INTRO TO ACTING

Ma’am Carla
WHAT IS GOOD ACTING?

MA’AM CARLA
WHAT IS ACTING?

• “the art or occupation of performing fictional roles in

plays, films, or television.”
Oxford dictionary
• Good acting is a performance which makes the
audience think and feel.
• Great actors and great performances are in service of
someone or something other than the actor
themselves. They are in service of the story, the
audience, the character.
 EMOTIONAL
ACTING
How to act “emotionally”?
• The reason(s) for this is the following:

• Emotion can be a byproduct of a good performance,

but is not the goal of a good performance.

• Emotion is an obstacle, not an objective.

 THE FIRST TASK IS TO
ANALYZE THE MONOLOGUE

Reading the Script/Textual Analysis

• Script analysis is a process by which actors
interrogate a script for its intended meaning.
• It consists of equal parts research, close-reading
of the text and guess-work: determining what a
writer is trying to say, as well as the ways in
which one might interpret the words to create
an original and dynamic performance.
 THE FIRST TASK IS TO
ANALYZE THE MONOLOGUE

Reading the Script/Textual Analysis

• Know the text. Know every word and how the
author has put them together.

• See what the writer has left there for you to

discover
 THE FIRST TASK IS TO
ANALYZE THE MONOLOGUE
Reading the Script/Textual Analysis
Word Choice. A writer will justify every single word they put down on
a page: ask yourself why each of them is there. Note interesting and
unusual words; look for adjectives and adverbs that offer description
or modify other words or parts of a sentence.
It’s also worth asking why certain words aren’t used. Why
does a character say they’re “very upset”, and not
“devastated”?
Punctuation
Punctuation marks are the way writers direct actors off the page.
• short and lacking description?
• Could be the scene is tense?
• Are they flowing, using commas to break up the action, in order to
create a sense of rhythm?
• a long run-on sentence, full of confusing (or even misleading?)
punctuation marks—character is processing information in a
scattered, terrified manner?!
Structure.
• Is there a lot of ‘white space’ on the page, or is it text-
heavy?
• Is a new paragraph a new thought? A pause?
• Is it intended to create tension, or give the
audience release?
• Does reading multiple, short paragraphs speed up or
slow down your reading of the scene?
 NEXT, FOCUS ON YOUR CHARACTER
Who am I?
What time is it?
Where am I?
What surrounds me?
What are the given circumstances of the past, present and potential future?
Who am I talking to?
What are my relationships in the scene?
What do I want? Who do I want it from?
What do I do to get what I want? I want from whom?
 FINALLY, FIND THE FACTS, ASK THE QUESTIONS

• Here’s an example:
INT. PAWN SHOP – NIGHT
GORDON enters the pawn shop from a rainy night.
• What facts can we determine from this excerpt?
There is a pawn shop.
It is night time.
It is rainy.
There is a person named Gordon.
Gordon has entered the pawn shop.
• Now we start getting questions to add to the
list:
How did Gordon get to the pawn shop?
Is Gordon wet from the rain?
If not, how did he protect himself from the rain?
Does Gordon own an umbrella?
 HOW TO FIND YOUR CHARACTER’S OBJECTIVE

• central to any actor’s performance

• Ask yourself:
“What does my character want in the scene?”
“What does my character want in this
scene from this person?”
 INT. PAWN SHOP – NIGHT
GORDON enters the pawn shop from a rainy night.

• Character’s objective (in the scene):

“Gordon wants to enter the pawn shop.”
not “Become the greatest comedian of all time”
LET’S PRACTICE!!
WORD CHOICE

Pansinin ang:
“mahal ko sya”
“mahal ko yata sya”
“siguro nga mahal ko sya”
“mahal ko nga ba sya?”
“mahal ko nga sya!”
“hindi”
“hindi ko sya mahal”
PUNCTUATION

• Pansinin kung saan lang

merong kudlit at tuldok.
Bakit kaya? May gusto ba
na paraan nang pagbasa
dapat sa mga kataga ang
manunulat?
STRUCTURE

May mga pagkakataong mahaba

ang mga linya.. At madalas putol
putol ang istruktura ng tula.
Para ba sa tugma? O meron pang
ibang gustong ipahiwatig ang
manunulat?
Pagbilis o pagbagal ng pagbasa?
NEXT, FOCUS ON YOUR
CHARACTER
Who am I?
Sino yung “sya”?
Mag-isa lang ba ang
character/speaker, kausap sarili nya?
O kaharap nya “sya”? O may iba syang
kausap? Sino?
Anong relasyon ng karakter kay “sya”?
Ano ba layunin (objective) ng
karakter sa pagsasabi ng mga
linyang ito? Paano nya ma”achieve”
layunin nya?
FINALLY, FIND THE FACTS,
ASK THE QUESTIONS

“What does my character want

in the scene?”
BASIC ACTING
KEYWORDS
Emphasis reveals character’s intention
 “I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU
THAT I LOVE YOU”
Happy In pain
Excited Angry
Surprised/new discovery Confused/doubt
Sad Indifferent/wala lang
THE ORIGINS OF ACTING

1.Ancient Greek Drama

2.Aristotle’s Poetics
3.Sanskrit Theatre
4.Commedia Dell’arte
5.Chinese Opera of the Manchu Rule
6.German Romanticism and Naturalism
ANCIENT GREEK DRAMA

• Greece (Athens)
• 600BC –performance of tragedies at religious festivals,
and later with the genre of comedy plays rituals
performed in worship of Dionysus
• Greek playwrights: Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles.
ARISTOTLE’S POETICS

• Poetics 335 BC
• which has been considered the earliest surviving work on
dramatic theory
• imitation, rather than simply presenting ideas
SANSKRIT THEATRE

• considered the origin of theatre in India

• from 1500BC; between the 1st and 10th centuries
• A Treatise on Theatre (Bharata Muni)
• the most complete dramaturgical work in the ancient world
• contains approaches to both ‘realistic’ and ‘conventional’ styles-
dance, music and recitation (to educate and entertain audiences)

• Sanskrit theatre uses stock characters

COMMEDIA DELL’ARTE

• In Italy from the 1560s

• troupes of actors - improvise

• stock characters from three categories – lovers, masters

and servants
• Masks, tropes and devices
CHINESE OPERA OF THE MANCHU RULE

• Classic theatre in China is referred to as Opera due to its use of

arias and recitatives (Manchu rule of the 19th century)

• Operas:
• orchestra in front of an audience
• Actors only fully ‘perform’ when they are at the centre of
the stage
GERMAN ROMANTICISM AND NATURALISM

• Wagner (Romanticist)- aimed to utilize human experience to reach absolute

truths.
• He believed that myth could be used so that humans could experience true passion, with music dramas being
the ultimate theatrical manifestation of myth.

• Saxe-Meiningen - concerned with creating the illusion of reality by attempting to

use spectacle and acting in a way that was lifelike and historically accurate.
(naturalistic)

• the establishment of the profession of theatre director- an individual who

coordinates the preparation for the performance
TRADITIONAL ACTING METHODS

• Konstantin Stanislavski
• The Group Theater
• Stella Adler
• Lee Strasberg
• Michael Chekhov
• others
KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKI

• “Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to
satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with
natural laws.”

• advocated for a naturalistic approach to acting

• Terms such as “given circumstances”, “emotional memory”, “objective”
and “super-objective” are drawn from Stanislavski.
4 TECHNIQUES INSPIRED BY STANISLAVSKI

1.The Group Theatre: (New York)

• Founders: Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg
• Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe
4 TECHNIQUES INSPIRED BY STANISLAVSKI

2. The Actors Studio:

• founded by Lee Strasberg
• Renamed as Method Acting or simply “the
Method”
• emphasizes the psychological elements of
preparation and performance
4 TECHNIQUES INSPIRED BY STANISLAVSKI

3. The Meisner technique:

• founded by Sanford Meisner
• focuses on the physical side of preparation over
Strasberg’s emphasis on emotion memory.
• Exercises focus on how emotions affect an
actor’s physical behavior.
4 TECHNIQUES INSPIRED BY STANISLAVSKI

4. Stella Adler’s technique:

• the sociological aspects of the performance
• For this technique, actors learn about the
conditions of the character being portrayed:
what their life might be like, what their
profession entailed, and so forth.
STANISLAVSKY’S
PRINCIPLES OF ACTING
• The Stanislavski system or method
• aims to create an emotionally expressive and
authentic performance.
• Actors internalize their character’s inner life,
including their motivations and emotional states.
6 PRINCIPLES OF THE STANISLAVSKI
METHOD:

1.The Magic If: the actor ought to imagine themself in

the circumstances as given by the play. This approach
can activate the actor’s imagination and intimately
connect them to the material, bringing life to the
character.
2.Objective: The Stanislavski system focuses on
motivation and emphasizes the character’s objective.
THE MAGIC “IF”:

• probably the best-known Stanislavsky concept

• he taught actors to put themselves in the characters' shoes
and consider what they would do if they were in the
character’s situation.
• makes the character’s motivations the same as the actor’s.
OBJECTIVE:

• Essentially, the objective is the answer to the question,

“What does the character want?”

• The best answer to that question involves a playable action.

6 PRINCIPLES OF THE STANISLAVSKI
METHOD:

3. Emotional memory: For instance, an actor attempting

to depict grief might draw upon their own similar
experience, if they had previously lost someone close
to them.
4. Tempo-rhythm: Stanislavski’s technique aims to
create a rhythm or tempo in the play in congruence
with the emotional intensity of the performances.
6 PRINCIPLES OF THE STANISLAVSKI
METHOD:

5.Method of physical action: This was a shift, as it

led to greater emphasis on physical movement
and improvisation over verbal discussions and
reflection.
6.Subtext: part of the role of the actor was to
discover and understand this submerged
content, which he called the subtext of the play.
GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES:

• include everything: character’s background, time and

place of the story, and the structure of the staged
world.
• determine what actions are possible for a character to
perform.
SUPER-OBJECTIVE:

• character’s primary motivation in the play

• the thing they want more than anything in
the world
THE GROUP THEATER

• was founded in 1931 (America); based on

Stanislavski’s principles
• 3 key members:Stella Adler, Lee Strasberg and
Sanford Meisner
• created their own approaches to create
truthfulness in an acting performance
STELLA ADLER

“The actor has to develop his body. The actor has to work
on his voice. But the most important thing the actor has
to work on is his mind.”

• advocated for respect for the playwright and

emphasized the importance of script analysis
• Taking firstly a very detailed approach to examining
the given circumstances and character information in
the script and then taking an imaginative approach to
fill in the gaps and make a character’s world come
alive.
• encouraged actors to physically inhabit their
character, so that by taking on the physicality of the
character you could bring that character to life.
LEE STRASBERG

• “Work for the actor lies essentially in two areas: the ability
to consistently create reality and the ability to express that
reality.”

• coined the renowned term “Method Acting”

• where an actor aims to become the character, experiencing
and re-experiencing the emotions that exist within the
storyline.
• utilized the technique of ‘emotional recall’ in which an actor relives
a personal emotion or event that is similar to that of their character
in order to reach a truthful performance.
• Example:
• inhabiting a character for years before acting in a role (Daniel Day-
Lewis)
• sending bizarre gifts to his fellow actors on films and living on the
streets to become a character (Jared Leto)
SANFORD MEISNER

“Act before you think – your instincts are more honest

than your thoughts.”
• Philosophy: “behave truthfully under imaginary circumstances”
• concerned with the space in between characters and how these
characters interact.
• Using emotional impulse and instinct of the actor, with
awareness of the circumstances of the scene
MICHAEL CHEKHOV

“Real inspired acting is never DOING, it is always

HAPPENING”

• developed a ‘psycho-physical’ approach to acting

• focuses on working with impulse, imagination and inner
and outer gesture.
• imagining the character’s inner life and also visualising
the exchange of energy between characters on stage
IVANA CHUBBUCK

“An actor who merely feels tends to turn his performance inward and does
not energize or inspire himself or an audience, whereas watching someone
do anything and everything to override pain in an attempt to accomplish
an OBJECTIVE puts an audience on the edge of their seats because the
outcome becomes alive and unpredictable. “

• The Ivana Chubbuck technique consists of 12 steps.

• to structure your breakdown of any scene or script.
• show you how to use your personal needs, desires, traumas,
pain and dreams to fuel and drive your character.
LARRY MOSS

“Everything I’m teaching you about acting has one aim only: to fire
you up emotionally and behaviorally so that you can give a vivid,
involving, and memorable performance.”
• well-known for soliciting emotional breakdowns from his actors in
his classroom.
• Larry Moss’ technique focuses on three main areas: relaxation,
imagination and script analysis.
• He encourages actors to live their lives and experience the world
as creatives and firmly believes there is no distinction between the
human in you and the actor in you. They are one and the same.
SUSAN BATSON

“Need, Public Persona, and Tragic Flaw are the bedrock of a fictional character’s dramatic
life, and the foundation of the actor’s own life.”

• Batson’s method revolves around three core elements of creating a character: Need,
Public Persona and Tragic Flaw.
• PUBLIC PERSONA (a mask) to hide these vulnerabilities and weaknesses and all they
represent.
• NEED – which is often the exact opposite of the character’s Public Persona. E.g. a serial dater
and a narcissist might underneath actually be feeling unworthy and yearning to be loved.
• THE TRAGIC FLAW: the destructive potential that exists in the relationship between the
character’s Need and Public Persona.
ANTHONY MEINDL

“Listen. React. Feel your feelings rather than thinking them. Give up control.
Surrender to the chaos. Admit that you don’t know as much as you think you do
and that something greater is trying to reveal itself to you in the moment. Become
a channel for flow. Get in the zone. Have more fun. Give zero fucks. Play. Risk. And
finally trust that you are enough and have something to contribute as you.”

• Meindl believes that actors have been falsely taught that there’s some magic
formula. There isn’t. It’s just time + patience + practice.
DAVID MAMET

“This is what acting is. Doing the play for the audience. The rest is just practice. An
actor does not need to “become” the character. There is no character. There are
only lines upon a page. When an actor says these lines simply, in an attempt to
achieve an object; the audience sees an illusion of a character upon the stage.”

• Together with William H. Macy, David Mamet founded the Practical Aesthetics
method of approaching a script at the Atlantic Theatre Company.
• Practical Aesthetics (PA) is based on techniques from Stanislavski and Meisner
but has evolved to become a sort of ‘no-nonsense’ approach to acting.
• It hinges on the writer’s intentions and encourages the actor to get out of their own
head, and simply honour the writer’s intentions.
TAGALOG MONOLOG
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poeticnook: tagalog monolog