PERSONAL ESSAY

By: Xiomara Naomi Zorrilla Ramos

Bachelor in Performing Arts and Screen Acting (1st Year)

Course: Screen Acting Foundations

What was Stanislavski talking about when he said “Make visible the invisible”? What was he

referring to when using the word “invisible”? Is he talking about the intangible as in smells or

flavors? Or invisible as in things the human kind has never seen, like magic, fairies and

mermaids? Or maybe he was going deeper than that.

What Stanislavski meant with “invisible” were the internal motivations, emotions, desires,

thoughts and fears of the characters. Everything that goes on inside their heads that we cannot

see as an audience. Everything they do not explicitly say. And as an audience, there is no way to

know how a character is feeling unless they tell it or show it.

“Make visible the invisible” is a famous interpretation from Stanislavski’s ideas. Quote that

exists thanks to the understanding of his fundamental works such as “An Actor’s Work” or “An

Actor Prepares”. Quote that has helped me understand and put in practice what I have learned

throughout these 4 months, all summed up and showed in a scene my classmate Sara Cristina

Alexandre de Sousa Machado and I presented for the final exam of the “Screen Acting

Foundations” course.

The following essay explains the whole creative process I had to go through and how practice

and theory linked and supported each other. This starts from why we chose this scene to my final

conclusions after taking the exam.

Why Did We Choose This Scene?

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The chosen scene in question corresponds to the 1994 series "Friends", where characters Monica

and Rachel have an argument due to Rachel trying to tell her ex-boyfriend, Ross, that she still

loves him.

Sara and I chose this scene, because we both enjoy the series. The scene is comedic, seems light

and fun to do and it is short and concrete.

I personally chose to play Rachel, because I have been through a similar situation and thought it

would be a good idea to use that memory to help me perform the scene, so I can compare what I

have lived to what my character is living.

How Did The Creative Process Begin?

When analyzing the scene, I decided to begin with my character’s objective.

What does she want from her?

What Rachel wants from Monica is for her to approve her love for Ross.

I came to this conclusion, because as a reader I could tell about their best friend relationship.

which is the reason they talk to each other so confidently and fearless of saying things, because

they know each other very well. Moreover, it is explicitly said that in this relationship that

Monica is in charge of making Rachel’s decisions and both of them are fine with it. She has done

it for years, so Rachel trusts her by now. It is also known that they care for each other, even

though it is not the best way to show her love, Monica is trying to protect Rachel from making

mistakes that may hurt her, she wants the best for her and Ross is not it. Meanwhile, Rachel

looks up to her and wants her most valued friend to approve of what she does and believes that is

right.

Nevertheless, it is not a healthy relationship,

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My three adjectives for Monica were: correct, trustworthy and manipulative.

“Correct”, because she believes everything she does is right, neat and perfect. She always has the

right answers, so in order for the world to be just as perfect as her, everything has to be done her

way, including other people’s life choices, in this case, Rachel’s.

“Trustworthy” has been already explained and it’s the reason of her long-lasting relationship.

Finally, she is “manipulative”, since she is trying to make Rachel think challenging her and

making her own decisions without her help for the first time is wrong.

First Rehearsal In Class

The context and location of the scene changed completely from the initial idea. The genre used

to be comedy, now it changed to a drama and what before used to be a hallway is now

somewhere in the crowd with a person giving a pep talk in front of us.

This exercise was really helpful, because this way we stopped wanting to imitate how the actors

did the scene in the series. We started playing and trying new things that we were not expecting,

like changing the positions of power, the adjectives, adding props, taking out things, etc.

We ended up choosing the pep talk one. It was really fun and felt comfortable.

Regarding feedback, I was told to go back to Meisner, so I asked myself the following questions:

What is my objective? What do I want from her? What are my strategies? Will it work if I yell at

her? Or maybe I should be nice to her? What about seduction?

Another thing I learned was that the text should not limit me, a scene can take a 360-degree turn

depending on how do you say it and the context you give to it. Not everything is predetermined.

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Keeping that in mind…

I knew I had to work on anticipation, because I am aware it is still hard for me to stay in the

moment and not think of what is coming next. Actors know the whole story, the why’s,

because’s, resolution, ques, reactions, every part of it is already written and arranged, there are

no surprises, but the characters are living the events for the first time and they do not have a clue

on what is coming next, so we shouldn’t show that we know what they do not.

I rehearsed my lines with no intentions and tried to keep all the knowledge inside. I also

practiced saying the lines with different tones of voice, volume, movements and intensity. I

played with them and with my body, going from big to small and so on. Daring to try things no

matter how strange and incorrect they may seem with the Grotowski method, because as he said

“To act is to react” and that actors should project themselves into the unknown.

Exam Day

I honestly felt confused with the feedback the teacher was giving me, I did not know how to

show my interest in talking to Monica, but also showing that we were at a pep talk and not

forgetting that the camera had to be able to see it all, but without me looking at the camera.

I felt overwhelmed. The teacher told me I know how to do this, I have conversations with people

all the time, and it is just like that. The tricky part is that since we are so used to it we are not

aware of the small movements we make, how we react, the time we take to think between

phrases, etc. So, again I had to just be in the situation while keeping in mind who my character

is, if I know who I am then I know how they will react, they are people too.

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The silences and giving it a little time to react and think between lines was another thing. In my

head I was thinking as the character, listening, taking my time to react organically and then

speaking, but that train of thought was not being shown, the audience may have thought the

silence is because I forgot my line, they can’t tell what is going on in my head and that takes me

to the next point.

All of the character’s thoughts, feelings and emotions will float to the surface in the eyes of the

beholder only with clear and specific actions.

People show how they feel by the way they act. These two are strongly connected, since actions

are the response to people’s feelings, needs and thoughts.

Actions can be a strategy we use to get what we want, no matter if they are done consciously or

unconsciously.

To set an example, hunger. Claudio is hungry so he eats a tangerine. By taking the tangerine on

his hands and eating it, it can be deducted that Claudio was hungry, he needed to eat and in order

to calm his hunger he decided to act upon the problem and eat. Now he is satisfied.

There is a need to fulfill, a trigger that was activated and an action made.

This example can also take a turn, it depends on how Claudio eats the tangerine that the audience

can know the context and what has led him to eat the fruit. For example, if Claudio eats the

tangerine quickly and abruptly, barely breathing and without thinking about it before doing it, the

audience will deduct that he hasn’t eaten in days and was starving.

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To “make visible the invisible” is the actor's ability to express a character's internal emotions and

motivations authentically and convincingly, even if they are not explicitly written to be said.

There is a subtext.

For instance, Millie is feeling down, but she has to hide her sadness while interacting with her

friends. In the script, there may not be specific indications about Millie’s sadness or lines in

which she explicitly says "I'm sad", but the actor, following the said principle, will look for ways

to convey that emotion in subtle but effective ways.

Like using her body language, facial expression and voice intonation to reveal Millie’s inner

monologue.

All of this can be exemplified as an iceberg. There is an inside and outside world, the bottom of

the iceberg houses what is not seen, the inside world, such as the character’s desires, deep fears,

memories, trauma and treasures like the important use of silence, which if used well says much

more than a great text. A story can be told with silence only.

As we approach the tip of the iceberg, before leaving the inner world, we can find the character’s

internal monologue, the inner speech, where the character can “hear” her own thoughts passing

by and the subtext, what is implicit in the text depending on how it is said and in what context it

is said. For example, Lola and Anthony used to date, they see each other after a long time and

Anthony asks how is her dog doing (implying Anthony wants to know if her dog still remembers

him), Lola says her dog misses him (implying she misses him, but does not want to admit it)

The outside world would be what we can see, meaning the text and actions

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Another important point to add is the triggers. Every line we say and everything we do has been

activated by a trigger, it is the response to it. So, looking for that trigger and being aware of what

it is will help to discover why did your character do what they did.

Final Thoughts

It was a process full of ups and downs, but overall, I enjoyed it.

I want to conclude this essay by saying that listening, staying in the moment and showing makes

a huge difference when performing.