John Gielgud had one word of advice for young actors: “Relax.”
Here’s the rule: The audience will generally believe whatever they are told to believe by the script until they are given a reason not to believe it.
The term overacting has become synonymous with bad acting because so much ineffective performance is due to an actor doing too much, demonstrating and explaining too much to an audience. In doing so, the actor creates too many opportunities to do something that is not entirely accurate, something that reveals the falsity of the pretend situation.
Doing too much also betrays an untrustworthy overabundance of effort. It makes people suspicious: “What’s he compensating for?” “What’s she hiding?” (And when the other characters don’t pick up on this false behaviour —because it’s not in the script to do so —the audience can be excused for thinking everyone up there is an idiot.) Better for the actor to create fewer opportunities for the audience to disbelieve.
So tell your actors to relax, keep it simple, and dare to do less. Advise them to watch the great actors and notice how little they do —how little they push— and then notice the spare, important actions they do choose. (See 66 . Keep actors on their task.) A good actor can be simple and consistent and interesting all at the same time. Cultivate these qualities in your actors. (See 128 . Some things are not and should not be repeatable.)
On the other hand, variety can be an important component of storytelling, as we know from the contrasting expressions and wide range of gestures we use in telling stories to children.
Most of us, for example, speak too flatly. An actor must be able to convey meaning to an audience, which is accomplished through variety in speed, volume, and pitch as well as contrast in action, movement, and pacing.
To help exercise these qualities, have the actors play The What Game (appendix 1). They hate it but there is no substitute.
There are limits to variety, however. Actors should avoid, for instance, playing doubles such as “Fie! fie!” or “Come, come” as separate thoughts. They’re just a single impulse—no variety needed.
So which is it, simplicity or variety? The test here is for clarity. If, in your particular circumstances, variety clarifies, adds meaning, and is likely to keep the audience interested, pursue it. If it obfuscates, complicates, or distracts, simplicity is the path.
Too many audiences blame themselves for not following a story when their negative experiences may in fact be the result of directing that undervalues clarity and demonstrates an ethos of “Good Art Is What You Cannot Understand.”
This misguided approach grows from a romantic notion that great ideas and those who think them are valued by the degree to which they’re misunderstood. There are historical precedents for the suffering genius, but deliberately inducing confusion for self-promotional purposes is hardly the route to winning over an audience. Confused audiences may be lost forever, thinking theatre and art in general are not for them.
This is a crime.