ABSTRACT
PART I: RECONNAISSANCE OF THE SCENE In the previous two chapters you examined reconnaissance of the mind and reconnaissance of the body in explorations of the overall play, and then some specific to your character. You may have explored using Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, as in the examples, or another common class text, or perhaps you started right away using a play related to the acting scene you are working on. You learned to use improvised tableaux, études, (second plan structured improvisations) and a series of exercises to initiate your development of character. Now your exploration of character will be expanded throughout the rehearsal process of a scene or play as you select and develop actions. It is the actual work on actions with the text that builds the psychophysical life of a character. In life, a person’s response to significant events reveals what that person is made of; so, too, is a character revealed by his response to key events in the play. Again you will go back and forth between reconnaissance of the mind and reconnaissance of the body. You will delve into the analysis of a role through improvisations specifically designed to plumb the depths of your script and discover the moment-to-moment psychophysical actions that will bring your character to life. In order to experience the life of the character and ensure that you are able to repeat the process in subsequent performances, you will need to pay very careful attention to the active step-by-step process outlined here. This does not mean that there is a strict set of rules; on the contrary, you will be given many devices (improvisational colors of your palette) with which to paint and create. They can be used in a rehearsal process or as your actor’s preparation for rehearsal. As you gain more confidence in improvisation, you may create devices of your own. What is important to remember is that the creative process must be the focus of your attention, not trying to achieve immediate results. Your script preparation at home and how you practice and conduct yourself during rehearsals will determine the quality of your performance. As you move into using Active Analysis of events and actions on a specific scene from a play, you will move fluidly back and forth between the more objective reconnaissance of the mind and the experiential reconnaissance of the body. Just as you did when first reading the whole play, as you begin work on a specific scene, jot down your first impressions. Here are some areas where you might begin to pay more attention:
Diction/Language
Aristotle identified diction (spoken language), commonly translated today as language, as another of the six key elements of drama. One of the things that separates plays from other forms of fiction is that all the language is written as dialogue. Modern plays are mostly in prose dialogue, language not bound by a set rhythmic pattern. However, each playwright has unique, if less structured, rhythmic patterns that he may use or vary within different plays and different characters. Language written in dialogue is what initially reveals the play to the director, designers, and actors and is part of what reveals it to the audience. The play is the author’s original creation conveyed primarily through language written in dialogue. The many other aspects of a production are the interpretive creations of other artists as they respond to the play.23
