Subjective Nature Of Acting

Before this course began, I used to think that acting was all about the individual actor, and how well that actor can portray his/her character. I thought that actors in a play work as distinctive units, and that if every unit can perform his/her character realistically and execute every line flawlessly, the final performance would be fantastic, and the audience would have a great time. Acting 1 has taught me that the art of acting is actually much more intricate and eclectic than individuals putting on their own show, that a satisfactory performance required far more work than delivering every line correctly. At first, I completely overlooked fundamental elements of acting such as communication, reaction, emotion, and balance. I now understand …show more content…
There are no hard conclusions or perfect portrayals when discussing plays, mainly because every rendition has unique features that make it stand apart from the others. Oftentimes, a performance of a play cannot be said to be better than other performances, because there simply is not an algorithm that can objectively rank all productions of a particular play. The subjective nature of performance art is what makes it so interesting and different from other academic studies. There aren’t any exact guidelines or procedures we must follow to become good actors or to portray characters perfectly. Only suggestions and techniques exist to help us improve on our representation of the objective content published about a character by the playwright. A book by Mike Alfreds, entitled Different Every Night: Freeing the Actor, highlights some of these tips to help actors and directors perform successfully. After reading it, I now have a better understanding of the work professional actors and theater groups go through before they’re finally able to perform in front of an audience. Although the duration of most plays range from one to two hours, the rehearsal journey can take up to months or even years. Just like how a piano recital may only last ten minutes, a pianist may need to practice for ten years until his/her craft can be appreciated by other …show more content…
Because characters exist in a completely different world and may hold diametrically opposed attitudes, beliefs, and worldviews compared to us, there is often difficulty when assessing how much of “us” we should bring into the performance. On one side, there are actors who solely portray themselves when performing. The performance may appear authentic and real, but it doesn’t capture who the character is supposed to be or what he/she represents, due to the inherent differences between the actor and the character. On the other side, there are also those who try to hide behind their character, and do not bring any resemblance of themselves on stage. Alfreds refers to this way of acting as hiding behind a character, in order for the actor to feel more secure and less exposed. Neither side is ideal, and Alfreds offers some solutions to this dilemma. “Actors must reach out from their habitual selves towards a character, rather than imposing themselves on a character,” he writes (page 204). I find this notion quite interesting, considering that I was attempting to branch out of my comfort zone and reshape my demeanor and mindset to fit that of Katurian’s. However, after reading this, I realized that I kept much of myself while playing as Katurian. I basically asked myself, “what would I do, feel, or say,” if I was put in the scenarios illustrated in The Pillowman.