ABSTRACT

Eliciting the ways in which different people constructed and attempted to manage various life dilemmas was deemed to be an important part of developing a working model of human nature that could guide subsequent formulation of character for the purposes of performance. Accumulating a detailed store of knowledge, as well as being willing to add to it through ongoing research, affords credibility, and was, therefore, identified as a route to confidence in subsequent character interpretation. Prunella Scales and Timothy West spoke of the actor as having a musical responsibility to the author and the audience, as well as an interpretative one. The chapter highlights how approaches to formulation are deemed to be grounded in a scientific narrative. It deals with practitioners taught to analyse their clients' concerns in the light of the theories, conceptually-driven research, and evidence base of their discipline.