I really want to focus upon the development of the characters and ensuring that their emotions and relationships are delivered in a convincing and naturalistic way. Making comedy seem natural is a difficult skill to establish and so from the beginning of the rehearsal process this has been the main focus.
When we talk about "naturalism" there really is only one practitioner that I can refer to and that is Stanislavski. A neighbour of mine gave me a copy of his book "An Actor Prepares" and it has become a bit of a bible whenever I need help creating activities and workshops centered around naturalism.
One particular chapter that I have focused on this week is about "Emotion memory": the use of life experiences to influence how we interpret our characters and deliver out lines.
It's quite difficult for some actors to sit back and review "how" they are acting and I really am planning on challenging the actors to do just this. Stanislavski suggested that, "What was going on inside of you was of much greater interest" than how you physically act on stage. Of this I am a total believer and it is this idea that will be our main focus.
At the next rehearsal I will run a couple of activities based on the work Stanislavski did on emotion memory. I will ask each of the actors to look at their scripts and when we run through a scene they must state which emotion their character is experiencing with each line being spoken. Some lines may have more than one emotion so I would ask that they stop their lines to give us a new adjective at the right moment. Afterwards we will discuss why they are experiencing these emotions and see if any of them felt they had to change their initial thoughts due to a reaction to another line of action on stage.
Another exercise I will deliver is to help get the actor in touch with the senses felt by the character. Stannislavski suggested that "Sensation memory and Emotion memory run parallel to one another". We all use our eyes and ears as our main senses when acting. We listen for our cues and work on our eye contact with the audience and other actors on stage to convey the emotion of the piece. However, I would like to help the actors to work with their other three senses.
Once all five senses are engaged and all emotions are understood the end result should be a wonderfully acted piece of theatre which totally engages the audience and that the actors deliver more than, as Stannislavski suggests, "Repeated a successful rehearsal instead of recreating a new living scene".
There are so many ways to engage your own experiences and knowledge of emotions and senses in order to create a successfully naturalistic performance and in the next blog I'll be talking more about how to gain on stage relationships.
If you've got all the way to the end of this I hope that it has been a bit helpful and insightful into the world of naturalism.
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