Building a Character

Building a Character is the second of Stanislavski’s books I have read, and I found this

one to be much easier to understand. When I read An Actor Prepares, I had very limited stage

experience and struggled to connect to the text. In this book, there were moments where I

realized when I had learned the exact things Stanislavski had, and I was able to easily connect to

the text.

In chapter four, Tortsov explains that he places “value on dancing…because it is an

excellent corrective for the position of arms, legs, backs” (Stanislavski, pg. 41). Since I have

been at Xavier, I have placed more and more value onto my dance education, and I have found

that it has helped me a great deal. Before I took any dance classes I could be extremely stiff

onstage, and I had limited knowledge of how to properly hold myself onstage. Taking dance

classes has taught me how to better engage my entire body whenever I am onstage, to keep

energy flowing through every movement I make. It has greatly improved my ability to release

tension as well.

I found I agreed with everything that Stanislavski included in the fifth chapter about the

plasticity of motion, particularly with learning how to walk. I recall that during Xavier’s

production of Urinetown, it took me three weeks to find the correct walk for my character-an

eccentric “yes man” who wanted nothing more than to please his boss. I tried walking with little

to no bend of the knees, I tried a walk that closer resembled a skip, I even tried moving in dance

leaps. The walk that I was searching for ended up being very fast-paced, it had steps that were

heavily turned out, and my arms swayed in a way that made my shoulders rotate forward as I

moved around the space. It was filled with a very specific energy that fit the character perfectly,

and I was extremely proud of it. I also remember that during Xavier’s production of Cabaret, I
struggled with my motion onstage because I did not know how to properly channel my energy.

My movement did not reach fluidity until I knew how to bring energy to the stage and fully

commit, so I find a great amount of value in the plasticity of motion. In the first scene I am doing

for this class, I have found it frustrating to find how my character moves. He has a sprained

ankle, and his arm is also hurt, and that has proven difficult to me. I have not been in a role

where their movement becomes restricted, and I have had to take my movements very slowly to

figure out what sits best with the character, what feels the most natural. I am still struggling with

it, but I know I just have to continue working at it so I can achieve the final product I want.

The chapter discussing diction also stood out to me. During this past summer I learned

was in a play that was performed in an outdoor venue, and I had to learn how to properly speak

in this new space without any kind of vocal aid. In this chapter, Stanislavski says that if one does

not know how to control their voice properly, they will do harm to, “his pronunciation, his

diction, but also to emotional experience in his part” (Stanislavski, pg. 101). I was finding it very

difficult to match the need the space had. This was the first show I was in without a microphone,

and that also added to the stress I was feeling. When I first started to project, I felt as though I

had lost all my intentions and my inner work, and I felt like I was just shouting the lines. My

director helped me through this, encouraging me to take my time more with each line so that they

could come across clearly. Eventually this no longer was an issue I faced, and I was able to

sufficiently fill the house with my voice.

Coincidentally, that was the first straight play that I was a part of. I had previously only

had roles in musicals, which, in my opinion, are easier to act. The play taught me to, as

Stanislavski covers in chapter eight, properly use intonations. My character never left the stage,

so I had to make sure everything I conveyed was crystal clear. At the start of the process, I found
myself rushing through everything, and as Tortsov said, I wasn’t allowing myself to “get inside

of what you are saying…get around to examining and feeling what lies beyond the words”

(Stanislavski, pg. 140). I had to make myself slow down and really dive into the text, but when I

finally got it right everything flowed so much easier. I let myself “infect” my scene partners with

my words so I could reach all my objectives, and it resulted in some of the best intonation work I

had ever been able to achieve. I firmly stand behind the importance of proper intonation and

punctuation use. Without it, the words you speak will lose their meaning and will be lost to the

audience. As I work on this scene, I have found myself indulging in every piece of punctuation

to convey the needs of my character, and it has been a huge help. I have found it so much easier

to choose my tactics when I key into the punctuation in a scene.

This is a book that I will definitely come back to at some point. Stanislavski provided

insights into areas of character development that I had recently grown in, and it was good to hear

the student’s and the professor’s thoughts on what it meant to build a character. I look forward to

applying this newfound insight into my scene for class and future projects, and I cannot wait to

see what new discoveries I will have when I re-read it down the line.

Works Cited
Stanislavsky, Konstantin, and Elizabeth Reynolds. Hapgood. Building a Character. Theatre Arts

Books, 1949.