For today's journal, I want to review all the methods that I've learned thus far and that I plan to incorporate into my method of developing a character.
❖ Stanislavski
➢ You should feel what you portray; feelings and emotions.
➢ You must repeat each performance fresh, as if you're experiencing it for the first time.
➢ Live the character; see the world of the play through their eyes.
➢ Everything must have a purpose; every task, every movement, every facial expression, every word.
❖ Strasberg
➢ Develop the history of the character, including pre-play history.
➢ Where did your character come from? What has he experienced? What are his beliefs, his values, his strengths, his weaknesses, etc.
➢ If there's no history, try coming up with some yourself. Experiment!
❖ Adler
➢ Use imagination to build your character's background. Think big!
➢ What does your character look like? How does he carry himself? How does he move around?
➢ Envision yourself as your character; focus on the appearance.
➢ Envision the environment in which the play takes place; this can help you get into the world of the play and away from the world of the auditorium.
❖ Meisner
➢ Instinctive, interacting with the environment without thinking about it.
➢ Repetition, repetition, repetition.
➢ May only be good for line memorization; still, see what you can do with it.
❖ Hagen
➢ Six Step Approach
1.Who am I?
• What is my present state of being?
• How do I perceive myself?
• What am I wearing?
2.What are the circumstances?
• What time is it? (The year, the season, the day? At what time does my selected life begin?)
• Where am I? (In what city, neighborhood, building and room do I find myself? Or in what landscape?)
• What surrounds me? (The immediate landscape? The weather? The condition of the place and the nature of the objects in it
• What are the immediate circumstances? (What has just happened, is happening? What do I expect or plan to happen next and later on?)
3.What are my relationships?
• How do I stand in relationship to the circumstances, the place, the objects, and the other people related to my circumstances?
4.What do I want?
• What is my main objective? My immediate need or objective?
5.What is my obstacle?
• What is in the way of what I want? How do I overcome it?
6.What do I do to get what I want?
• How can I achieve my objective? What's my behavior? What are my actions?
So far, these all seem like very good methods that I can use. I may have to find a particular order to put them in, to make my own method. And no doubt, there are other methods that I've yet to read about that can be of use to me. This is all good to know, but I still have a long way to go to complete my method, and then comes the real challenge: testing it to see if it even works. I'll know if it does when I choose my five monologues.
YOU ARE READING
The Senior Capstone Project Journal of Aaron J. Holt
No FicciónUpon completing his senior year at the University of Minnesota, Aaron J. Holt put his theatrical skills to the test. Tasked with creating his own character development method, Aaron drew from various methods. Then, to prove that it worked, he had to...
