becomes the character.” This is taken to mean that the actor assumes or acquires the behavior, idiosyncrasies, thoughts, and impulses of a particular character in a play. But I believe that the reverse is true: the character becomes you! If, for example, the character is a person very much like you physically, intellectually, and emotionally, then you don’t have to do anything in relation to the character obligation except be who you are and express your feelings and impulses through the lines of the play.
Even a brilliant playwright can only write so many words to create and describe a character; for no matter how many words he does use, he will fall short of being able to totally describe a multidimensional human being. You are already a living, breathing, multidimensional person with many facets, colors, complexities, and so on. So if you absorb the character into yourself, then that character in that piece will take on the reality and the unique individuality of who you are. After identifying the specific components of a particular character, you can use your craft to pique those same aspects of personality in yourself, encouraging them to rise to the surface and become the predominant behavioral traits of the character. In addition, all the other complex elements that make you multidimensional and an unpredictable, interesting human being will also become part of that character. In short, when you absorb the character into your person, all that you are in terms of your unique way of relating to the world, your impulses, thoughts, and responses, will be included in everything he does. It is thus that an actor makes a unique and personal statement through every part he plays. Twelve actors could play the same role, and it would be different and unique each time.
In order to fulfill his responsibility to the playwright, an actor must identify the elements of a specific character and be true to the author’s intention. It is important to note here that even though you include your personal impulses in every part you play, you must never violate the playwright’s depiction of the character. However, you must ask yourself the question: is it not possible for this character in this situation to respond as I did in that scene? If the answer is yes, then I believe you are within the perimeters of acceptability.
It is the manifestation of the human condition and of human behavior. It is what a person is, physically, emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically; how he relates, walks, talks, thinks, and expresses himself; the type of person he is; what his specific idiosyncratic behavior might be. In a play, a character is a specific kind of person.
When an actor picks up a script to read it, there are several specific things he should look for to find out who the character is:
1. What the author says about the character, his description of the character
2. What the other characters in the play say to or about the character
3. What the character says about himself
4. The actions and interactions of the character, his activities, involvements and idiosyncratic behavior—what he does!
The information gathered from these sources enables the actor to put together a picture of the character. Not all playwrights describe their characters. Many of them allow the play and the activities and behavior of the character to reveal who he or she is. However, if it is a fairly well-written piece of material, there will be plenty of information that you can use to bulid that character in you.
At the opening of A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, there is a brief description of Blanche as she enters:
“Her appearance is incongruous to this setting. She is daintily dressed in a white suit with a fluffy bodice, necklace and earrings of pearl, white gloves and hat, looking as if she were arriving at a summer tea or cocktail party in the garden district. She is about five years older than Stella. Her delicate beauty must avoid a strong light. There is something about her uncertain manner, as well as her white clothes, that suggests a moth.”
The description is brief, but rich in information. We know that Blanche is delicate and aging, and Williams tells us that she is “uncertain” in her manner. His suggestion of a moth is an incredible clue for the actress. It gives her a feeling for the essence of Blanche.
Naturally, as the action of the play unfolds, the facets of Blanche’s very complex character become obvious. However, the author’s initial description is a good place for the actress to start her exploration of the character. She might begin by getting a sense of a moth through the use of the Externals Choice approach. Of course, there will be times when an actor will start with the author’s description but later discard it or replace it with more impelling alternatives.
At the beginning of Deatli of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, there are brief descriptions of Willy Loman and of his wife Linda, which create an almost palpable fabric of the man and the woman:
“From the right, Willy Loman, the Salesman, enters, carrying two large sample cases. The flute plays on. He hears it but is not aware of it. He is past sixty years of age, dressed quietly. Even as he crosses the stage to the doorway of the house, his exhaustion is apparent. He unlocks the door, comes into the kitchen, and thankfully lets his burden down, feeling the soreness of his palms. A word-sigh escapes his lips—it might be ‘Oh, boy, oh, boy.’”
Miller’s talent with words allows him to paint a picture of Willy as a stooped man who is overworked and overburdened with life. We know his age and his emotional state and get a sense of his life.
Immediately after this description of Willy, Miller talks about his wife, Linda:
“Most often jovial, she has developed an iron repression of her exceptions to Willy’s behavior—she more than loves him, she admires him, as though his mercurial nature, his temper, his massive dreams and little cruelties, served her only as sharp reminders of the turbulent longings within him, longings which she shares but lacks the temperament to utter and follow to their end.”
In addition to telling us what kind of person Linda is, this passage also gives us more information about Willy and about the relationship between the two.
A few pages later, Miller draws a brief character sketch of Biff and Happy:
“Biff is two years older than his brother Happy, well built, but in these days bears a worn air and seems less self-assured. He has succeeded less, and his dreams are stronger and less acceptable than Happy’s. Happy is tall, powerfully made. Sexuality is like a visible color on him, or a scent that many women have discovered. He, like his brother, is lost, but in a different way, for he has never allowed himself to turn his face toward defeat and is thus more confused and hard-skinned, although seemingly more content.”
In Beyond Therapy, Christopher Durang thus describes the character Bruce:
“He claims he is bisexual; and it is absolutely essential that he truly be that, absolutely 50-50. He should be attracted to women and to men; he should not be a homosexual who is kidding himself and trying to pretend to be heterosexual . . . He should truly find Prudence attractive, he should truly want to be married with children in Connecticut, and he should truly find Bob and the gas man attractive and emotionally appealing as well. As Bruce says ‘We have to accept contradictions in ourselves’; that is a wise statement on some level, yet in Bruce’s life his blithe acceptance of his duality is clearly creating chaos. He wants things to work out and with a kind of blind optimism he just somehow believes that if he keeps meaning well and trying to be nice to everyone it will all work out. He is not very logical, but he’s very innocent. If ever he were to be knowing or calculating, the play would change and be nasty.’’
Prudence, in the same play, must:
“Simultaneously be more than commonly intelligent . . . and yet be sufficiently uncertain of herself and vulnerable that she lets herself get into a stupid relationship with a macho-fool psychiatrist, and entertains a rather unlikely liaison with Bruce because he touches certain buttons of hers ...”
Each of the above descriptions contain pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that will come together and finally draw a clear picture for the actor who is trying to create one of these characters. At this point he is collecting knowledge of the component parts of the character. If he goes to the next area of exploration, he can gather more information that will help him to sculpt himself into that character. Once he has accumulated all the information that the material will yield, he will be able, through a craft process, to build the realities of the character by absorbing these different elements into his own personality structure and surrounding them with the impulses, responses, thoughts, and dimensions that he already possesses as a person, thereby breathing life into the inert group of words that are meant to draw the image of a human being in a play. Later on in this chapter, I will show you how to use the craft to create the organic behavior of a character through your own instrument.
The dialogue in any piece of material supplies further information about, and clues to, the character. Pay close attention to what each of the other characters in a piece says about the one in question, how they relate directly to him, and what they do that supplies further clues to the type of person he is.
To illustrate, let us return to the example of Beyond Therapy. In the scene between Bruce and Prudence at the beginning of the play. Bruce tells Prudence that she’s afraid of life, and she doesn’t deny it. She, in turn, accuses Bruce of being insane, strange, and gay. So, in addition to what the author has told us about these two, they themselves go on to fill in the blanks with their dialogue.
The bedroom scene between Biff and Happy near the beginning of Death of a Salesman also gives us clues to the characters:
(Talking to Happy) I bet you forgot how bashful you used to be. Especially with girls. |
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HAPPY: |
Oh, I still am, Biff. |
BIFF: |
Oh, go on. |
HAPPY: |
I just control it, that’s all. I think I got less bashful and you got more so. What happened, Biff? Where’s the old humor, the old confidence? . . . What’s the matter? |
Just a few lines of dialogue between the brothers, and an actor researching the character of Biff already knows enough about the contrast between how Biff used to be and how he is now. As the scene progresses, there is a lot more that we find out about the two brothers.
About midway through the play, Linda talks to Biff and Happy about Willy:
“He drives seven hundred miles, and when he gets there no one knows him any more, no one welcomes him. And what goes through a man’s mind, driving seven hundred miles home without having earned a cent? Why shouldn’t he talk to himself? Why? When he has to go to Charley and borrow fifty dollars a week and pretend to me that it’s his pay? How long can that go on? How long?. . . And you tell me he has no character?”
Here we experience one character talking about another to still others in the play. This reveals additional facets of Willy Loman’s character, as well as letting us know how Linda feels about him. All through most well-written plays, there is a wealth of material that, like a collection of millions of human cells, gives birth to the reality of the character.
It is not enough that an actor read a play or screenplay. He must know what to look for and also how to interpret and use what he discovers. For instance, what the other characters say to or about his character is an indication of what he is like, but from their own personal point of view. Remember that each character in a piece of material has his own prejudices and subjectivities. If, however, there is a through line or a pattern in the way a specific character is observed by the others, then the actor knows that there is some objective truth in what they say.
There are hundreds of examples of characters in plays who introspectively or retrospectively express things about their lives in endless monologues. Almost every piece of dramatic literature has at least one of those self-exposing monologues. It is in their content that the actor can gather further information, which will help him to construct the component parts of the character.
In the bedroom scene between Biff and Happy mentioned above, Biff has a fairly long monologue in response to Happy’s question as to whether he is content out there on the farm. He starts with, “Hap, I’ve had twenty or thirty different kinds of jobs since I left home before the war . . .” and goes on to expose some very important things about himself: his confusion, his insecurities, and his conflict about pursuing “the American dream.” He alludes to the fact that he has been a drifter and a day worker, ambling around the country looking for himself. He also exposes a value system which is entirely different from the one Willy shoved down their throats. In this passage, we learn a great deal about Biff and later on find out why these conflicts exist and where they started.
In the play ’night, Mother, by Marsha Norman, the character of Jessie has a wonderful monologue where she attempts to communicate the reason why she has decided to kill herself. It starts with “I am what became of your child . . .” and goes on to dramatically expose a life filled with disappointment and failure. The one line near the end of the monologue almost sums up her entire feeling about her life. She talks about herself as “Somebody I waited for who never came. And never will.”
Near the end of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night, Tyrone has a long, self-justifying monologue about what his life was like when he was younger. He is talking to his son Edmund and in his own manner rationalizing his miserliness. The monologue is very exposing. He talks about learning the value of a dollar and about his fear of the “poorhouse.” He tells Edmund the importance of owning property and exposes his fear of losing everything. He goes on to contrast his life with all the advantages that Edmund has had. The line, “You said you realized what I’d been up against as a boy. The hell you do!” is the thrust of the monologue.
It is in all the things that a character says, as well as in what the author says, that the actor must seek the blueprint to the character. He must also read between the lines. For example, Tyrone is justifying his penuriousness to Edmund in a very righteous way, but his stinginess is actually a result of his feelings of insecurity and is neither righteous nor attractive. The actor approaching the role would need to find a subjective way to stimulate the kind of insecurity that would lead to the same type of rationale.
This is perhaps the most important way to find out who and what a character is. It deals with what he does: his actions, his mannerisms, and the way he interacts with the other characters. Through this, the actor can really understand the inner impulses of the character, although there are exceptions to that also; for example, Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello says certain things, but his actions are quite antithetical to his words. He poses as a friend, speaks with compassion and support, while his actions prove him to be Othello’s enemy. When an actor identifies such contradictions in a character, he must explore the character’s actions to find out what impels him to behave in such a way. At the bottom of these actions he will discover the impetus that will give him the necessary information about the character.
In addition to actions and interactions, the personal behavior of the character—that is to say his habits, idiosyncrasies, and mannerisms—further affords glimpses into his individual fabric. A twitch, a stammer or some other speech difficulty, a fetish, the habit he may have of stroking his beard—all that a character says and does supplies clues to his structure and the kind of person he is.
Cyrano de Bergerac exposes his character in everything he does. He is a romantic and shows that throughout the play. He is also an expert swordsman and a poet.
Nora, in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, finally stands up for herself and takes action; she leaves Torvald. It was “the door slam heard around the world,” a statement made for all women, die first example of a woman standing up for herself.
Electra hangs around her mother while all the time plotting her death and waiting for her brother to do the deed.
Tom in The Glass Menagerie writes poetry on almost anything, including the lids of shoe boxes at the warehouse where he works.
Rex in Lunchtime spends his entire time attempting to seduce Mavis. All of his actions are centered around coming on to her.
In Death of a Salesman Biff avoids die women in the restaurant and won’t relate to them.
The character Al in In the Boom Boom Room beats up Chrissy. He is violent and abuses her.
Blanche in “Streetcar” puts a shade over the light in her room and throughout the entire play avoids strong and direct light.
Billy Budd is hung in the play by the same name because he cannot defend himself on account of a stammer and an inability to communicate.
The character of Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial has a habit of fondling ball bearings—which later proves to be the manifestation of a psychological problem.
You have all seen characters in films who keep repeating the same activities or actions throughout: physical types who are always lifting weights or squeezing handballs to strengthen their arms; self-involved, egocentric characters who are always primping and looking in the mirror; psycho types who play with a switchblade knife from scene to scene, and so on.
Each of the four areas of investigation yields fragments and colors that help an actor “piece together” the character. These clues constitute the armature on which he can build the character. Furnished with enough pieces, he can then go to himself and begin working with his craft.
Once an actor has accumulated all the information about a character, he then makes it even clearer for himself by breaking it down into four separate areas. He does this, not only to get a better understanding of the character, but also to clarify his own work in terms of the craft approach he will use.
The four areas are the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the psychological. In order to clearly discern what the specific characteristics in each area are, the actor may want to chart the information he has gathered. However, in this case, a chart is drawn purely for convenience and clarity and is not a necessity.
Let us start with the physical characteristics, using as an example die character of Happy in Death of a Salesman. He is described as “tall, powerfully made. Sexuality is like a visible color on him, or a scent that many women have discovered.” Thanks to this description, an actor can begin the process of creating those physical characteristics in relation to himself. The physical responsibility includes all of the character’s movements, his demeanor, his actions, and his use of his body. Laura, in Glass Menagerie, walks with a noticeable limp. She wears a brace on her leg and is self-conscious about her handicap. In A Streetcar Named Desire, Stanley is described as being “of medium height, about five feet eight or nine, and strongly, compactly built. Animal joy in his being is implicit in all his movements and attitudes.” Maggie, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, is “A pretty young woman with anxious lines in her face. . . . (Her) voice is both rapid and drawling. In her long speeches she has the vocal tricks of a priest delivering a liturgical chant, the lines are almost sung, always continuing a little beyond her breath so she has to gasp for another,” Martha, in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, is “a large, boisterous woman, fifty-two, looking somewhat younger. Ample, but not fleshy.” In William Inge’s Loss of Roses, Helen Baird is described as a “tired-looking woman who long ago gave up her youth and no longer strives to make herself sexually attractive” while Lila “is an extraordinarily beautiful woman of thirty-two, blond and voluptuous, still with the form and vitality of a girl.” All of the authors’ descriptions quoted in an earlier section of this chapter give us indications about the physical attributes of the characters.
The emotional area encompasses the way the character relates in an overall sense--his or her emotional fabric. For example, a character may be described as sullen and introverted, another referred to as volatile and hostile by nature. “She is almost always jovial”; “she is gregarious and outgoing”; “she speaks haltingly and seems unsure about everything “—these are all indications of the emotional nature of an individual. Whatever the psychological impetus for any manifestation of a person’s emotional fabric might be, it is indeed that fabric that is revealed whenever he expresses himself.
The intellectual area refers to how intelligent or unintelligent the character is and how he uses or doesn’t use that intelligence. It also relates to his education, his intellectual station in life, his use of language, and his ability to communicate from the specific level of his intelligence. The killers in the play Rope and in the novel and film Compulsion were extremely intelligent, but psychotic. The gifted Cyrano de Bergerac expressed his intellect in the poetry he wrote and the words he spoke. The intellectual powers of the famous Sherlock Holmes are legendary and have become the symbol for deductive reasoning. Elementary, my dear reader!
A character’s intellect is manifested in the way he relates to every other individual in the piece. An actor must investigate the character’s intelligence if he wishes to fulfill all the elements of that character.
Another important component to consider is the psychological nature of a person in a piece of material—his essential psychological makeup. Would he or she be considered well-adjusted or disturbed? Does he display more than the normal amount of insecurities? Is she subject to paranoia? suspicious by nature? unstable? There have been a multitude of plays or films in which the main character was impelled to action by the overwhelming nature of his psychological state. Adolf Hitler is a prime example of a complex human being who has been dramatized countless numbers of times. An actor approaching this character would certainly have to deal with the man’s paranoia, his deep-seated hatreds, and his megalomania! What are the component parts of this kind of psychological state? The man was, after all, quite intelligent!
The character of Danny in the play Night Must Fall, by Emlyn Williams, is an incredibly disturbed person, who goes around killing middle-aged women and saving their heads, which he carries around in a hatbox. During the course of the play it becomes obvious that he has felt abused by people, most particularly by older women who he feels have denigrated and humiliated him. Possibly, it started with his own mother. Here is yet another dramatic example of a leading character who is motivated to action by his psychological state.
A prime example of a character steeped in psychological problems and complexities is Hamlet. Here we have an individual with a very complex belief structure. Ernest Jones wrote a book exploring Hamlet’s obvious Oedipus complex. His compelling need for revenge, his religious beliefs, which keep him from killing Claudius at prayer, and his paranoia in relation to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern create quite an interesting psychological structure for the actor to deal with.
Let us use a hypothetical character:
PHYSICAL |
EMOTIONAL |
INTELLECTUAL |
PSYCHOLOGICAL |
Young, tall, and attractive. Nice relationship to, and acceptance of, his body |
His ambition tends to make him hyper. He expresses himself at very high emotional R.P.M.’s |
Better than average, but pushes his expression in this area beyond his endowments. |
Feels like he is not enough; lives in the shadow of a very successful father whom he could never please. |
The characterization chart is a very good way to start. It identifies the actor’s responsibility to the character obligation and allows him to build that character in relation to his own instrument. To make things a little easier, the actor can include characterization into the obligation-choice-and-choice-approach chart. The emotional character obligation constitutes the foundation of that character’s emotional fabric, but as the emotional obligations vary from scene to scene, all of the choices that the actor uses to fulfill those individual scene obligations will have to affect the character’s emotional structure listed at the top of the chart.
For the sake of real clarity and understanding of the concepts of characterization, I am going to identify the component parts of two characters in well-known plays, using all four areas to do so.
Let us start with the character of George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee:
Another example might be Snakeskin in Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams:
He is very attractive in an animal way. He is extremely sensual, and having traded on his sexuality all his life, he has developed physical qualities and movements that are very provocative. Even his jacket and his nickname are made of a sensual “skin.” |
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Emotionally: |
He is conservative in his expression. There is an economy of emotional expression about him, almost as if being emotional were more than he wanted to give anyone; but this may also be a protective mechanism. He seems to have compensated for his lack of emotionality by being verbally graphic when he talks to Lady and Carol. |
Psychologically: |
He too is very complex. Since he has spent his whole life “at a party,” using his body to get what he needed, his self-esteem is or has been pretty low. He’s a loner, who presently supports himself by singing and playing a guitar or by doing odd jobs when that is not available. He doesn’t seem to trust people, so it would appear that he has been hurt in the past. From some of the things he say: to Lady, and his sympathy for her pain, it is fairly obvious that he has been hurt and has learned to protect himself. He fears responsibilities but doesn’t want to waste the rest of his life as he has the first part of it. On some very deep level, in the nucleus of his being, I think Snakeskin is a frightened child. |
Understanding all of the facets of a character in a piece of material allows the actor to create the skeleton on which to hang the rest of the obligations. Once he understands his responsibility to any character, an actor can begin his process of work by isolating each area and finding the similarities between himself and that other person, then identifying the differences.
All right, now that you have some understanding of what character is and what its components are, how do you make these things real, using yourself to do so? What kind of process do you employ to stimulate physical expression or an emotional life that comes from an organic place and fulfills the character? How do you increase or decrease the level of your own intellect and pique psychological behavior which is essentially alien to your life?
Fulfilling character elements is approached in the same way as any of the other six main obligations of material, through the use of choices and choice approaches. First, you identify the similarities between you and the character in one of the four areas. For example, let us say that the character is well built and has a very strong frame and a good sense of his body. You are strong and well built, and while you are not as aware of yourself physically as the character is described to be, you could, with very little effort, mirror him physically. In this example the similarity is so great that all you might do would be to “selectively emphasize” being aware of your physical prowess.
Emotionally, the character turns out to be very good-natured, a true innocent easily brought to laughter. Let us say that in this area you are quite different from him. Your makeup is not to be good-natured—in fact, you are prone to moodiness; you are certainly not an innocent, and while you laugh occasionally, something has to be really funny to elicit laughter from you. Not only are you dissimilar but antithetical to each other! In this case, you might look for where the innocent child lives in your being, starting with the exploration of a time in your life when you can remember being good-natured and innocent. Let us, for the sake of this example, assume that as a young boy you felt good about your life, trusted people, and had a kind of innocent naiveté. You could do an Affective-Memory exercise related to a specific time, place, and possibly even event, to discover the stimuli that made you feel that way. Once you identify these components, you might use them to discover people, objects, places, and behaviors that put you in touch with those qualities in you even today. If, for example, you are mellow, good-natured, and fun loving around certain of your friends and loved ones, you can sensorially endow the other actors in the play with die qualities of these people and, in addition to that, create humor in their behavior. You might also do a series of vulnerability exercises to lower your protective behavior, thereby making yourself more available to your own open good-naturedness.
As you proceed to deal with the intellectual responsibility, you discover that the character is natively as intelligent as you are but that he seems to think and express himself with less acuity. In other words, he appears to have a lower level of intelligence than you. In this specific instance, dealing with the emotional elements of the character might have an additional impact on the way you relate. If you feel more secure, good-natured, and innocent, you might also move, think, and talk more like the character. If this doesn’t work, you could inhibit your mental acuity with various kinds of running inner monologues which would serve to create distractions and slow down the rapidity with which you “mind-mouth” connect and relate.
In the psychological area, you might elect to emphasize all the good things in your life, surrounding yourself with objects and with an environment that would stimulate a heightened sense of security and well-being to match the character obligation and counteract your own insecurity and distrust.
Overall, though I have given examples in all four areas, it is quite possible that by dealing with one choice, such as the affective-memory experience, you might indeed fulfill almost all of the character responsibilities.
The character obligation is one of the seven main obligations of material. When an actor auditions for a part in a play or a film, he is usually like the character physically. He is similar in type. In a reading, the people casting the role will also look for similarities in emotional structure and even possibly in intellect. Since it is’very difficult to ascertain a person’s psychology in a brief audition, it will come down to their getting a sense of the actor in this area. In other words, unless an actor is experimenting in a class or workshop or some other laboratory, he will most often be cast in parts where the character has attributes and endowments similar to his own.
For centuries actors have worn the cloak of certain characters and assumed characteristics that were imposed rather than created. It has been considered acceptable in the theater and in films, and even expected as part of the actor’s talent, to be able to “do” many types of people. Only in the last sixty years or so has there been any real concern with reality! Stanislavsky came along and said that if a character in a play felt something—joy, grief, and so on—then the actor must find a way to experience the same emotion. Furthermore, if a character displayed certain physical or psychological attributes, the actor had a responsibility to create those as well. For all those actors who adopted “The System,” or “The Method,” it became a question of how to do that! Stanislavsky, and later Strasberg, supplied some organic approaches to acting and characterization, but there were serious gaps in their process. Not to be misunderstood, I must say that I think both these men made enormous contributions to the acting process and to the theater. Their genius provides the foundation for all the work that I do and have created. I mention all of this to underscore a very important truth, which is that if the actor does not have a specific process, a how to fulfill all the elements that a playwright has created in a character, he will necessarily fall short of being totally organic in the end.
So how exactly does one fulfill character? If you understand the three major parts of this craft, obligation, choice, and choice approach, you will be able to deal with all the elements of characterization. The first step, after reading the material and acquiring all the information you need, is to divide the elements into the four categories outlined above: the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the psychological. Once you have done that, start the characterization process by figuring out what the similarities and the differences are between you and the character. Beginning with what is distinctly similar, use your craft to bring to the surface those elements that are not immediately conscious or manifest in your behavior. Often, it is just a matter of consciously emphasizing qualities that will bring a certain facet of your character into play. Whatever you want to elevate or stimulate, do so through a specific choice and one of the available twenty-five choice approaches. Whether the element you are after is there, near the surface, or lies deeply buried in your being, the proper craft process will help stimulate or unearth it.
Let us describe a hypothetical character:
1. Physically: |
He has just started lifting weights. He is therefore extremely aware of his body and wants everyone else to notice it too. He carries a tape measure and is constantly checking for muscle development. |
Let us imagine that the actor is fairly well built, that he has spent some time in the gym working out, but that he is not that concerned with his body or his muscles. He can, however, recall that “pumped-up” feeling, how good he felt and how physically aware he was after working with weights. It did indeed make him want to be looked at! So our imaginary actor decides to work to recreate that specific physical reality, and he does so through his craft process:
THE CHARACTER OBLIGATION: |
Physical, as described above |
THE CHOICE: |
His own body, the sensation of blood in his muscles—particularly in the pectorals, biceps, and deltoids (that “pumped-up” state) |
THE CHOICE APPROACH: |
Sense Memory to re-create the specific sensations in the various parts of his upper body (the actor does this by asking the specific sensory questions and responding very specifically in the area of his body that the question is directed to) |
The character is brash and talks so loud that he can be heard ten feet away. He brags about himself and his accomplishments constantly. What saves him from being a complete boor is that he is charming and good-natured. It is evident that he wants to be liked by everyone. |
In this particular case, the actor can see that the character’s psychological problems are almost exclusively responsible for the nature of his emotional life and the way he relates to the world. Therefore, he decides to deal with the psychological area first.
3. Psychologically: |
The character is very insecure. He grew up in a family that never acknowledged anything he did. He was constantly criticized, as far back as he can remember. He feels worthless on a deep level. He needs and wants love but fads to get it. More than anything, he needs approval. |
The actor, who is himself fairly secure, does not identify with the character, since he is better adjusted by far. He therefore acknowledges the need to affect his level of confidence, heighten his need for acceptance and approval, and see where that wdl take him. He decides to try a couple of choices.
THE CHOICES: |
A litany of specific insecurities, emphasizing the areas dealing with rejection, failure, and loneliness. In addition to this choice, the actor decides to look for a lack of interest, acceptance, and caring in the people around him (the other actors in the play). |
THE CHOICE APPROACHES: |
1. Inner Monologue, consisting of a litany of insecurities (done by talking to oneself through an Inner Monologue) |
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2. Available Stimulus, using the real people around him, emphasizing anything that manifests itself—such as rejection, disapproval, and so on—and adding Believability as a second choice approach. |
Example:
“I feel like I’m never going to get what I need!. . . I’ve been working to be recognized for years, and still nobody knows me. These people have their little cliques, and I’m not included! I’m getting older, and I have absolutely no security about my future. I feel like a failure. I spend most of my time alone ... I don’t have a steady girlfriend, and I have never done well with women. I feel unnoticed, and I wish I could do something that would attract people to me! My family thinks I’m a fool. They wanted me to go to Harvard and study law. I guess they have given up on me.”
He can go on with this for as long as it takes to really stimulate the level of insecurity and need that is desired. When he gets to a place where he feels that he is experiencing some of the same impulses as the character, he may sneak into his second choice approach.
For his second choice approach, the actor starts by using the available stimulus, the people in the play. He selectively emphasizes (exaggerates) anything that they do or say which can be construed as a lack of acknowledgement or a rejection of him. When he has exhausted the realities, he might want to add Believability to his approach.
As explained before, Believability is the process of using some of the truth of what is happening and a lot of untruth or fantasy. After getting to whatever place the litany of insecurities has led him to, the actor would start the Believability process.
Example:
“They are all avoiding me. When I caught Joan’s eyes, she quickly looked away. Every time I come into the theater, they stop talking, just as if they had been talking about me! They never invite me to lunch or dinner with them. None of them have ever said that my work was good. In fact, I feel their critical eyes on me all the time.”
Very little of what the believability was made up of is true, but there is enough truth to hang the untruth on, and if the actor continues on this track, he will most likely stimulate the desired results.
Let us imagine that this actor is successful in dealing with the psychological elements of the obligation and that he stimulates most of the desired emotional life but fails to impel himself to be “charming and good-natured.” Instead, he feels left out and insecure, and while he wants to gain acceptance, his impulse is to isolate himself rather than seek acceptance by being bombastic. He knows that the choices are right for the underpinnings of the character’s behavior, but he needs an adjustment to impel himself to go after the other actors’ acceptance. So he decides to work for a choice in the emotional area.
To be brash, to brag about himself, and at the same time to be charming |
In order to fulfill the obligations, the actor decides to emphasize his sexual attraction for the women in the play and to find things about the men that he admires and that make him want to be accepted by them.
THE CHOICE: |
The people in the play (Available Stimulus) |
THE CHOICE APPROACH: |
Available Stimulus, selectively emphasizing the other actors’ attractiveness by isolating features and personality traits that will stimulate admiration and attraction |
When he combines all the choices and approaches fisted in both the psychological and emotional areas, the actor finds that the combination intensifies his insecurities. At the same time, creating a need for what these people possess impels him to go after their acceptance and to solicit it by exaggerating his own attributes—which of course compensates for his feelings of inadequacy.
As a result of the other choices and approaches, the intellectual area essentially takes care of itself. Since the character is not as conscious as the actor, he seems less aware and intelligent. Preoccupied with his own insecurities and needs, the actor also becomes less aware, more self-involved, and thereby seems less conscious and intelligent.
In every case, whether or not the actor needs to deal with all four areas of the character obligation, once he identifies the specifics of his responsibilities, the process is essentially the same. He must ask himself what the responsibility is, what he must stimulate or pique in himself, and how to do it—or in other words what choice and choice approach will provide him with the impetus to behave in a particular way.
Let us now return to Snakeskin and, using the character elements defined above, supply the possible choices and approaches that an actor might use to fulfill the obligations in all four areas.
For the physical, the actor might start by doing sensuality exercises to elevate his own relationship to sexuality. He might even explore using an animal to create the physical sense of a snake skin. He might work to stimulate a heightened awareness of the differences between himself and the opposite sex, adding elements that would create greater sexual attraction.
For the emotional choices, since Snakeskin is not gregarious or emotionally expressive, the actor might use the things in the people around him that make him feel shy or mistrustful, anything that would represent a threat or a judgment on their part. He may also elect to work for other specific people in his life who intimidate him and elicit a certain emotional conservatism in him.
THE CHOICE APPROACHES: |
1. Available Stimulus, using Selective Emphasis in areas that would stimulate shyness and distrust |
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2. Endowments (the actor can sensorially work to create different people in his life in relation to the actors in the play) |
To do Endowments, you ask sensory questions about the similarities and contrasts between the person you are working with and the one you are trying to create.
Example:
“What are the similarities in the shape of the face? (Respond with the visual sense.) What is the shape of the forehead? What is the difference in the shape of the forehead? (Always respond with the sense involved.) Where are the lines in the forehead? How are they different? How deep do they sink into the skin? What are the similarities in the shape of the eyes? How are they different? How much farther apart are her eyes than those of the person I am working with?”
The comparing and contrasting process may go on for a while, and then, when the actor is well into creating the imaginary person, he can begin to ask questions that will mold and sculpt that person’s features on the actor he is working with.
Intellectually. |
Snakeskin seems to know things. He also knows how to think. His intelligence is made manifest in his reasoning abilities and in his imaginative storytelling. |
There isn’t much difference intellectually between the actor and the character. Snakeskin has a normal intelligence, which is neither unusually high nor abnormally low. Since his emotional state is what it is, his intellect does not noticeably reveal itself.
He is a loner and seems to have trouble trusting people. There is some evidence of pain in his life. Here again, the psychological foundation of the character seems to be the impelling force behind his manifested behavior in the play. |
Let us say in this instance that the actor is fairly well adjusted, married, and that he is doing what he wants to do with his life. He is not a loner and has no trouble trusting people as a rule. However, he has been somewhat hurt in his early life. When he was a preteen-ager, his parents were divorced and he was shuttled back and forth to a variety of foster homes. During this period, he suffered a great deal of trauma, feelings of being displaced, and a sense of rejection that remains with him on some level even today. He remembers that during that period of time he retreated into himself and displayed many of the same behavior patterns as the character.
THE CHOICE: |
A combination of several foster homes |
THE CHOICE APPROACH: |
Affective Memory, creating, one at a time, memorable fragmented experiences in each of these places |
In addition to the potential impact of this choice, there is a distinct possibility that it could be an ultimate-consciousness kind of choice. If that proves to be true, it could fulfill many of the character obligations and at the same time create life from an unconscious source, making the experience a hundred times richer. The choices in each area would have to be approached one at a time and the chronology experimented with.
The following excerpts were recorded in my class while we were working on character obligations. A variety of responsibilities and approaches have been included to give the reader an opportunity to share other actors’ experiences with the process.
MARK: |
(Describing a character from the play In the Boom Boom Room, by David Rabe) His name is Eric, He’s thirty years old, intelligent, well-read. He is sexually and emotionally starved, very self-involved, not very considerate of other people ... and he’s very insecure. He’s in therapy . . . conscious of the need for help. |
ERIC: |
So how would you approach it? |
MARK: |
I would start with my own sexual and emotional starvation. |
ERIC: |
Let me ask you a question: How do you know that you are sexually and emotionally starved? |
MARK: |
Well, from time to time I feel the impact of it! |
ERIC: |
O.K. What are the ingredients of that? What makes you conscious, on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis, of being starved? |
MARK: |
I might run into someone that I am sexually attracted to and be reminded of my needs . . . |
ERIC: |
What would you work for? . . . How would you approach it? Do you have anybody in your life? |
MARK: |
No . . . |
ERIC: |
Do you wake up with anybody? |
MARK: |
No . . . |
ERIC: |
What does your bedroom look like? |
MARK: |
It’s nice . . . |
ERIC: |
Is there anybody else there besides you? |
MARK: |
No ... a cat... |
ERIC: |
When you get into bed at night, you’re alone? |
MARK: |
Yeah . .. |
ERIC: |
How do you feel about that? |
MARK: |
I don’t like it. I hate it! |
ERIC: |
Are you aware of your romantic deprivation when you’re alone? |
MARK: |
Yes . . . |
Do you eat alone sometimes? |
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MARK: |
Yes, all the time! |
ERIC: |
Yes ... so the absence of the fulfillment is a place to start, isn’t it? . . . How does the character’s feeling of sexual and emotional starvation manifest itself in the play? . . . What are the ingredients that make him sexually and emotionally starved as written in the play? |
MARK: |
He’s very insecure with women . . . He finds one girl, and, totally, all his energies go right to her. |
ERIC: |
How do you feel about yourself as a lover? |
MARK: |
I’m good when I get it . . . Well, I have mixed feelings about that. |
ERIC: |
Do you have any insecurities about performance? |
MARK: |
Yes . . . |
ERIC: |
What are they? . . . You don’t have to tell us! Do you know what I’m saying? Suppose you got into that . . . into your insecurities about having someone, being able to fulfill somebody ... performance . . . being impotent ... all of that stuff, that would stimulate fear and insecurity which could be added to the fear of taking the risks to bring somebody into your life. Your insecurities on a one to one and your feelings of sexual deprivation would be intensely related to your fears of not being able to perform. A person who is impotent ... or fears impotence . . . spends a lot of time thinking about sex. So, you see, that would be one approach . . . getting into your own fears and needs. The choice approach . . . could be a variety of choice approaches . . . You could work to create your sense of aloneness ... at very important times of the day... in the morning, at night when you go to bed . . . and the absence of people. You could use all kinds of approaches to elevate your fears of not being a good lover, of being impotent, etc... . You could create people telling you things that have happened. So you could approach this from the psychological area. |
The actor first identifies the character elements in all four areas, then the similarities, and then the dissimilarities between himself and the character. He then finds the impetus, the nucleus of what he wants to work for.
In the preceding excerpt, accepting the actor’s impulse to start with the sexual and emotional starvation of the character as interpreted by him, I attempted to lead him into this area using his own realities. It seemed to me from Mark’s description of the character that the impelling force in the character’s life was his deprivation and the insecurity which caused it, making that a great place to start the exploration. Using his own parallel realities, the actor will be able to come from a place filled with the same frustrations and preoccupations. The approaches to the reality are many, and the selection is up to the actor himself.
I suggested to Mark that he work for his environment when he is alone, sensorially creating the absence of anyone. I further suggested that he get into his own fears and insecurities about adequacy and performance. He could accomplish this in a variety of ways, using:
1. Inner Monologues, taking a kind of inventory of his prior failures
2. Imaginary Monologues with specific people whom he is sexually intimidated by or has had experiences with
3. An Inner or Outer Monologue, listing his passions and needs for romantic and emotional fulfillment.
There were of course other character elements that were discussed, and if the area that Mark chose to explore did not cover those obligations, he would have to deal with them afterwards.
Excerpt II
Yeah . . . once she “gets down to where the bodies are buried,” how does she make sure that her redirectional behavior is what the character is about? |
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ERIC: |
She doesn’t! . . . She doesn’t make sure . . . You see, you want guarantees. . . you’ve got to go someplace else ... In art there are no guarantees . . . Artists do not sit down in front of a canvas and say, “Today, this is going to be a masterpiece!” You explore!. . . She takes this into a laboratory, has rehearsals with the actor, and sees what unfolds . . . what evolves out of the choices . . . then she makes her adjustments ... If her choices start to take her away from the material, she’s going to have to go back to the drawing board to see what will take her to the fulfillment of the material. But you do not logically conceptualize the results you’re after! You pick a choice and explore the choice and see what it will stimulate . . . You see, the whole thing is that you don’t want to know where it’s going to take you! That precludes any discoveries you’re going to make ... If she really gets into her insecurities, and she comes to this laboratory, and she starts working with Mark on the scene and he’s really important to her, and that’s a reality . . . then it’s not, I’m doing a scene! . . . Something is at stake for Susan for real. Whether it peaks an ultimate-consciousness response or not, something is at stake for her because she has been rubbing her nose in her own life and in her own needs, and if she becomes verbally compensational or cerebral or intellectual, that might be the compensation that she creates to defend herself or impress him ... I don’t know... I don’t know what comes first. . . but I do know that if there’s a strong enough impetus, something will happen . . . if she doesn’t tailor her behavior to fulfill her concepts. |
Breaking down the character into the component parts already discussed allows the actor to approach it in smaller increments and makes it easier for him to create the different facets in relation to his own instrument. Often, one important choice will fulfill many of the character elements in all areas, In the example of Susan doing Prudence, dealing with her deep impelling insecurities and fears might help her establish the psychological foundation of the character, while simultaneously creating the intellectual manifestations of compensational life and stimulating Prudence’s emotional life in the scene. If that happens, the actress, in a “grand slam,” fulfills all the character elements with a single choice and a single choice approach.
Any one of the twenty-five choice approaches can be used to address and fulfill character element obligations. When dealing with a specific character responsibility, the proper choice and approach can make all the difference. There are, however, a few choice approaches that seem to lend themselves to the responsibility of characterization better than the others insofar as they yield more dimensional results. They are (1) Externals, (2) Affective Memory, and (3) Sub-Personalities.
There is a very good reason why these particular choice approaches work better: each one affects more facets of the actor’s instrument. That is not to say that you would not achieve equally good results with any of the other choice approaches; it is just that when an actor uses Externals and works to get the sense of an animal, for example, it seems to affect him physically, emotionally, intellectually, and psychologically at the same time. The same is true for Sub-Persorudities, and, most often, for Affective Memory.
This approach is number ten on the list of choice approaches. It comprises four separate categories: animals, people, inanimate objects, and insects. By using several approach techniques, the actor is able to create the sense of an animal, of a person, and so on, through his own instrument. This process, if done successfully, has a definite impact on his physical instrument. It piques emotions that are often not reachable through other techniques, and it even affects the intellectual and psychological parts of his being. For a complete and thorough explanation of this choice approach, refer to Irreverent Acting.
Besides what I have seen actors do with the Externals Choice approach, I myself have had enormous success with it, not exclusively in the laboratory, but on the professional stage and in feature films as well. Several times, the sense of a particular animal promoted the entire substructure of a character I was playing, and on each occasion using the approach fulfilled the entire character obligation.
If you thought for a moment, you would probably find a dozen roles in the theater and in films which could be approached by getting the sense of an animal. To use just two of the examples mentioned in this chapter: Blanche DuBois is described as having the essence of a moth. Suppose the actress used a moth to see where that might lead. Happy, in Death of a Salesman, could be approached by experimenting with a variety of animals, possibly a peacock or an eagle or maybe a mandrill. Almost any character could be explored through the use of Externals. Remember that there are three other categories besides animals: people, insects, and inanimate objects.
You work to create the sense of another person in much the same way as you do for an animal. The major difference is that, since you’re already starting with a human being, you don’t have to translate the behavior into human terms as you do with an animal. Another large difference is that animals excite the primitive in us; they shake the primal impulses loose and allow us to fulfill roles that we may not even be close to physically. Stanley in “Streetcar” is apelike. Blanche refers to him that way in the play. An actor playing him might have all the necessary talent but lack that animal quality. Working to get a sense of a gorilla might just do the trick for him. There have recently been films that required the actors to create the sense of an animal: Quest for Fire, Clan of the Cave Bear, Iceman, to name just a few.
The Externals’ Choice approach can be used to address any of the elements of characterization, even if the character is not animal-like. If, for example, one of the obligations is to be retarded, the actor could use certain animals that would significantly affect his behavior, his acuity, his intellect, and even his speech. Any emotional area can be approached by using an animal as the stimulus: shyness could be created by using any of a number of animals that might produce that organic state: a mouse, a rabbit, a squirrel, a wide variety of birds, and so on; a frenetic individual could be fulfilled through the use of a spider monkey; an ominous, stoic character with a dangerous essence could be approached by getting the sense of a coiling cobra or of a crocodile. The Externals area is very rich and has a tendency to hit all the character bases at one time. Of course it can be used to deal with the other six main obligations of material as well.
Here is another important tool for fulfilling character. A successful Affective-Memory workout can all at once send the actor back to another time in his life, where his sense of life, his physical makeup, and his psychological state were totally different from what they are now. At the same time it could sink a shaft into the unconscious, hopefully allowing for an ultimate-consciousness state.
In the space of a lifetime, we go through many changes. Certainly, we change physically; but we also undergo intellectual and psychological changes, as well as a multitude of personality evolutions. I have half-jokingly said that I felt as though I had lived several lifetimes in this one. I actually feel as if I have been several different people in this one life. When I was growing up at home with my mother and father and all my sisters and brothers, I was a particular kind of person. I had thoughts, impulses, feelings, dreams, and fears, which changed when I went out on my own. My second life was spent in the army. I was different then from the person I was at home with my parents. When I got married, that was again another life. When my children came into my life, again it changed, and so on until the present. Well, all of those “lives,” complete with all of the feelings and personality elements involved, are available to me through the use of Affective Memory. If, for example, I were to play a character with a certain level of fear and insecurity, one who was not sure of himself and was tentative in his actions, I could go back to a time in my own life when I was like that. Since I am not like that now, I would have to dip into my unconscious where those feelings still live. Besides my emotional fabric, some of my belief structures have changed with the years, and while I may have entertained certain feelings and prejudices at one time in my life, that too underwent modification. An idealistic viewpoint may have been jaundiced by the way the world evolved, and if I wanted to get back to the kind of naive idealism I had as a youth, Affective Memory might be the very thing that would open that up to me. Again, the Affective-Memory approach is totally explored in Irreverent Acting. You may also refer to chapter 2 of this book for an example of the process.
This approach seems much more complicated than it really is. The whole concept of sub-personalities is based on the theory that our personality has many parts and facets—which I believe to be the truth. The original idea of sub-personalities came from Carl G. Jung’s theory of the archetypes. He gave those archetypes names to distinguish them from one another and to describe their function. Psychologically, the theory—and feeling—are that these sub-personalities can take us over and begin to run our lives. If we are controlled by a certain sub-part of ourselves, we manifest a specific kind of behavior, which dominates our lives, and we relate to other people through that sub-personality. The goal, psychologically speaking, is to function from a totally conscious state and to keep all of our sub-personalities in balance so that they may surface when we need them but never seize control of our fives. Essentially, this is a thumb-nail description of the theory. As actors, we needn’t concern ourselves with the psychological aspects of this technique; all we need to do is understand how to use it creatively; and as a creative tool, it is simply wonderful! It can, when used successfully, supply dimensions of life and character that are colorful, rich, and unpredictable.
Each sub-personality seems to have a fife of its own. Each is dimensional and has many facets. If the actor picks the right one to approach a particular character, he may all at once fulfill all parts of the character obligation. Each sub-personality has its own energy, and when the actor successfully facilitates its emergence, he becomes that sub-personality. For example, if the character is a very disturbed person, prone to outbursts of violence, the actor might call upon the “killer” sub-personality, who is violent and aggressive by nature, defensive and threatening. Each sub-person exists to be just what it is. The “pusher” in us has only one job, to continually push us to work, to accomplish, to complete things. That is his function. Getting familiar with all your potential sub-personalities will give you quite a repertoire of them that you can use to deal with characterization.
First, there are the basic archetypes: all of the child archetypes—the magical child, the vulnerable child, the frightened child, and so on—the inner critic, the pusher, the judge, the Satanic part, the killer, the messiah, the protector, the warrior, Aphrodite (the sexual one), the father and mother, the controller, and so on. (For a complete list, refer to Irreverent Acting.) In addition to the archetypes, there are the individual sub-personalities that each person might have, such as the lazy one, the beach bum, the coward, the clown, the rationalizer, etc.. . . There is no end to the kinds of sub-personalities that we each possess. The most important consideration is how to elicit a particular one, how to bring it up to the forefront of our consciousness.
There are a variety of techniques for doing that. The first is to have another person “facilitate” you, which means talk to the various parts of you to encourage them to “come out.” There is a specific process involved, and the facilitator should have some experience with it. (There is a complete example of sub-personality facilitation in Irreverent Acting) Since the actor usually does not carry around with him an experienced facilitator, he should look to other methods of appealing to particular sub-personalities.
Facilitation can be accomplished through a journal. Let us say, for example, that you are trying to reach your mischievous child. You would start by relating to that part of yourself in a written conversation.
Example:
ME: |
Hi! I would like to speak with the mischievous child. . . Are you there? . . . Can you hear me? |
THE CHILD: |
(Responding) Who wants to know? |
ME: |
Oh! ... so you are there! ... I would like to talk with you. |
THE CHILD: |
Why? |
ME: |
Well, I would like to get to know you. . . Maybe you could come out and play. |
I don’t want to play . . . and I don’t even know who you are. Come and get me . . . |
As the journal conversation continues, you should get much deeper into the energy of the mischievous child. As that happens, you will be able to use that sub-personality to act from. If the character is influenced or controlled by a mischievous kind of energy and is, in fact, like that sub-personality in his or her personal relationships, the sub-personality might just fulfill all the character responsibilities.
Another approach for reaching a specific sub-personality is to work for choices that appeal to, and elicit, that particular energy. For example, there is the “Martin Luther” archetype, which is the moralist in all of us. Although we all have some of that energy, there are people who are totally controlled by it. If you were playing the role of a judgmental moralist and you wanted to get in touch with that part of you and call it to the surface, you might go to the things in life that stimulate moral judgment in you, making sure that you selectively emphasized these choices all around you. You might start the process by talking to yourself about things that “get your moral back up.” You might do a litany on streetwalkers and prostitutes, if that happens to affect you that way, or selectively emphasize behaviors in the people around you that you find offensive to your moral sensibilities (e.g., smoking grass, snorting cocaine, etc )
Sub-personalities are a very complete way of approaching the demands of characterization. If you clearly identify a character as being motivated or controlled by a recognizable sub-personality, you could appeal to your own parallel sub and, if successful, excitingly fulfill all the parts of that character. Sub-personalities is the twenty-first choice approach, and, as is true of all the choice approaches, you must work with it in order to master it; but it is well worth the effort. If you make it part of your tool chest, you will have a tremendous device for approaching a wide variety of obligations in addition to characterization.
The preacher in Rain is definitely controlled by the Martin Luther archetype and is later taken over by a more lustful sub-personality. The character Marty in the film of the same name has a very low sense of self-worth. You might approach him by calling on the inner critic, who is always criticizing and diminishing you. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a clear-cut study of good and evil and would afford the actor an excellent opportunity to explore the “good” and benevolent sub-personality for the doctor while investigating the demonic subs for Mr. Hyde. Tartuffe is controlled by the hypocrite coupled with a lusting sexual energy. Characters like Medea are obviously controlled by the satanic sub-personality. Cyrano might be explored by using the archetypal hero, while Carol Cutrere in Orpheus Descending could definitely be linked to Aphrodite. Rose in The Woolgatherer and Chrissy in In the Boom Boom Room are both controlled by their victim energy.
There are endless numbers of characters in dramatic literature that you can identify as being ruled by an impelling sub-personality. While there are other energies and forces in operation in every case, it is still the primary sub-personality that motivates the character’s behavior. If there are times during the play when the character changes and seems to become quite different from what he was before, the actor can discontinue working for the sub-personality he has been using and find another choice. It is entirely possible that a character in a piece may go back and forth between several sub-personalities; but whatever the elements in the four areas of character obligation are, you have a well of wonderful possibilities in this choice approach, as in many of the others.
All you know about a character is what the play itself tells you, and we have already been through how you find out about that. What about the life of the character before the play? What about his childhood, all of his experiences while growing up? Who were the people in his life? How was he influenced by those people? What was his relationship to his family that the play does not go into? How did he do in school? Who were his friends? At what age did he discover sex? What were the specific experiences that were crucial to the formation of his personality—the joys, sorrows, and traumas that the play never refers to? These are the realities of a real person who existed before Act I, Scene I. If an actor creates such a background in a journal, he will bring to the stage a multidimensional human being, while at the same time connecting his own life experiences to the life of the character. He will have memories and references to other people that will be carried onto the stage as a reality foundation for the character. If there are other people mentioned in the dialogue, and if the actor has already made those people real for himself by creating a full life leading up to the play, he will authentically respond to those imaginary characters from the reality of his own life. In addition to giving any character a full and rich background based on his life, the actor will make conscious connections with his unconscious life, which will seep into his behavior on stage.
Actually, there are often vast differences between the actor’s life and the character’s life. The actor, for example, may have come from a secure home with loving parents, while the character had a very different childhood. What the actor does in the creation of a character background journal is mix his own experience and background with that of the character wherever possible, and create imaginary circumstances where there are vast differences. It is like using a combination of reality and believability within the framework of a written scenario.
Creating the “prior life” of the character stimulates a visceral, organic, and authentic life. An actor brings his own life to the play when he has spent time creating this background. Everything that the character does or says has a foundation in what went before. In every line there is a reference to a prior reality or knowledge. Even if the connections are not obvious, they are there. When the actor sits down to create this journal, using information provided by the play and adding experiences from his own life, he comes face to face with understanding the components in the characters life that motivate and justify his behavior in the play. In addition to making those discoveries, he becomes clear about the kinds of choices he could use in order to fulfill the character elements. For example, if he is approaching a very insecure character, who cannot seem to satisfy his need to amass great wealth, and he can point to a specific time in his own life when that kind of insecurity might have started, he has a basis for a group of choices that may create the organic underpinnings of this character from his own reality. The fork in the road that separated him from the character could have occurred at any time, but if he starts with the creation of those early insecurities and continues to work for things that stimulate the same insecurities, he may very well achieve his goal.
Once you have read the play and are very familiar with the character in terms of what the author says, what the other characters say about him, and so on, and even before starting to deal with the character obligations, you might begin the character background journal, starting at birth and creating a life for the character right up to the time when the play begins. At all times you should be aware of the realities of the character’s structure. Do not violate the truths that are the character’s! If, for example, he comes from a broken home and you don’t, you must not distort his background in order to match your own realities, particularly if it is something that could have contributed greatly to his personality. In the above example, you might selectively emphasize a parallel in your own life that may have made you feel as if you didn’t have a solid family unit while growing up. Suppose your father worked all the time and was rarely at home, and instead of having a father to go to, you went to your brother. There would be a parallel there.
Even though you are writing this in a journal and there is a tendency to become a writer instead of an actor, the creation of a life for the character will give you a foundation that you can relate to throughout the entire run of the play The background, however, must not just come from your imagination onto the paper and remain there; yon must use the information every time you rehearse, recalling and relating to experiences that may be used as part of a choice to stimulate the behavior in a scene.
A good example here is the bedroom scene between Biff and Happy in Death of a Salesman. The two brothers talk about their earlier life and the experiences they shared while growing up. They reminisce about things they did. Creating a character background journal that includes the life you shared with your own brother and filling it with dozens of parallel experiences not only would make what the character talks about real for you, but it would become part of the choice and approach process for making this other actor your brother. If you used Endowments, you could create your brother in relation to the actor you are working with. Once you have constructed this background, the fines in the scene will actually relate to specific things that really happened in your fife and will now take on a meaning that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.
Always writing in the first person, with no separation between you and the character, selectively emphasize the parallels and similarities between you, even if they have to be somewhat stretched by using Believability.
“I was born in the Midwest. My mother and father were middle-class people brought up to believe in the work ethic. My mother was a housewife totally devoted to my father. She cooked and cleaned and ministered to his every need. She obviously loved and respected him. a great deal. I am the younger of two boys. My brother is two years older than I am, although I have always felt like his older brother. For whatever reason, I was my father’s favorite. He tried not to make the preference obvious but was never successful in hiding the fact that he favored me over my brother Phil. All through my childhood, I was more popular than Phil and always seemed to attract more people into my circle. My father had a small business that he worked at seven days a week. In all the years I knew him, I can only remember his taking one vacation, which only lasted for a long weekend. He constantly spoke to me about the importance of money and how you had to prepare yourself to earn a good living. I always dreamed of exotic things, of running off and bumming around the country, experiencing life in many environments. My father called me ‘a dreaming fool’ and assured me that I would grow out of ‘such foolish notions’! I didn’t! I always loved him and respected him for his honesty and his hard work, but as I grew older I became increasingly aware of his limitations. With this awareness I began to challenge him, his ideas and his life. We were in conflict almost all the time. He couldn’t help but find fault with me and was constantly critical of my dreams and desires. I knew that he wanted the best for me, but to my challenge of his ideals he retaliated by criticizing me. We grew apart, and I stayed away from home more and more. My mother, seeing the hostility between us, took his side and became critical also. Phil was always there for me! We were brothers, friends, and confidants. We shared many of the same friends, men and women, and all through school were inseparable. As the relationship between our father and me deteriorated, Phil began to do more to please him! He worked at jobs after school, put his paycheck on the table at dinner, and talked the talk that he knew would please my father.
“I could see what was happening, and I understood it. Phil had always felt like second best and never thought that he could compete, so he always did things for me. I’m sure that he wasn’t even conscious of what he was doing in this situation. He so wanted my father’s approval and acceptance that he took advantage of the conflict between us. I knew that if I confronted him with it he would be very hurt and would deny it, so I never mentioned it to him. The situation at home deteriorated, and I grew further away from my parents, while Phil seemed to do more and more to follow in my fathers footsteps. I spent more time with my friends and in rebellion quit school! I spent a couple of years going from job to job, aimlessly looking for what I wanted to do with my life.
“I moved out of my parents’ house and took a small apartment in a seedy building on the wrong side of town. Phil and I saw much less of each other but never loved each other any less. Occasionally we would have dinner together, for which he always insisted on paying! Sitting there across the table listening to him was like hearing my father tell me about what was important in life. Without knowing it, Phil desperately tried to impress me with his accomplishments in the business world, and little did he know how sorry I felt for him! It took days to get over the impact of just one dinner with my brother. I was sad for him. He had sold his soul for the love of his father, never knowing or exploring what might have really meant something to him.”
In the preceding example of a character background journal, I used the character of Biff to create a background for. Knowing the elements and forces that sculpted his life and formed his personality, I paralleled some of the realities in my own life, took some liberties, selectively emphasized similarities, chose not to deal with dissimilarities, and structured a background life that was close enough to the reality of the character and contained elements of my own life as well: I was born in the Middle West; everything I said about my father and mother was true; I do have an older brother named Phil. I have always wanted other things in life beyond what most people settle for and question. I had a very close relationship with my brother for many years until he left for New York. There was some conflict between my father and me, but not nearly as impacting. He wanted me to be more practical, but instead of being critical he nagged me constantly about my future. There was a period in my life when I felt as if I were lost. I did drop out of school and went on the road as a driver for a traveling salesman. I wanted to see the country, so I took that job. I wandered around for almost two years not knowing what I was going to do with my life. There were enough basic similarities between Biff and me for me to construct the character background journal. Of course, one must be more descriptive when going into actual events and experiences. The journal can be quite elaborate, or it can be simple and deal with the important events’ in the character’s life. As you do these journals, you will develop a sense for how much to say and how deeply to go.
It is what you do with the journal after you create it that really counts! First, it is important to get a real sense of the things you write about. While making your entries, attempt to sensorially re-experience parts of each event: see the people, hear the conversations, smell the odor of your mother’s cooking, and so on. Continually refer to the journal before and during rehearsals. Assimilate the events and experiences of your character through the journal, mixing the recollection of your own memories with those of the character. Talk to the other actors about the life of your character before the play, as a preparation to starting the rehearsal process. Do imaginary monologues with the people from your past, and include them as secondary choices to create the character’s life in the play. Think about the ingredients of your character background journal before you go to sleep at night, and encourage yourself to dream about it. When selecting the choices and choice approaches that you will use in the play, let the journal guide you to the kind of choices that are “root” choices, those that may be at the core of the character’s personality. This will also help you establish communication with the unconscious. Writing a journal is not nearly enough! If you don’t use what you have created, it becomes just an exercise in writing, which can be thrown into a drawer and forgotten.
(Recorded in my workshop while exploring the ingredients of a journal)
The actress is working on a scene from The Woolgatherer; the character is Rose.
If Megan takes all of the information and all of the parallels that she mentioned in this exploration, she will be able to create a fairly complete life for the character. Using her own specific experiences allows her to always have something to refer to when the character talks about her life in the play Selectively emphasizing the parallels creates a vulnerability to the areas that the character is functioning in throughout the play. While Megan is different from Rose in many respects, drawing and supplying specific parallels stimulates in her a similar sensitivity to the circumstances of the play. There are many activities and techniques that an actor can use in order to act and to fulfill material. Character background journals are one of the most important tools.
Many times, when dealing with material, it is necessary to confront the character obligation first, since all of the other obligations are so influenced by the kind of person the character is. Remember to start with yourself! You and the character must merge and become one. Identify the various parts of the obligation, the physical, the emotional, the intellectual, and the psychological. Identify the similarities and the differences between you and the character, and work for the kinds of choices that will bring you together. YOU DO NOT BECOME ANYONE ELSE! THE CHARACTER IN ESSENCE BECOMES YOU! In a sense, you absorb him into your being. So if you deal with, and fulfill, all the character elements drawn by the playwright and add your dimensional personality to the existing responsibilities, then you will make the unique statement inherent in your own persona. The character is who the playwright says he is and more!
Many actors consider characterization to be the fulfillment of style, the behavior of a character in an Elizabethan play, his dress, manner, style of speaking, and so on. Others reach for “handles” which they consider their responsibility to the character, things like a limp or a funny little twitch. Actors love to do accents; they really get into hanging the entire life of the character on some elongated drawl! Madness is another wonderful trait that they love to characterize. Unfortunately, these “handles” or manifestations of behavior—physical or otherwise—are all too often adopted, imposed, worn like an overcoat without any creative involvement on the part of the actor in constructing them. There are a number of reasons why an actor grabs on to these assumed impositions: they provide an element of security for him; they are activities and involvements that require energy and a kind of commitment to “doing” something, and this gives him a sense of security and a feeling of being involved. Besides, the sad reality is that most actors have little meaningful training in any process that might teach them where these characteristics come from and how they are approached and created organically.
Everything a character does in a piece of material comes from somewhere. A behavior is always stimulated by some object or impetus, while the act of assuming almost anything is a result-form of acting. It is representational! Dealing with style and period depends on some research into that period. It involves understanding the customs, mores, morality, religion, dress, knowledge, concerns, superstitions, and motivating forces in that society. If an actor is well versed in these things, he will approach the style and behavior of a character in a period piece by creative means! For example, the way people moved, sat, stood, greeted each other was extremely influenced by the simple reality of their clothing. In Elizabethan times they wore stiff ruffs around their necks, which affected the mobility of their neck and head; the men had rapiers and daggers, which had to be accommodated before they sat in a chair; they wore tights, which affected their walk and other movements. So if an actor just related to the costume of a particular time in history, some of the realities of movement and behavior would evolve organically. Morality and other kinds of consciousness indigenous to a particular period should be approached by finding parallels and substitutions. To understand the kind of jealousy and vengeful emotions that resulted from being cuckolded by one’s wife, even though our present consciousness would not even allow us to consider the kind of revenge that was commonplace in those times, we as actors could work for, and explore, choices that would pique primal impulses in similar areas if we used the right emphasis. The principles of that period may seem ridiculous to us at present, but we do have our own principles, some of which could take us to the threshold of murder. So it is a matter of using what creates a similar reality for us.
The key to any character exists in one or more of the four responsibilities of characterization. If an actor is to play a physically handicapped person, for example, and that handicap is at the root of the character’s behavior, he must not just assume the handicap, he must create it! He can do that in a variety of ways: he may use the choice approach of Illnesses and Restrictions; he can fulfill the obligation through the Externals Choice approach, using an animal or the sense of another person; or there are several other options that he might consider. Of course, every actor should be trained in the use of language and proper stage diction and have the versatility to speak English like a variety of characters, from an English duke to someone born and raised in the Bronx. He should also have spent time mastering the rhythm and music of many accents and dialects..
When creating a character, the actor should work for many of the elements that make up the component parts of that specific personality. These elements influence the way the character moves, speaks, and relates to others. With a little encouragement, a Southern accent may evolve as the actor deals with the other personality traits in the character. For example, if he approaches the character by working to create the sense of another person whose rhythms, tempo, and manner of speaking are slower, more languid, he can stimulate the accent from that place, using his knowledge of that particular dialect. There are times when an actor will just have to produce a specific dialect mechanically; however, at those times it should be like the icing on the cake; it should be approached after all the other realities have been created, and not as the skeleton on which to hang all the behavior. All character manifestations should come from a real place. If only the actor would ask himself. What caused or stimulated that manifestation, and how can I create it for myself? he would avoid representational imposition, which leads to empty and predictable work.