Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?
Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/13/04
Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#1
Posted: 5/20/07 at 9:58pm
Do you work through all the tear jerking stuff during rehearsals so that you don't react to it onstage?
Just curious because last night I attended a play and tonight a documentary that have both left me wrung out. I'm exhausted.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/20/07
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#2
Posted: 5/20/07 at 10:00pm
I'm sorry, I don't understand the question. We always rehearse the material so if it's difficult emotion, we get through it before going on stage...
Is that what you mean?
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/13/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#2
Posted: 5/20/07 at 10:03pmit never comes back up onstage to bite you?
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#3
Posted: 5/20/07 at 10:09pm
Well not so much as it comes back to bite you, but when youre actually performing it, it becomes easier to let go and really feel that emotion again.
But at the same time, you've rehearsed to death so you'll still be able to control it.
=).
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/20/07
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#4
Posted: 5/20/07 at 10:13pmWell when I did RAGTIME, we did all the sobbing during rehearsals. But when I was off stage watching certain scenes that involved Coalhouse I was all about the tears, as were the rest of us. Luckily, when you're performing the show onstage, you're so worried about making sure everything is going well. Obviously, I'm sure when you're in a dramatic scene that is really difficult you are focusing on that, making your job all the easier. I was Evelyn, so I didn't have that much tearing up to do, but I know the girl who played Mother would always cry onstage during BACK TO BEFORE and that only made it better.
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#5
Posted: 5/21/07 at 1:18am
I'm not a Method actor, so my advice comes from that perspective:
You don't play the emotion. You play the action that gets you what you want. The emotion is a result. And you have to honor the truth of that given performance. After time, one tends to become fairly consistent. Rehearsals are for discovering how high the stakes are--how badly does your character want something? How difficult is the other character making it for you? You always have to play truthfully off of the latter.
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/20/07
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#6
Posted: 5/21/07 at 1:22amWell said, jrb.
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#7
Posted: 5/21/07 at 1:39am
You don't play the emotion. You play the action that gets you what you want. The emotion is a result.
Yes, yes, yes.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/13/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#8
Posted: 5/21/07 at 2:19ambut do the actors get caught up in the emotion, too, or does the audience pick up on it more because it's new to them?
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/9/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#9
Posted: 5/21/07 at 9:13am
Depends on the actor. But really, who wants to hear a shouting screaming, tear soaked "To be or not to be..." Can you imagine how uneffective "Another Winter In A Summer Town" would be if Ebersole was wracked with sobs throughout.
All this reminds me of something I saw on Bravo years ago which featured Judi Dench in rehearsals for A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC. She was singing "Send In The Clowns" and tears were streaming down her face. The last note of the song came to an end and, not missing a beat, she muttered "Well, that'll never work."
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/3/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#10
Posted: 5/21/07 at 10:11am
For me, it is 100% about affecting the audience, so what I'm feeling as an actor is less than secondary. i.e., make them cry instead of worrying if you cry.
It's about learning empathy. If you're too affected by something, it is because you aren't in the scene. If you stay in the scene, you won't need to bother with whether or not you'll get too affected by it.
Borstal, I remember that from Judi. I remember her as saying, "I shant do it like that at all..." when she finished. And, I remember thinking, "Good!" It's virtuosic, but not right for that moment -- and, Dench, being a British actor, has an end state of the audience, not the actor being involved.
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#11
Posted: 5/21/07 at 10:22amI try to show at least some emotion during rehearsals, but I'd probably not give it my all until the Dress Rehearsal and the actual performances. If you're doing it full power all along, it probably gets old by the time you're actually performing. Then again, if you were a pro doing the same show every night, you'd have to get used to being consistent and doing the same every night (and day).
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#12
Posted: 5/21/07 at 10:34am
I would say that I don't try to make the audience do anything. I try to make the other character give me what I want. The director is responsible for what the audience gets. But that's just the philosopy I have been taught. And sometimes the other character IS the audience. :)
vmlinnie--you should always give your all--what you rehearse is what you will perform. That's the nature of habit. If it's stale, you are trying to recreate something instead of creating something new every time. You are never getting the exact same impulses from the other actor, therefore, you can never recreate the scene exactly the same.
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#13
Posted: 5/21/07 at 10:59amwhenever i'm in a show, i usually copy my emotions from the actors of other movies.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/3/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#14
Posted: 5/21/07 at 4:47pmJerby, I feel ya. And I 100% agree about rehearsing like you perform, and each time being different. For me, though, objective is less important than experience. Objective comes into play during the creation of a role, but the audience always completes that picture (as they are the main object of theatre). Meisner works wonders for many many actors, but for me, it created too flat a palate. The stuff the French and Brits teach is more my cup of tea -- I especially dig smart acting methods like Lecoq.
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#15
Posted: 5/21/07 at 4:51pm
I'm curious what you mean by experience.
And playing the want is never flat if you are truly playing it.
ETA: And how does one use Lecoq for something like Williams or O'Neill?
Updated On: 5/21/07 at 04:51 PM
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#16
Posted: 5/21/07 at 4:59pmI'm currently working on some scenes from "Angels in America" and I'm being emotionally torn up by it. Most of what's said is what I agree with, you just kind of have to learn to control the emotion, there are very few people that would fall on the ground in a screaming crying mess, and unless your character is one of those very few people then you really need to get a grip on how much you want to show the audience. I'm having a hard time finding that balance.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/13/05
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#17
Posted: 5/21/07 at 9:07pm
Since I am still in high school and haven't really officially trained in acting, I am not up to par with the names and terminologies used by jrb and touchme. However, from what I've observed in my childhood/adolescent acting experiences, I've been exposed and drawn more toward the English school, and I agree with most of what is said here.
During rehearsals, unless I am walking through a scene quickly to help the lighting designer (ie, no lines, just standing in place), I always give it my all during rehearsals. By giving it your all, you are able to explore your full yet developing work before it is shipped out to the public.
During rehearsals (and performances), even if I go through a scene five times in a row, I never perform it the same way. What my character's going for, and the overall attitude I perform are both the same, however, I find new nuances every time I go through the scene.
jrb...are there any books you'd suggest to help me research the methods/terminologies you've mentioned?
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#18
Posted: 5/22/07 at 1:35am
Oh, one should def mark during tech rehearsals except when asked to play fully. As long as they know you are marking. You can't possibly get through 10 out of 12s (or even simpler tech rehearsals) otherwise.
My philosophy of acting has become fairly rooted in the David Mamet/Atlantic Theater Company (which is very Meisner influenced).
Thus, I recommend:
A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder
True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet
The Monologue Audition: A Practical Guide for Actors by Karen Kohlhaas (The DVD of this is great stuff--to be honest, I haven't read the book yet)
Mamet is very controversial for being anti-Method/Stanislavski. But I believe that any actor can read Practical Handbook and/or take basic classes at the Atlantic and take away a truly brilliant way to analyze a scene/play to find your objectives--however you use them. And the repetition/Meisner aspect is all about learning how to truly live in the moment by acting off of what your acting partner is actually doing in any given performance--to not presuppose the energy of the scene.
I believe that whatever technique works for you is the one you should use--I just find this to be a particularly revelatory technique for me after having never connected with Method and feeling like a sham for not. Read those first two books and you may see into that same feeling. I think most all of us use a combination of techniques.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/16/06
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#19
Posted: 5/22/07 at 1:54am
My high school critical writing teacher [who loves Mamet] gave me a handout from that book.
Really, I have no specific system of breaking down scenes and feelings. To me, it highly depends on the play, and the given character. How I played God compared to how I am currently tackling the role of Linus is quite different.
"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are over, men recognize that the human race has been harshly treated but it has moved forward." - Les Miserables
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#20
Posted: 5/22/07 at 2:01amWell the interesting difference between Method and Mamet's technique are in just that--in Method, an actor recalls an experiences that took place. In Mamet's, an actor imagines an experience that is never happened. In the former, you are likely to presuppose emotional state, the end result, the other person's actions and reactions. In the latter, anything can happen and you should be prepared for such.
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/3/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#22
Posted: 5/24/07 at 9:47pm
jerby, i dont think that's exactly Method. Method is the philosophy that in order to do it, you have to actually do it. So, if you are asking a question in a scene, you actually ask it...I think people think of Method and substitution as the same thing, but that was actually only the first year of the two year program Stanislavski brought over here to the states. Oddly, Strasberg took the first year of the program and thought he understood Method -- and thus, bad acting at the Actor's Studio began.
To answer your earlier question -- Lecoq is a traditionally (and mostly) physical technique, so it can be applied to anything. Neutral Mask and triangulation are techniques, though, that require a master teacher to get anything out of them. They are very simple techniques, but I've found them really profound -- even when I'm doing film/tv work, I use them. But, I studied non-Strasberg stuff because I would get so annoyed at those actors who leave the scene you're doing with them to go back and relive some trauma...I always just want to say "play THIS moment! it's called imagination and empathy!!"
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#23
Posted: 5/24/07 at 9:53pm
I should have said in my previous post that those are techniques for rehearsal only. Onstage, you play the realities of the scene. You just do those techniques when you are discovering.
Well, I should learn more about Lecoq, particularly in how they can be used in film/contemp drama. 
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/3/04
re: Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?#24
Posted: 5/24/07 at 10:00pmyou should also be careful who you study Lecoq with -- there are a few teachers out there (since Lecoq was a Phys Ed guy) who like to teach using public scrutiny to reduce their students into willing servants. For me, that has no place in the creative arts -- but, some people it works best on. I'm just not one of em.
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