Acting: How to Think and Feel like the Character

One symptom that an actor is having trouble communicating a character's thought to another character is when the actor, as Pasty describes it, "falls off the line" or "drops the end of the line." Basically, the actor is not supporting or holding the thought "up" as they speak and the line. Often what happens is pronouns, adverbs and adjectives are "pushed," i.e., either inflected up or down relative to the rest of the line. A clear symptom of trouble is when the last word or words in a line are inflected down- or upward relative to the words that have just come before.

Pasty Rodenburg, in Speaking Shakespeare explains it better than I can. Assume that a character needs 8 lines or sentences to communicate one thought -- that's unusual, but assume this just to follow the argument. If the actor "drops" any one of these lines, the audience (and the other actors) won't be able to really follow and understand what the character is saying:

The onward dynamic of the line becomes so interrupted that the audience loses it's essential energy and sense. And every time the audience hears the line fall, it assumes the thought is over -- which makes the eight-line thought (necessarily a long and complicated one) impossible to follow.

The actor might be feeling and experiencing something very deeply during those eight lines, but -- no one is going to know exactly why because they won't be able to follow the character. The actor might be experiencing a lot of passion -- but about what exactly? If this happens consistently, the play is lost on the audience (and the actors).

She gives another example: Isabella's verse speech from Measure for Measure:

To whom should I complain? Did I tell this,
Who would believe me? O perilous mouths . . .

The first complete thought run from "To" to me?" There are two lines here with the first and last words being:

First           Last
To              this
Who           mouths

First, speak the text but "drop" the last word "this," as if the thought ends there. While you're at it, drop "complain" too. Then drop "me." If an actors acts the lines like this, they will NOT be going though the experience that Isabella is having. They may be going through their own experience -- but not her's, and that's the actors job. The actor need to hold up those two lines and not drop "complain" and "this:"

If you launch yourself on the first word of a line and aim to hit the target on the last, you won't fall off the line . . . As long as you have spoken each word completely, touching each syllable and final consonant, you will have felt the kick of energy that starts the line and how it is harnessed on the last word . . . Thus, 'To' throws you forward, and the s on 'this' hisses you into the second line, completing the thought mid-way to 'me.' (Pasty Rodenburg, Speaking Shakespeare).

Next time you're in rehearsal or at a play, listen to how an actor speaks though a line -- are they speaking right though to the end, holding it "up" right to the last word, or are they dropping the end of the sentence? Actors who really understand what the character is trying to say will almost never "fall off" the end of the line or stress unimportant words over the words that carry most of the meaning.

Pasty suggests a terrific exercise to get a handle on this:

First, pick a line which is one complete thought to work though. This exercise can be particularly informative about a [character's] thought that troubles you or that you don't fully understand, e.g., "To be or not to be, that is the question."

* Build up the thought breath by breath and word by word: breath -> 'To'; breath -> 'To be'; breath -> 'To be or'; breath -> 'To be or not' etc.
* Gradually build up the complete thought. Never speak until you are ready. When the thought has been worked thought in this way, speak it straight through and see what you experience.
* Now move on to a longer thought and repeat the same pattern: breath -> 'Whether'; breath -> 'Whether 'tis'; breath -> 'Whether 'tis nobler', etc.

By building up the words on a deep, supported breath, you have to confront each word intellectually and emotionally. You have to stay in the moment with each word. You cannot dodge a word or slide over it. (Patsy Rodenburg, The Actor Speaks, Exercise 49: Building-up Support).

While I hate the director's directive "you need to pick up the pace," and I really REALLY hate speed thoughs (especially if the intention is to get the actors to go faster in performance), they can be a director's attempt to "fix" a problem they're hearing with an actor's reading, but -- if often creates more problems than it solves:

Many directors working with a young actor who cannot sustain a long thought will try and circumvent the problem by asking him or her to speak quickly. I understand the thinking behind this request: thoughts, spoken quickly, can help communicate a lengthy idea. But the piece of direction has drawbacks. Asked to quicken their pace, actors frequently are panicked into gasping and losing their breath connection to the words. Sense is soon garbled [i.e., the audience can't follow the dialogue, the play, can't understand, really, what the characters are talking about]. (Pasty Rodenburg, The Actor Speaks).

And in case you think this is just some weird acting technique that has nothing to do with language and how people (who speak well) really speak, check this out:

Gary Provost wrote a terrific book almost 40 years ago that is still a best seller (100 Ways to Improve Your Writing), and he has a neat section (that took me by surprise) called “Put Emphatic Words at the End,” and I’ll just quote the advice he gives to burgeoning and seasoned writers:

Emphatic words are those words you want the reader (or hearer) to pay special attention to. They contain the information you are most anxious to communicate. You can acquire that extra attention for those words by placing them at the end of the sentence.

He continues:

This is a lesson best learned by ear. Listen to how the impact of a sentence moves to whatever information happens to be at the end.

Shakespeare didn’t write: I come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.
He wrote: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

JFK didn’t write: Ask what you can do for America, not what America can do for you.
He wrote: Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

So, great writers know where to put the really important stuff – at the end!