ABSTRACT

Working with emotions is essential for any scene work as shifting emotions are what makes characters human and generates empathy with an audience. This chapter examines the notion of “active emotions.” These are emotional impulses that pass through an actor during a scene, often stimulated by their physicality. Learning to capture and use these active emotions can help an actor bring freshness and sincerity to his/her performance. This chapter also proposes exercises that use gibberish. Gibberish provides a means of communication that is focused on emotional expression and not clever, witty dialogue.