Originally Posted By: Avy
That I agree with. The writer has no business writing stage directions anyway -IMHO. I meant the tension in the dialogue - in writing the words of the dialogue to create tension/emotion. Sometimes the words of some playwrights are so strong I wonder if they leave no place for the actor to work. Do you prefer dialogue that works just for the plot rather than strongly suggests the character because character is what you will do and the strong suggestion in the words of the dialogue gives you no room to experiment. It is easy for a writer to nail a character so that there room left for pluralism.
If I am not clear enough, I'll just drop this.
I enjoyed reading your example. Funnee. smile
I wanted to ask another question about acting, and acting is about words and langauge...


Five years ago I got to play Lear. I really resent how much the playwright limited my scope!

Whoa! I guess I've been gone a while. I've been busy at the high school, assistant director of this year's musical (RENT), which happens in ten days. Schools are closed this week for "spring" break.

Avy, Yours is a very complex question, and I've been flip-flopping on an answer. I think where I come out is that a character with lots of information provided is just a different kind of challenge from one who hasn’t. If the character is muscle-bound by the writing, probably the whole play is like that, and thus not very good. I don't think I've ever been cast in a role in which I felt that it wouldn't really matter who played it, that it would always come out the same, if that's what you're asking. In general, the more lines I have the more information I have about the character. Depending on how I approach it, that could mean less space to work in or more material to build with. The latter, I think, is the healthier, more fruitful attitude. That's the key: the attitude that the actor brings. Regardless of the role, you work with what you're given. Again in general, the roles with more lines, or more lines spoken about them, are the ones more central to the action, so that the plot action is driven by who they are, how they must act, so in that sense the writing is limiting, but in a positive way. The so-called minor characters (I'm a very egalitarian person: I do not believe that the the larger the role the more important it is. It is the same with the people playing the roles; and I despise actors who think they're inherently superior to, and more intelligent than, the shy young woman who's running the sound.) have to be built in a more round-about way. If the playwright gives you:

Mitzi's hotel room. A knock on the door. Mitzi sighs, throws back her Scotch, opens the door.

OFFICER CRAIGMEYER
Ma'am, the sergeant would like to see you down in the lobby. Five minutes.

That's all there is of Officer Craigmeyer. Say that the role has been given to a 60+ year-old male who can pass for late 40s. That limits the character far more than the playwright did, but tells us nothing about how he should deliver his one line. Almost anybody who can speak English could deliver the line and the play would go on, but if it's done without a sense of the character it'll stand out as a bad moment in the play, possibly the only thing the audience will remember. The actor has to put the cop's world into that line: he played football in high school; got kicked out of Harvard for some unproven infraction; twenty-five years on and off the police force; this is his first week back at work after recovering from a shooting; he hates women, and his sergeant is a woman. So, as we see, is Mitzi. All these things, and a zillion more, can contribute to that one line, none of it from the playwright, but it has to be believable, has to fit the play.

All for now: past my bedtime.

Peter

Last edited by Tromboniator; 03/15/11 10:58 AM.