INTRODUCTION
Acting is a very fascinating aspect of the theatre. It is, indeed, the core of theatre art. The theatre does not exist without acting. In this unit, we will examine the concept of acting, the actor and his techniques, approaches to acting, the actor’s tools, as well as the various styles of acting.
3.1 The Concept of Acting
John Fernald expresses the view that “Acting is an activity which is misrepresented and misunderstood as any that has occupied man throughout his entire history”(65). This misconception is borne out of the fact that oftentimes, people see acting as merely “pretending to be someone else”. While indeed acting involves pretense, it is more than pretense in a professional sense, for above all, stage acting is communication. It is a process of handing a “finished theatrical product to the audience in an understandably way. Because acting is a complex process, it is often difficult to embody its totality in a definition. But because “theoretical works attempt to provide a way of understanding an art, a way of bringing knowledge about is within discursive thought” (Shank, 2), it is difficult to avoid definitions. Taking cognizance of the above, John Fernald posits:
Acting is communication. It is difficult to define its totality, but if I had to define it, I would say that it is the discovery of a truth implicit in an author’s words and the communication of that discovery to a live audience, some elements of which are a good deal further away from the actor than people normally are when the communication with one another by unamplified speech (65-66).
Whatever defect the above definition may contain, it throws a great deal of light on the concept of acting. It demonstrates that stage acting is a difficult affair. This is because not only that the actor must pretend, he must be a communicator of the truth implicit in the dramatic text. According to Fernald, “Historically, there seems always to have been a sort of dialectic between the truth of acting and the giving of that truth to the audience”(66). He further states that “sometimes the emphasis has been laid on sincerity and honesty of interpretation; sometimes it has been on the technique of how the audience is actually ‘hooked’ by the actor’s power” . But Fernald rightly concludes that “the facts of the matter are that the sincerity and the technique go together; the discovery of truth goes hand in hand with the discovery of how this truth reaches the audience, undistorted and unweakened by the process of communication” (66).
Acting is not a lazy man’s affair. It demands hard work because it is a creative process of interpreting and communicating the message(s) implicit in a dramatic text to the audience. Acting requires imaginative identification with the character being represented by the actor in order to be able to communicate the emotional status of the character to the audience. Great training in voice manipulation and projection, as well as physical body movement are required in acting.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1
What is acting?
3.2 The Actor
The actor is that person who makes possible the business of acting. An actor is that theatre worker whose duty as “a kind of salesman”, to use Duruaku’s term, is to offer the finished theatrical product to the audience. The actor derives his raw material from the playscript or by means of improvisation.
A good actor must be gifted with judgement and good taste. He must be cautious because the theatre is a field where vulgarity can thrive as easily as good taste, where foolishness can be decked out to look like wisdom, where self-indulgence and the desire for self-aggrandisement actually pay dividends, the temptation to be merely effective instead of true is strong”(Fernald, 69). Some actors in self exhibitionism pander to the base taste of the audience. In a state of self-indulgence, they falsify the truth of the dramatic text. Whatever imaginative flavour or perspective, an actor must introduce into a performance, it must help in bringing out the hidden truth in the dramatic text. Because it is easy for an actor to be self-indulgent, a true actor must be an unselfish person. This will enable him not to exceed the bounds of good taste in the enjoyment and application of his techniques.
An actor must show total commitment to the role he plays. This will enable him to bring out his best in interpreting and communicating the required traits of the character and the emotions he is recreating. In the words of Derek Bowskill, “the actor has much in common with the priest – both are intermediaries between what endures and what is transcient”. To him, both the actor and the priest aim to “celebrate the joys and fears of human condition – both do it in public as elevated representatives performing on behalf of the community”(8). The actor must go all out to touch the spirit of the audience. “It is his job to reach out to them – not theirs to struggle to contact him”(8). Total commitment ensures that the actor works at optimal level.
An actor must possess power of imagination. Although the director and an older actor can suggest ways and means of realizing a role, “to a young actor, part of the actor’s task is to offer “personal comment and enlightenment on the role he plays”(7). Imaginative thinking enables the actor to assess his role after reading the script or after being presented with a scenario in the case of improvisation, and form basic judgments about his role. An actor ought not to be a passive tool in the hand of the director. He should play active role in developing his part. Imaginative thinking enables the actor to see far into his role, to live out his part clearly in the mind. Ken Farmer in his book, Acting is Storytelling cites Ron Howard to have said:
I don’t look for a puppet or someone to recite the lines when I cast, I look for actors who can bring something special to the story, hopefully something no one has thought of yet. I look for creativity.
This implies that at the root of creative acting lies imaginative thinking. Actor must aspire to achieve clarity both in speech and movement if he hopes to affect his audience significantly. He must not allow his technique to come between the message and the audience. According to Bowskill:
It may be possible to justify obscurantism in esoteric, minority sub-cultures, but the essence of theatre is that it speaks to all men. It can never be truly itself nor work at optimal level when this is not the case (8)
Acting requires that the actor should be audible enough, exact in pronunciation and precise in movement.
An actor must be an ardent observer. In the society, life provides diverse circumstances and mannerism often analogous to stage activities. The actor must be a keen observer of the circumstances provided by actual living. This will help him in interpreting his role on stage. To Bowskill, “chance enters the prepared mind and an actor’s mind must be prepared to observe and select in all occasions” (9).
An actor is a deep meditator. Meditation is crucial in acting because it encourages absorption and concentration. It enables the actor to wade into the unknown and to acquire wafted in the spiritual realm. Because of the invaluable function of meditation in acting, current trainers of actors draw influence from Yoga, the Zen Budhist approach of educating the mind. Meditation enables the actor to pay attention to details.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2
Discuss two qualities of an actor.
3.3 Acting Techniques
According to A.B.C. Duruaku, “In order for the actor to accomplish his task successfully, he needs to be well equipped”(45). The method of equipping the actor is referred to as acting technique. Bowskill identifies two basic acting techniques. The first approach is to outline the dramatic experience to be communicated to the audience and leaves it to the actors to find their own means of expression. The second approach is to give the actors series of objectively described tasks – movements, words and gestures and then allow the actors to inject these tasks with meaning. Theatre directors are now aware that these approaches are not opposed to each, but that they play complementary role of helping to build the actor, his resources and the performance.
In the first method, actors are encouraged to use their imagination and their observed human qualities to be creative. The essence is to place the actors in front of their experiences and imagination to enable them to use them for artistic expression. According to Bowskill, the second approach is excellent in the beginning of creative work, that is when the actors are still in their embryonic stage. It is here that the concept of acting by design comes to play. However, there is no reason while these approaches should not be used in a single performance. “What is important is that the students should never be in doubt as to which method is being employed” (10).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3
What do you understand by acting technique?
3.4 Actor’s Tools
Actor’s tools are encapsulated in the actor’s total being. But for the purpose of clarity, the actor’s tools are his voice and body movement.
The Voice
In literary based performances, the actor’s voice is an indispensable tool of acting. Fernald cites the great Italian actor, Salvini as defining acting as voice. Thus to him, “Acting is more voice and more voice and again more voice”(69). In modern times, “without effective vocal instrument, the actor is useless; however perspective he may be about human psychology and character, he lacks the means to convey his message” (Fernald, 69-70). For the actor’s voice to be effective, “it must be coloured by feeling; it must be capable in fact of conveying a great many kinds of feeling” (70). Speech and voice will be given a detailed treatment in a separate unit.
Body Movement
No matter how great and wonderful, how musical and resonant the voice is, acting is possible without it. According to Fernald “A gesture, a turn of a head, sitting down, standing up, moving away a couple of paces – all these things can often take the place of the words which the author has written”(71).
A good actor never makes nervous or careless movement as this can impair understanding on the part of the audience. A disciplined actor selects his movements and gestures and makes them where they seem most appropriate. Fernald states that “to use the body as an effective instrument of expression usually involves using one part of the body only – that part of it which is appropriate to the effect which the actor wants”(73). He further maintains that “the rest of the body must be at repose, other wise it will distract by the kind of unconscious movement which the ‘ordinary man’ is always making” (73).
One quality of stage movement is balance. Bowskill rightly observes that “to retain a state of balance, any movement needs to be countered by one which is equal and opposite” (114). Moving both left leg and left hand forward at the same time when walking often generates awkward movement which the body usually resists. An actor must be conscious of balance if he must avoid nervous movement on stage. On stage the actor is expected to make measured movement in order to ensure balance. The stage is an organized place, and as such the actor must know details of his movement so as to know when and how to make each one. Bowskill states that “a careful and probing analysis of crucial moments will enable him to create the general rhythm within which he will work (115).
Stage movement is influenced by period and age, among other things. Bowskill opines that “period movement grows out of a way of life” . He goes on to particularize clothing as a major contributory factor at work. He is of the opinion that “the garments and perhaps more importantly the under-garments – of any period encourage certain patterns of movement and discourage, if not totally prevent, others”(121).
Age is a major factor that influences stage movement. Young people appear to be more brisk in movement than old people. Sometimes an actor may be required to play the role of a character whose age is far removed from his. In Nigeria, there is a tendency for young actors to stoop and speak in quivering voice when playing the role of old men. They do this as if bending down and speaking in shaking voice are archetypes of old age. Although loss of flexibility, agility, speed and effortless exactitude”(122) often accompany old age, it is important to observe that men and women vary in degree of possessing certain traits known to accompany old age. Certain occupations and sicknesses can make people to bend or speak in shaky voice at old age, but there are people who remain erect at old age and who never loose their voice until they die. The late great Zik of Africa was a typical example of a man filled with age but who never lost his voice and never stoops until death took him away in 1996. This may be attributed to certain types of job and good health condition. It is, therefore, necessary to do both occupational and health research on the character to be played in order to know the kind of movement that may be suitable for him or her.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5
Discuss one actor’s tool you know.
3.5 Acting Styles
Different styles of acting exist. They include classic, Romantic, Realistic and theatricalized acting.
Classic Acting
The classic style of acting is “characterized by a careful analysis of role to discover in it, a single – all pervading quality like ambition, pride, love of hearth, love of country and so on”, and the so discoursed quality is “then expressed with decorum in sing-song speech or in alternated passages spoken in different tones, in beautiful sculpturesque poses, and in graceful, dignified action” (Hewitt, 11-12). Operatic performances are mostly done in classic style. This style of acting is often used to describe the acting style of “John Philip Kemble (1757-1823) and Sarah Siddons (1757-1823), in England, Hyppolite Clairon (1723-1803) in France, August Wilhelm Iffland (1759-1814) in Germany, and Ivan Dimitrevsky (1734-1821) in Russia” (11). The classic style of acting dominated most part of the eighteenth century often referred to as the Age of Reason. Most contemporary Indian films make use of classic style of acting.
Romantic Style of Acting
John Talma (1763-1826) is said to have evolved romantic acting style. A French “rebel in politics as well as in art”, Talma provocatively explored the power of emotion rather than reason in acting. According to Barnard Hewitt, Talma “found his character’s humanity in his capacity to feel, expressing the deepest and strongest emotions in frenzied speech and violent movement”(12). In Romantic acting, the actor aspires to lead us into the unfathomable buttom of human passion.
Antonin Artuad proposed this type of acting in his theatre of cruelty. He wants his audience to be swept up in a flood of cries, groans, apparitions, surprises, incantational voices, etc. Although Romantic acting in its exploration of deep human emotion in tragedy many have “impressed many spectators as a more lifelike than classic acting, it was not realistic” for “the actors in his character still addressed asides and soliloquies to the audience”(Hewitt, 17). Romantic acting is “filled with raw emotion, of such characters as Richard III, Logo, and Shylock” (Brockett, 334). Most Shakespearean plays are acted in this tradition of acting.
Realistic Acting
Although since ancient times, theatre artists have been infusing productions with certain elements of realism, realistic style of acting was born in the second-half of the nineteenth century. The credit of evolving realistic style of acting is usually given to Andre Antoine (1875-1943), the French amateur actor who founded the Theatre Libre in 1887 in France. In his theatre, Antoine ensured that “actors had to learn to speak and move like ordinary human beings in ordinary environments, not like idealized or typical characters on an platform (Hewitt, 63). In realist acting, the stage appears like a normal living room with real furniture and household utensils at their appropriate places. Actors address one another as if the audience is not there. Hewitt opines that speech embodies “the tentativeness, the elisions, the incoherences of speech in ordinary life” (23).
Constantine Stanislavski, a co-founder of The Moscow Art Theatre took the final step in consolidating realistic acting style. Through his exploration of the psychological disposition of his characters, he extended the frontiers of Realistic acting. Barnard Hewitt observes that he “progressed in acting and production from a meticulous exterior realism to the re-creation of the inner emotional life of characters with a truth undiluted by stage tradition and undistorted by the actor’s ego”(68). In order to touch the inner life of the character, Stanislavski advocated the concept of emotional memory. In this technique, the actor is encouraged to make a mental journey to his past experience, in order to be able to create appropriate emotions on stage. Emotional memory would enable the actor to behave as if he is the character. Emotional memory or “the Magic IF, as it is sometimes called, is aimed at improving the actor’s ability to feel or empathize. Lee Strassberg and Elia Kazan, among other people connected with the “New York Actors” adapted Stanislavski’s ideas on acting in America. They called their technique – Method Acting. Actors trained in this technique are referred to as method actors. Stanislavski’s ideas on theatre and acting in particular are embodied in his books such as My Life in Art, An Actor prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role.
Realistic acting emphasizes ensemble performance. In ensemble acting equal attention is paid to every actor. The idea of the star actor(s) is de- emphasized. Interest is on total dramatic effect not on the promotion of star actors.
Theatricalised Acting
This is perhaps the oldest form of acting. Theatricalized acting is characterized by symbolic movements, and stylized gestures. Speech is declaimed, sung or chanted. The masked actor, the Kabuki and Noh actors of Japan, as well as the expressionist actor, among others, exemplify theatricalized acting. In addressing the expressionist actor, Paul Kornfeld is cited by Barnard Hewitt to have written in the epilogue of his expressionist play thus:
Let not the actor … behave as though the thoughts and words he has to express have only arisen in him at the very moment in which he recites them…. Let him dear to stretch his arms out wide and with a sense of soaring speak as he has never spoken in his life…. Let him pick out the essential attributes of reality and be nothing but a representative of thought, feeling or fate (115).
Although we have outlined some identifiable acting styles, it is important to observe that classic, romantic, realistic and theatricalized styles should be “recognized as shorthand symbols to describe the basic colouring” (Vargas, 152) of performances. Too often, a performance is “an amalgam of diverse elements”(152). In a romantically dominated acting, one can find elements that are typical of classic, or realistic or theatricalise acting. We are trying to highlight here that acting styles are not mutually exclusive; they benefit and borrow from one another, especially in modern times.
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 5
What do you understand by realistic acting?
Exercises/Actor’s Training
. Exercises constitute a significant part of an actor’s training. They enable the actor to service his tools just like the owner of a car would service his car.
. Exercises enable the actor to have a perfect control of every part of his body, and not to make nervous movements while on stage.
. Exercises furnish the actor with necessary energy to perform unnatural and superhuman activities.
. Through exercises the internal body organs such as the lungs, the heart and the liver can be made to function well.
. Exercises enhance actor’s agility.
. Exercises that border on meditation help to educate the imagination of the actor and to make him to have power of imagination.
. Through exercises an actor can learn to relax, concentrate, breathe well, as well as to take certain postures which an ordinary man cannot take with ease.
Exercises should form a regular part of an actor’s approach to his work. They are useful to him whether he is rehearsing or in actual performance. Bowskill argues that “approached with concentration and pursued with diligence, they will reward the student with a slow but regular growth towards increased sensitivity and sensibility” (52-52).
SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 6
List and explain two functions of exercises in an actor’s development.
4.0 CONCLUSION
We explained that Acting is not merely pretending to be someone else. We described it as an interpretative means of communicating the message inherent in a dramatic text to the audience. We maintained that in Acting, voice and body movements constitute the actor’s major tools.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we examined concept of Acting. We equally discussed who the actor is, as well as the qualities an actor should possess. We examined acting techniques, the actor’s instruments, which we identified as the actor’s body and voice. We finally examined acting styles, as well as the roles of exercises in the training of the actor.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
What is Acting.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READINGS
Bowskill, Derek (1979). Acting and Stagecraft Made Simple. London: W.H. Allen.
Brockett, Oscar G. and Franklin J. Hildy (1999). History of the Theatre. Eighth Edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Duruaku, A.B.C. (1997). A Handbook on Drama and Theatre. Owerri: Colon Concepts.
Farmer, F. Ken (1999/2000). What is Acting?
http://acting.freeservers.com
Fernald, John (1971). “Acting”. In Drama and the theatre with Radio, Film and Television. Ed. John Russel Brown. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Hewitt, Barnard (1970). History of the Theatre from 1800 to the Present. New York: Random House.
Shank, Theodore (1969). The Art of Dramatic Art. New York: Dell.
Stanislavsky, Constantin (1936). An Actor Prepares. Trans Elizabeth R. Hapgood. New York:
Vargas, Luis (1960). The Teach Yourself Guidebook to the Drama. London: The English Universities Press.
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