An Actor Prepares

Donogh Rees shares some valuable insights about preparing to play a role in a scripted play.

The first thing you do as an actor is read the script.

While you are doing this you have two elements running through your head at the same time. Firstly, there is you experiencing the journey of the play, the overall story - like the audience first seeing it. Then there is the actor in you noticing the audience in you experiencing the journey. Noticing, for example, the unexpected within the story, you will clock the audience part of you feeling that and, in your head, you go, “I must remember that first reaction” so you can recreate that for the audience.

You observe where you were moved, or surprised, where you laughed out loud, or where you wept. Whatever you are observing, the audience in you is remembering that first impact.

This is because the story telling is what we are doing, and the audience is who we are doing it for.

Next, the actor part of you is observing your character’s particular journey and how they affect the story or other characters within it. You observe the way your character speaks, what language they use, how they use it, what sparks their responses to the given situation or their responses to what other characters say or do to them. These are clues to who they are and how they think, and it also helps in the learning of lines.

You note what they say about others in the play, or perhaps their comments of the world outside the play, political or social.

You note what others say about your character - but that doesn’t necessarily inform you about who your character is, if for example they dislike your character because you are related to someone they hate or has done damage to them (not what you have done but who you may know).

Everyone has prejudices so they are interesting to note too and may be true about your character, or not.