You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes…you might get what you need
The Rolling Stones
As I discussed in the post on Objectives, there should never be a moment when you are onstage that your character is not pursuing an objective. They accomplish their objectives by doing something. So, like objectives your character will always have actions they are doing to get what they want. What your character does to achieve their objective – their actions – answer’s Uta Hagan’s question: what does my character do to get what they want. Actions used to achieve Scene Objectives are best articulated as infinitive verbs, like to convince, to comfort, to intimidate, to please, to seduce, to command, etc. Playing your character’s actions are critical. Our craft is called acting, after all, not emoting. Avoid verbs related to a state of being or feeling, like to be confident, to live, to be anxious, or to be sad. I’ll talk more about problematic verbs later on in this post.
When choosing an action, it is important for the actor to find ones that stimulate their imagination and get their motor running. This helps the actor personalize the action for them. For example, if the actor’s character is trying to persuade a good friend to lend them money, you might consider more specific, and engaging actions, than to persuade. Each actor is different, so this is very much a personal choice, but actions like to implore, to beg, to coerce, to demand, or to sway might be more fun. Another good example of a general action is to teach. It is certainly something that can be done, but it is not particularly exciting. Better choices that could be more fun and more specific include verbs such as, to inspire, to intrigue, to encourage, to stimulate, to question, to probe, to demonstrate, to quiz, and even to entertain. Of course, what is fun to do for one actor may be less than exciting for another, so personal choice is vital here. The actor needs to find actions that excite them and charge them up. I usually start with a general verb and then consult a thesaurus.
Another thing I want to point out is the difference between the infinitive verb used in articulating an objective versus infinitive verbs used for actions. Say your character wants to get a friend to lend them money. To get is a general verb, but works well for an objective. Unlike action verbs, the verbs used for objectives NEED TO BE general. Why? Because you don’t want the objective to limit the actions you can choose to get what you want. If you phrased this objective as to demand your friend lend you money, then the only actions you will be inclined to take would be related to demanding what you want. This would eliminate other interesting choices like to beg, to coerce, to manipulate, to flatter, etc.
While it is very important to choose specific actions that stimulate the actor’s imagination, there are other factors that determine which actions the most effective AND most appropriate. The first factor to consider is the obstacle or opportunity that presents itself in the moment (I’ll talk more about obstacles and opportunities in a later post). A simple way to illustrate how obstacles determine actions is to take the scenario of a person running from a bear. The person’s objective can be phrased as to survive the encounter. Say a person sees a bear, but the bear has not yet seen them. Their action might be to back away quietly. Then the bear looks up and sees them – new obstacle. So, the person freezes. Then the bear begins to charge – new obstacle. So, the person begins to run. Then the person encounters a river – new obstacle. So, the person begins to swim across. Then the bear starts swimming after them. New obstacle. The person begins to swim faster. Then the person notices a big rock along the river – an opportunity. So, they pick it up and throw it at the bear’s head. And so, on. You get the idea.
Another thing that determines what action your character would take, depends upon the relationship they have with the other character. If you remember from my post on Scene Objectives, I discussed a scene I played as Sorin in The Seagull. The scene was with my sister, Arkadina, who just had a fight with her son Kostya. I chose as my objective to get Arkadina to realize she has been harsh with Kostya and thus to make up with him. How I worked to accomplish this objective – the actions I played -were largely determined by my character’s relationship with Arkadina and the kind of person I perceived her to be. Sorin loved his sister very much, and being much older, took a rather paternal role in the relationship. However, Arkadina could be difficult and testy, and very sensitive to criticism. Thus, the best actions to take were ones like to gently admonish, to reasonably explain, to encourage, and so forth. Coming down hard on her with actions like to condemn, to harshly criticize, or to belittle would probably backfire.
As I briefly touched on above, not all infinitive verbs make for strong playable actions. Often actors fall into the trap of playing passive or inactive verbs. Examples of verbs that are not active include any action that starts with to be (i.e. to be happy, to be exhausted, to be drunk, to be anxious, to be a King). All these to be infinitives are inactive verbs that actors should avoid. To be verbs are actions aimed at putting the character into a specific physical, emotional, or mental state. Developing a specific physical or psychological state for your character are often important, but these are not actions to play onstage as they have nothing to do with achieving an objective. In most cases, conditions, feelings and emotions are actually internal obstacles to the character’s objective. But what about to be a King? Can’t being a King make achieving objectives easier?. Yes, but being a King just gives your character an authority status. It is part of who they are – a more or less permanent thing. Being something is not the same as doing something. I’ll talk more about this in my post on character, but when the work done on developing a character who is a King, is not the same work as the actions your King will take to achieve an objective. Being a King will certainly have an effect on how your character pursues actions, but it is not itself an action. It is a state of being reinforced by costumes, circumstances, and how other characters treat you. Once you have found the King in you, you don’t have to work on it anymore. It will be in your bones.
A similar mistake is when an actor uses an infinitive verb with the objective of creating a specific emotion. These include such things as to hate, to love, to cry, to laugh. Emotions are not actions, but reactions to something that is happening on stage, or in response to something another character does or says. Actors should never make their action to create, or force, an emotion, but rather allow emotions to surface naturally over the course of the scene. Not only is playing an emotion not an action (with the exception of faking an emotion to manipulate the other character), but when an actor tries to make themselves feel something onstage, they are no longer in the moment, or connected to the other character and what they want from them. The actor gets into their head and makes their objective to feel something. Remember the character’s goal is to get a response or reaction from the other character, not to artificially create a feeling in themselves. The other thing that tends to happen when actors try to push an emotion, is that they stop allowing emotions to occur naturally. When this happens, actors are often so worried about creating and maintaining an emotional state. This leads to the actor playing fixed, unchanging emotion throughout the scene. hat But, this is not how emotions work in real life. Emotions can be quite fleeting, and they always come and go in type and intensity. Anger can turn to sadness. Joy to grief. Most of the time, when you have personalized your character, your relationships along your objectives and underlying needs, emotion will naturally arise in response to the obstacles and opportunities your character encounters. Simply put, when your character is getting what they want, they feel good. When your character is not getting what they want, the feel bad. Clearly, it is a bit more complex than that, and I’ll talk more this in an upcoming post on emotions.
Scoring Your Script for Actions
Another problem can occur when an actor plans their actions ahead of time. It is true that you want to consider fun and engaging actions that you could use in a scene to get what you want, but I don’t recommend writing those actions in stone, nor do I recommend scoring your script with specific actions underlying specific lines. Why? Because this will take all the spontaneity out of your performance. You need to allow your actions to change spontaneously based upon what is actually happening in the scene from one rehearsal, or performance, to another. (See my post on Spontaneity). You never know exactly what is going to happen. The other actor may do something different, or even slightly adjust their own actions from night to night. These changes could be rather large, or they could be very nuanced. In any case, you have to ride the wave not follow a predetermined set of specific actions. I do have one recommendation on scoring a script, but it is not scoring for actions. I do think it can be helpful to mark in the script where your character makes discoveries or is surprised by new information or something that happens. (See my upcoming post on Obstacles and Opportunities for more information on scoring your script in this manner).
Three Types of Actions
Up to this point we have been getting an overview of actions, but it can be very helpful to categorize actions into three specific types: interpersonal actions, internal actions, and physical actions.
Interpersonal actions are the actions used in scenes with other characters. Scenes in plays are composed largely of dialogue, and interpersonal actions underlie every line spoken by a character. Each line of dialogue that a character speaks is spoken to get something from, or give something to, the other character. As I have mentioned previously, there is no such thing as small talk onstage. So, Interpersonal actions are always done to, or for, another character, or characters, to get the response or reaction you want from them. When playing a scene with another character, the actor should always be listening to, and observing, how the other character is reacting to what your character is doing and saying. Listen not just to the words, but the tone of voice, inflections and nonverbal expressions and gestures of the other character. Much of the time our true intentions are best revealed by the actions underlying what we say, and the gestures and expressions going along with them. When you allow yourself to be totally focused on the character you want a reaction from, your actions will change spontaneously depending upon what they do and say.
Internal actions are those actions that happen in the mind of the character – when they are thinking to themselves, or listening to another character. I’ll start with when a character is thinking to themselves – which can include a character thinking out loud – speaking their thoughts to themselves. Some, but not all, monologues are examples of a character speaking out loud to themselves. Keep in mind however, that some monologues are directed to another character onstage, and soliloquies are often directed to the audience (I’ll talk more about these examples in my post on Monologues and Soliloquies).
So, if actions are always undertaken to achieve an objective, what would be an objective while thinking – either to yourself or out loud. It’s pretty straightforward actually. Monologues usually occur after a character has reached a point of crisis. An obstacle has arisen that the character does not know how to solve. So, they take this moment while they are alone to try to figure out how to overcome the obstacle. All kinds of internal actions can be involved – your character could be weighing different options, brainstorming, building up their confidence, or trying to make a decision. It is important that the actor truly plays these actions in their mind, otherwise they will be inclined to merely indicate thinking in general.
The other internal action is listening. Film and television are particularly well suited to revealing internal actions. Think about how often film and TV relies on close ups. Close ups allow the audience to see all the subtle nuances of the characters eyes and facial expressions, giving us a window to interpreting what they are thinking, or what they are planning to do next. But listening is also a big part of acting in a play. As I emphasized above, truely listening to and observing what the other character is doing and saying is key to acting and reacting spontaneously. Often, particularly after numerous rehearsals and performances, actors can go on auto-pilot and merely indicate listening. We’ve all done it. Try to remind yourself what you are listening for? What do you hope or expect the other person to do or say? Usually, what they actually do and say will be different than what your character expects. When you do this remember to listen as if you are hearing these words for the first time.
Finally, there are what I call physical actions. Physical actions, are quite common in film and television, however, physical actions occur onstage as well. The reason physical actions are more common in Film and television is that these narrative forms rely more on pictures and images to tell the story. We often see actors play physical actions on screen. Examples include, to run to safety, to tear apart an apartment looking for evidence, to break into a bank, to chase the bad guy, and all the various types of physical violence and sexual intimacy common to films and TV. Again, physical actions are always performed to get something the character needs. Physical actions include ANYTHING your character does with their body, breath and voice. This includes movements, gestures, expressions, sighs, and so on. They could include such things as looking for keys, unlocking a door, or brewing poisoned tea. (I’ll talk more about employing physicality in acting, and the connection of breath to intention in future posts).
A common problem with physical actions is when a director asks an actor to pace. Often when actors are told to pace, the actor indicates pacing by perform their idea of what pacing looks like. The result is that the actor is no longer pursuing an objective, but walking aimless about the stage. Obviously, people pace in real life, but why do we pace and how can it be tied to an objective? Pacing, both its tempo and rhythm, needs to be informed by an underlying objective, and is ALWAYS done in conjunction with an internal action.
Let’s take the example of a young man who is in love, and let’s say his objective is to have his love requited. The director has asked the young man to pace in the scene with his lover. How might his pacing be broken up and made more specific by this objective? Let’s say the lover is seated on a couch and he is standing nearby. Instead of mechanically pacing to please the director, the actor can punctuate his pacing by staying focused on his lover and getting what he needs from them. This will allow the actor to link his spontaneous actions and reactions with his physical action of pacing. When this happens the actor should find a natural rhythm arises to their pacing. And then the pacing becomes punctuated with stops, starts, turns, moving closer, moving away, etc. The same holds true for any blocking given by a director. The actor needs to link their internal or interpersonal actions to the physical blocking. Don’t ask the director to do this for you. It is akin to asking the director, “what is my motivation for this cross.”
Activities
Actions which are not undertaken to achieve an objective are what I call Activities. Though activities are generally physical in nature, they are not physical actions as defined above because they have no bearing on your character’s Main Objective. Activities are usually everyday actions people undertake during the course of their lives, such as cooking, cleaning, eating, reading, doing chores, hobbies, drinking, and smoking (thankfully less so).
Activities are generally done while the character is concurrently performing another action tied to their objective (Yes, actors can chew gum and walk at the same time. Most of them, anyway). For example, let’s imagine a scene where a man and wife are cleaning the dishes while he is trying to convince his spouse that he is not having an affair. The activity is to clean dishes, the actions could be to persuade her of the truth, to explain the situation, even to admonish her for not trusting him. The scene objective is to get a response from his wife indicating she believes him. Often in scenes like this, the dramatic action will impact how the activity is performed. You can probably imagine if the argument becomes heated, that the wife may momentarily stop drying the dishes to glare at her husband, or the husband may throw down a plate in frustration. Often, when a conflict becomes super-heated, activities stop all together, or morph into a type of physical action. In this scenario, the angry wife might throw a handful of silverware at her husband’s head. At times, however, activities are not done concurrently with an interpersonal action. Sometimes the character may be doing an activity while waiting for the next opportunity to pursue their objective, or while undertaking an internal action such as thinking about a problem they are trying to solve.
In some cases, it can be tricky to clarify whether something is an activity or a physical action. Let’s use two different examples of pouring tea. In the first, pouring tea for a guest may simply be an activity supporting who the character is, and the cultural and social context of the play. Let’s imagine a scene where a mother is entertaining a young man who is dating her daughter and she pours him some tea as is her habit with any guest. Let’s say her interpersonal actions in the scene are tied to finding out whether the man intends to marry her daughter. The act of pouring tea is just an activity, something she does while she does various interpersonal actions to get the desired information from her guest. In the second, let’s imagine the same characters in a completely different scenario. Suppose the mother believes the young man is a villain plotting to kill her daughter, rather than marry her. The mother’s objective is to save her daughter, and she decides that she will do this by killing the young man before he can kill her daughter. To accomplish this objective, the mother decides to serve her guest poisoned tea. In this case, the act of pouring tea is not merely an activity, but a physical action in pursuit of her objective.
The Reality of Doing
The great acting teacher, Sanford Meisner, coined the phrase, “The Reality of Doing.” What he means is that actors need to really, truely do the actions of their character and not just indicate them. When an actor merely indicates doing something, they end up playing their idea or generalized assumption of what doing something looks like. It looks fake, because it is fake. The actor is not really doing their character’s action. However, keep in mind one critical factor. You are playing your actions toward the other character, not the actor playing the other character. You can intimidate the actor’s character, but if you end up intimidating the actor, you have violated the sacred safe environment of the acting space.
Uta Hagen, another legendary acting teacher, had a great exercise to clarify the reality of doing for her students. I adapted this in my own classes and call it the Find the Keys exercise, or Find the Plane Ticket. In doing either, your character is undertaking a physical action in pursuit of an objective. What that objective is depends on the circumstances – you need to find your keys so that you can be on time for an important date, or you need to find your plane ticket or you will miss your flight. In either exercise. the actor hides the keys or plane ticket amongst other props and items. Then the actor tries to recreate the real nature of looking for a lost item. It usually starts with the actor looking for where they expect the item to be – where they normally put it, or believe they last had it. Then, when the actor doesn’t find it there, they begin searching elsewhere – always with a sense of logic about where it could be. Often, when searching for something we look twice in the same place. Yes, I checked my purse, but it must be there so you look there again.
The same holds for interpersonal actions. You need to really comfort, to really accuse, to really humiliate, to really compliment, etc. Remember that your fellow actor, and everyone involved in the theatre, knows the rules of the game here. You are not trying to humiliate your fellow actor, but their character. The stage is a safe place where your character can do and say horrible things to another character, and when the scene is over, the two actors involved can congratulate each other on how well the scene went. The same holds for internal actions as well. Don’t play a general idea about thinking, but play what you are thinking about and why. What is the problem you are trying to solve.
Physical Intimacy and Violence
Now there are physical actions related to intimacy and violence that require some more explanation. Romantic scenes, especially those with sexual intimacy, need careful choreography to maintain the safe space rule. If your character is staged to kiss another character, or undertake some kind of physical intimacy, it must occur under the direction of an intimacy coach. And remember, your character’s desires and actions to the other character must never cross over to actions that threaten the other actor personally. Both actors involved need to feel safe in the knowledge that the intimacy is between the characters only. No one should ever feel that that the contact breaks this boundary.
The same holds true with stage violence which should always been under the guidance of an experience fight choreographer. When Hamlet stabs Polonius he really wants to stab the character, not the actor, and he really stabs. However, the fight choreographer will work on techniques that allow a stab action without real contact. With a good fight choreographer, you, and the other actor, can work safely without actually landing a punch, or putting a knife into the other actor. From there, all you and the other actor need to do, besides a great deal of practice of course, is to imagine the feeling of hitting and stabbing, or of being hit or stabbed. Shooting a gun, of course, will use a prop gun and all you have to do is aim and shoot. With appropriate supervision and use of a prop gun, it is usually quite safe (unless you are in a production starring Alec Baldwin).
Other Problematic Verbs
Finally, I want to address some other infinitive verbs which are problematic as actions. First, let’s look at the infinitives to love and to hate. Both of these imply feeling for the other character, but they are not actions you do to the other character. Actions you might do could include, in the case of love: to comfort, to reassure, to protect, to give, or in the case of hatred: to attack, to denigrate, to belittle, etc. But actors often worry about creating feelings for the other character – particularly feelings of love. Remember! You don’t personally have to feel love for the other character or actor. In fact, have such feelings would complicate things enormously. Instead, you work love, or hate, on this when you personalize and endow your character’s relationship with the other character. When you have done this work, you will be able to play the scene as if you are in love with the other character. I’ll talk more about this in my post on Relationships.
Another common problem is when your character is in an argument or fight with the other character. Often actors will only play the actions to fight or to argue. In fact, these choices will tend to become objectives, rather than actions. Never forget what you want from the other character, and allow yourself all kinds of actions to get the response you want. In addition to arguing a point, or fighting over something, you might also play actions like to explain, to deescalate the situation, to understand the other character’s point of view. When you think about it people rarely want to argue or fight. These are generally the last tactics people employ to get what they want. Whenever possible, make it your character’s last action as well.
Other infinitives, like to wait, are not true actions as they have no impact on getting what you want. Think about it – will waiting make a bus come any sooner? The fact is when we are waiting, we are usually doing something else while we wait. We might doing activities like knitting, reading a book, people watching, etc. In a play, the character is often thinking about what they will do when what they are waiting for happens: when the lover arrives, for example, and the character can then pursue their objective of getting their love requited. Imagine you are a person waiting for a bus to take you to meet your lover with whom you have had a fight. Your objective when you see them is to make up with them. Perhaps you have flowers with you. Your actions while waiting might be to fuss with the flowers so they look good. But, are probably thinking about, or rehearsing in your head, what you will say to them to get your love requited.
One other problem with waiting, is that actors will feel the need to create a feeling of anxiety or impatience. They might tap their feet or pace. This is fine as long as the actor isn’t merely indicating a state of anxiety or indicate impatience. When your character is supposed to be anxious or impatient, it is important to remember why they need the bus to come quickly. What are the consequences? How late are you for your appointment? What can you do if the bus doesn’t come? Could you walk to your appointment, call the lover, flag a cab? Be sure you are thinking through these things and then allow your internal thoughts and actions to drive any physical manifestation such as foot tapping, checking your watch, standing to look for the bus, pacing etc. Play with these physical actions and tie them to your thoughts till they feel natural and not indicated.
That’s all for now!
David
Whew! You had your Wheaties for this one.
Ha ha! Thanks Bart!