Peter, you said there were places where you were uncomfortable with the playwrights choices in dialogue; has there been any instances where you were uncomfortable with the playwright's choice of action for the character? Have you ever had your study of a character not fit one action that the writer has him do.
Being uncomfortable with an action is a far cry from not having it fit. If the play is going to work, then all of a character's actions have to fit, no matter how convoluted the shaping process. It's my job, with or without the director's help, to figure out how to make it fit. It doesn't have to be rational: the character may not be rational; but the actions have to fit the character, the character has to fit the actions. If I can't justify my character's action, then I'm not reading the character right. That, in conjunction with figuring out how the character says the lines, is far more work than the memorization of lines or blocking.
