TELL THE STORY When it comes to monologues in particular, but just as applicable to scenes, actors need to do their jobs. Your job as the actor is to tell the story from the perspective of your character.
MOOD = DOOM (“mood” spelt backwards) When an actor plays the mood of the scene, all structure goes out the window. There becomes a lack of clarity to the story. And the piece becomes a big emotional mess. The majority of the time, this big emotional mess becomes monotonous with one emotion, usually a big one. And this one big emotion doesn’t tend to go anywhere. Therefore the result of this one big emotional mess becomes disengaging and boring to watch.
HOW?
So there are two ways that you can fix this: 1. First you have to be clear on the story. Ask yourself questions about the character & their circumstances so you are clear and specific as to: * Why is this happening now * Who they’re with * Where are they * What have they got to lose * What are they trying to get the other person to understand/know/feel 2. Secondly you have to be empathic. A lot of actors tend to generate the emotion from themselves rather than letting the story and the character situation generate the emotion for them. As actors, empathy is a huge tool for us to use to help us tell the story. Empathy will allow you to feel and have compassion for your character, and if you are focused on telling the story for your character, your empathy and compassion should come into play. This should allow you to be able to feel while you tell the story and if the emotion comes, then allow it to flow. It doesn’t mean now you can be an emotional mess, but it does give you permission to feel and show the emotion, but you still have to focus on telling the story because that’s the priority. And don’t forget to breathe.
BREATH
Breathing will allow you to feel and access emotion, as actors tend to hold their breath or take very shallow breaths. You want to ensure that you take us, the audience, on an emotional journey, as opposed to a punch in the face with a singular emotion as that can be too much at one time which will alienate us from your performance.
Asking yourself those questions in the first point will allow you to create structure for the scene/monologue.
These will inform the peaks and valleys of the emotional journey.
They will also provide clearer storytelling & the specificity required for the audience to understand what is going on.
The second point allows you the ability to play within the structure created. The questions will provide the boundaries while the emotions allow you to play.
CHECKLIST - Tell the story by being specific - Use empathy to tell the story - Have an emotional journey rather than a big cry/ anger/ emotion - Don’t forget to breathe - Create structure and play within those boundaries
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