It may seem too obvious to mention, but while actors have read the script, their characters have not. Characters don’t know what will happen during the course of the play or in an individual scene. But they always have expectations about what will or might happen. Since actors have already read and rehearsed the play, it is not uncommon for them to forget what their character knows and what their character doesn’t know. Actor’s may even find it beyond credibility that their character doesn’t know what seems obvious. It is vital to remember that your character is in the dark on many many things, and the facts that you can easily see (from constant exposure to the script) are things the character sees quite differently, or of which the character is completely unaware. That is why it is crucial to clarify what your character doesn’t know, what they think they know, and what they expect to happen in a scene. In interpersonal scenes, this largely means what your character thinks the other character(s) want, and how your character expects they will react to what you say and do.
All of us go through our days with expectations about what will unfold. Sometimes what we expect does indeed happen, but many times, what actually happens differs, at least somewhat, from what we expected. Anytime something happens that we don’t expect, we have a realization or discovery which sometimes leads to a brief pause while we process this new information. Regardless, any realization or discovery will change our perceptions on the obstacle or opportunity before us, and trigger us to spontaneously adjust our actions accordingly. (I talk more about obstacles and opportunities in a future post).
Many of our expectations are, more or less, unconscious. Unconscious expectations are underlying assumptions about the world around us, our environment, and society. For example, we all likely assume that the world around us will stay more, or less, the same from day to day: the sun will come up, our house will remain standing, our boss will be their cranky self, the kids will be glued to their cellphones. Most of the time we don’t give our assumptions a second thought until they are overthrown. How surprised might we be if our normally bitter boss, greeted us with a wide smile and a big promotion? And if we woke to find that all the rooms in our house were rearranged, we might even question our sanity.
But we also have conscious expectations. Perhaps we have heard about a sale on pants at Target, and go to the store with the expectation of picking up a pair. But when we arrive, we discover that the pants are sold out, or that the sale ended already. This discovery is a new obstacle to our goal of buying pants, and it changes our actions going forward – perhaps we decide to wait until a new sale happens, or we go to another store. Many times, our conscious expectations are tied to our hopes and desires for what will happen next. For example, a man proposing to his girlfriend might expect her to show reluctance, but hope she will enthusiastically accept.
What your character expects will happen in a scene is based on many factors including their unconscious assumptions, what they believe to be true, what information they have (which is always limited), what has happened before, and what their understanding is of the behavior and goals of the other characters in the scene. Take for example a scene in which a woman comes home from work early expecting to find an empty house, but instead finds her husband in bed with another woman. If she up till this point she has believed her husband to be faithful, assumes he would still be at work, and that his past behavior has always been loving and above reproach, then this discovery would be a huge surprise.
Often actors have trouble playing big surprises in a truthful way. An actress in the scene above knows that her character will discover her husband cheating on her, and she might find it difficult to do anything other than indicate surprise with stereotypical gestures, expressions, and gasps. This usually happens because the actor is trying NOT to think about the surprise which only keeps the surprise forefront in the actress’s mind. Thus, the actress, or actor, is unable to allow a genuine surprise and therefore plays their preconceived idea of what a surprised reaction should look. Rather than trying NOT to think about something, it is far more effective to think about something else. In other words, to clarify what the character specifically expects to happen that is different from what actually happens. The character in the scene above is not even thinking about her husband. She is expecting to come home to an empty apartment with some intention as to what she plans to do – take a nap or a bath, read a book, prepare dinner. This is what the actress should be thinking about as she enters. Telling herself that her husband is NOT home sleeping with another woman is like trying NOT to acknowledge an elephant in the room. The more you try not to think about the elephant, the more you actually think about the elephant. So rather than thinking about forgetting there will be an elephant in the room, think instead about what your character expects to find – a warm inviting empty apartment for some much deserved me time. When the script tells you there will be an elephant in the room, expect to find a mouse.
CRITICAL POINT:
As a scene goes on and your character makes discoveries, the new information they gather will change their expectations going forward. Determining what your character expects moment-to-moment is critical to creating the shape of a scene, as discoveries and surprises always introduce new obstacles, or opportunities, and these always change the actions your character pursues to achieve their objective.
In the scene above, the character may have numerous other discoveries that change her perceptions of what is going on and alter her expectations going forward. She may find out that her husband is sleeping with her best friend; she may find out it has been going on for months; she may find out that her husband intends to leave her for the other woman, and so on.
Aristotle referred to a character’s realizations and discoveries as recognition. He defined recognition as the character’s perception of the facts as moving from ignorance to truth. In Greek tragedy this was the trope. Oedipus has a huge recognition at the end of the play when he realizes that he is his father’s murderer. An even bigger recognition for Oedipus is that his wife is actually his mother. Yuck. Recognition in Greek theater was pretty dramatic – false assumptions are pulled from behind a veil of ignorance and washed clean with the full light of truth.
But it is important to understand that in more modern plays, the type of recognition found in Greek drama rarely happens. Realizations in modern plays will definitely change a character’s perceptions about things, but they generally don’t reveal the full God’s eye truth. In fact, characters in modern plays can have realizations and discoveries that, rather than bringing them closer to the truth, mislead them even further.
Let’s take an example from the famous Hamlet/Ophelia scene. At the start of this scene, before he hears anything from her, before he comes to believe she is spying on him – what does Hamlet want from Ophelia, and what might he expect her reaction to his words and actions be? Well, she has been avoiding him. Why? Has he done something to offend her? Has her father told her to stay away from him? What is their relationship and what kind of person does he think she is? Though he moves more toward misogyny by the end of the scene, he is not fully there at the start. He is still in love with her, and looks upon her as a sweet honorable and attractive young girl. So, what does he want? I think he wants and needs her love and support. Outside of Horatio, he is pretty isolated at the moment and he’s just lamented his self-loathing in the previous soliloquy. He opens with a warm greeting, possibly even an apology for some unintended offense: “Nymph in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered.” What does he expect, or hope, her response will be? I believe he hopes that she will return his warmth, apologize herself for her father’s order to avoid him, and prove she is a true and faithful lover. After a somewhat perfunctory response she does something he clearly does not expect – she returns the gifts he gave her claiming he has been unkind. Not only has Ophelia not protested her desire to see him against her father’s wishes, but she is breaking up with him! This is a complete surprise to Hamlet and it all goes downhill from there with more realizations, including that she has conspired with Polonius and Claudius to betray him.
These perceptions of Ophelia’s intentions clearly impact Hamlet’s actions from this point on in the scene, but are they entirely accurate? No, they are not. Ophelia cares deeply for Hamlet and believes her ploy with Polonius and Claudius is designed to help him, not betray him. Unfortunately, Ophelia does not know the full truth of the intentions of Polonius and Claudius. If she did, would she do what they wanted her to do? Like Hamlet, her changing perceptions take her further from the real truth with tragic consequences. Ah, drama. It is so often a series of cascading misunderstandings compounding one upon the other.
That’s all for now!
David