Playing People That Matter

Unpacking Actor’s approach

When you are thinking about an actor's performance to write about in an exam setting you will want to build a comprehensive profile of how they used their body, voice, movement and use of space. Details about motivation, ideas or symbols they highlighted and moments of subtext that pointed to themes or relationship dynamics. You will want to link these details to specific moments in the performance, describing what was happening on stage and linking to big ideas and wider context. These activities will enable you to build a kētē of information about characters you found compelling or who were integral to the narrative:

COMPREHENSIVE ROLE ON THE WALL:

Draw an outline of your character or your teacher may give you an outline to work with. You will want to have space on the inside of the outline and around the outside. Put the characters age and approximate age in the top right hand corner of the page. Then use the following prompts to comprehensively annotate inside and outside of the outline: Inside:

• Motivations and how these stay the same, grow stronger or change throughout the performance

• Internal emotions and how these develop or change throughout

• How they feel about other characters in the performance and how this is communicated through subtext - you could include quotes

• How they see themselves.

Outside:

• The characters purpose within the story

• Personality, key characteristics, how they communicate with people, how they come across to others

• Their relationships and the strength of those connections

• Their behaviour and what externally motivates them

• Style of movement, use of voice, and defining use of gesture and body

• How they use space to demonstrate power

• How they are perceived by other characters

• Important statements or quotes from the performance or from the interviews in this education pack.

Join up with a peer and discuss how your understanding of those characters has developed or expanded.

EXPLORING DONOGH REES AND SHAAN KEESA’S INTERVIEWS, AS WELL AS “AN ACTOR PREPARES”:

• Read the interviews

• Circle or highlight ideas that interest you or provide insight

• Get into pairs or small groups and share what you have circled or highlighted and explain why. Make notes or a brainstorm to record your ideas

• Choose a scene that highlights either Rees or Keesas’ characters and connects to ideas you have identified. As a group brainstorm how you might talk about the scene, describing what was physically happening on stage for that character. You could present this to the rest of the class as a: (make sure you save a copy of whatever form you complete this task in)

• Fleshed out brainstorm

• A verbal presentation with written prompts

• A written response

• Acting out a scene and explaining what you are doing.