anactor-throughamirror

[anactor-throughamirror]

This is going to piss off a lot of c!Dream haters but hear me out:

One thing while being in acting school is that I have to learn a character no matter the morals. If I am playing a villain, I need to justify the character’s actions no matter what. Take for example the character Babe in the play ‘Crimes of the Heart’ written by Beth Henley.

Babe had shot her husband because (SPOILERS FOR THE PLAY) he had punched/slapped a 15 year old boy, and she also doesn’t like him. However, you as an actor have to justify that what she did was right…. ALL of it. No matter. What. Babe recounts to her sister, Meg, the events that unfolded leading up to when she shot her husband, Zackary, INCLUDING having slept with said 15 year old boy, Willie Jay, canonically twice. Meg, rightfully, is horrified because Willie Jay is only 15 years old, he’s but a child still compared to Babe’s 24/26 years of age. But still, Meg bites her tongue and swallows her pride and tries to get her sister to explain why she shot her husband to the lawyer.

Crimes of the Heart is extreme, and should not be read by the faint of heart. But going off that, an actress playing Babe would, no matter what, have to justify the character’s actions. And the actress playing Meg acknowledges this but has another ‘need’ in mind.

This is where I bring Uda Hagen’s six steps of characterization:

1) Who am I? (What is my present state of being? How do I perceive myself?)

2) What are my circumstances? (What time is it? Where am I?)

3) What are my relationships?

4) What do I want? (Objective, or need)

5) What is my obstacle? (What is in the way of what I want?)

6) What do I do to get what I want? (What are my actions?)

Uda Hagen wrote these six questions for the actor to answer as the character. Typically done after reading a script, the questions can be answered relatively easy.

Next, I want to bring up choreographer, Irmgard Bartenieff. A student under Rudolf Laban, Bartenieff was also a physical therapist for polio patients. Having never had polio herself, Bartenieff doesn’t really know how to treat her patients correctly. She does, however, puts herself in their place and sees that there is real struggle in moving when you have polio.

Bartenieff’s Fundamentals are used in acting when embodying a character. You don’t simply show up to rehearsal, pretend your the character, say your lines then leave. You show up to rehearsals, become the character, and the rest is up to the character.

Acting is being aware of your physical and emotional state.

Going back to the Dream SMP, before I explain this, I want you to close your eyes, breathe in deep, exhale and let go what makes you, you. Now place yourself in c!Dream’s shoes.

You have this mentality that what you’re doing is right. You have this set of rules for your world and you expect people to follow it. You are then confronted by someone who breaks these rules, and another that wants independence. YOU don’t want factions to break off. What YOU want is a family.

Breathe in and exhale. Continue.

You are reluctantly thrown into battle before finally stopping after an offer was made. An offer that was to gain the freedom of this ‘nation’ and you take it. It was an offer. Key word: offer. You allow the nation to prosper and rejoice and expand, and lay low for a few days.

Breathe in and exhale. Continue.

Suddenly you find yourself meeting with the very same people that were against you, and you are giving them resources to survive after they were exiled from their ‘home.’ You help to your best ability while also remaining in the shadows. You had full intentions of joining them, until there was an offer.

Breathe in and exhale. Continue.

The offer is life and death for the price of your involvement. You take it. You are now on the opposing side. You and your comrades fight the people you swore you’d help. Then you surrender.

Breathe in and exhale. Continue.

After explosions and death, you suddenly find your sanity cracking. The seeds of chaos was planted in you, and now that one obstacle was gone, you needed to get another one out of the way.

Breathe in and exhale. Continue.

You’re not free anymore. Bound to a dark box surrounded by lava with nothing to eat but raw potatoes, you are visited by former friends who bark at you that you deserve to be here. You still think you can escape the inescapable. Then someone begins to visit you daily, and tortures you for information that’s keeping you alive. This goes on for months. Your only way out is also in prison with you, and the torture doesn’t cease.

Yet.

You are still considered a villain.

Despite the fact that you are being tortured in far worse conditions for longer than you had exiled a kid. A kid that still had the world at his will, and food to cook and eat. You?

You are tortured on a daily basis for four + months for information that is keeping you from losing your life for good and someone you’re still to blame for everything?

It doesn’t make sense.

You are only human despite yourself.