"The script is like the inflatable doll before it's been inflated, and when you see an actor in the zone, who understands the character and who understands their craft, it's like watching the air fill it up and it turns out to be a shape that you never considered before." --Steven Soderbergh, independent film director, (Traffic, Erin Brokovich)
"Character is the history of the person playing the role, meeting the imagination of the writer. It is out of the meeting of those two things that character arises." --Richard Seyd, director and acting teacher
1. Description
2. An excerpt
3. Table of contents
4. Review
Questions
Sitcom Characters : Television has engendered an application of character that is fairly unique. Sitcoms, or situation comedies, are creatures of the thirty-minute television format. If presented in the theatre they would be considered a one-act play. In such a brief segment there is not enough time to develop fresh characters and settings each week. To overcome this limitation, the situation (cast and setting) are constant, and only the plot changes. The setting usually involves the home and workplace of the main characters. Even the humor must be compressed and accelerated to fit within the time limit. To accomplish this most sitcom humor is just a series of one-liners, jokes and gags strung together along a simple plot line. A laugh track is even used to speed and intensify the audience's reaction. The supporting cast are more often caricatures than characters--more clown than real person. Think of Kramer on Seinfeld or Mimi on The Drew Carey Show--they are as funny because of how they look and move as what they say. The lead or central character is often relatively normal, or "straight," but is surrounded by loonies who act as his foils. A common feature or tactic of the sitcom is to cast a successful stand-up comic as the central character--who better to sell jokes as dialogue? A well known name also helps to sell a new series. Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey, and Tim Allen were all successful on the comedy circuit before coming to television. Actor-actors are very unlikely to be cast as the leads in sitcoms. This is not a new phenomenon. It has been going on since the days of Phil Silvers, Dick Van Dyke, and Bob Newhart.
Universal vs. Particular : We have learned that dramatic art is always about people. But what kind of people make good dramatic characters? Characters can be seen to have two poles: those traits which are common to all people, and those which are unique to individuals. Those elements which are common to all may be called universal elements and those which are unique called particular. In the chapter on story the word empathy was used to describe the necessity of the audience being able to relate to a character; to feel human kinship--a genuine emotional bond. Furthermore empathy means to "feel into" another person, more than just the ability to understand the feelings and thoughts of another intellectually, but to recognize that they are the same as your own. It is the universal elements of character that make this bond possible. We can relate to others because we recognize those human qualities that we share with them.
On the other hand, every person has qualities that make them unique. Ants are genetic and behavioral clones of each other, people are not. It would be a very boring world indeed if we were all completely alike. We recognize and cherish others as individuals by those qualities that are unique to them; it's what makes others interesting to us. Obviously, a playwright must imbue his characters with particular qualities if they are to engage our curiosity and interest. Therefore, good dramatic characters are those that contain an appropriate balance of both universal and particular human characteristics. This "law" also applies to stories. They must be universal enough for all people to relate to them, but they must also be set in a particular time and place. Dramatic authors strive to reveal the universal in the particular.
The Casting Profession : Casting as the professional level, especially in film and television is done by a casting director. Since 1982 this profession has been represented by the Casting Society of America. You will see the initials C.S.A. after the name of the casting director in film credits. It is the job of this person to interface with agents and sift through the thousands of potential actors for each role and to select only those that will best fit the part, do the best job, and help sell the product. This can be a very creative process in that sometimes an unusual choice of actor can make an otherwise ordinary project sparkle, or can be a career breakthrough for a young or long forgotten actor. CSA has lobbied hard for an Oscar category for their profession, but so far only the television Emmy has recognized them. Since 1985 they have had their own awards called the Artios which they give in fourteen categories of film, television, and theatre casting at a ceremony each Fall. *
Notes
DRAMA
This is the most difficult subject of study in the art of the theatre. . . . The word itself derives from ancient Greek and contains the meaning of "culminating action." The Latin word "actio" has the root we use in our terms: action, actor, act. Thus drama on the stage is action culminating before our eyes and the actor is a participating element in it.
The art of the theatre has in all times been collective in form and took its rise when the talent of a poetplaywright was active in unison with the talents of actors. . . . The contents of a drama have the character of action unfolding before the eyes of the audience. In it the personalities take their appropriate parts in the action which develops in a consistent and definite direction towards the final goal set by the author. . . . It is only in conjunction with a profound adherence to the artistic individuality of the author, to the ideas and moods which are the creative kernel of the drama, that the theatre can reveal its whole artistic depth and convey the entirety of a poetic work, the graceful form of its composition. -- An Actor Prepares
-- Collected Works, Vol. I
-- My Life in Art * Stanislavsky
ELEMENTS OF THE INNER CREATIVE STATE
We have used the word "elements" to cover artistic talent, qualities, natural gifts and several methods of psycho-techniques. Now we can call them Elements of the Inner Creative State. On the stage, as in real life, the elements--action, objectives, given circumstances, a sense of truth, concentration of attention, emotion memory--should be indivisible. They act simultaneously upon and supplement each other. . . . They are the basic, organic component parts . . . necessary to an actor's creative state. -- An Actor Prepares
EMOTION MEMORY
That type of memory which makes you relive the sensations you once felt . . . we call emotion memory. Just as your visual memory can reconstruct an inner image of some forgotten thing, place or person, your emotion memory can bring back feelings you have already experienced. They may seem beyond recall, when suddenly a suggestion, a thought, a familiar object will bring them back in full force. Sometimes the emotions are as strong as ever, sometimes weaker, sometimes the same strong feelings will come back in a somewhat different guise.
ENSEMBLE
Let us suppose that one actor in a well and carefully prepared production . . . departs so far from the true performance of his part as to act in a purely routine, mechanical way. Has he the right to do this? . . . He was not alone in producing the play, he is not solely responsible for the work put into it. In such an enterprise one works for all and all for one. There must be mutual responsibility. . . . In spite of my great admiration for individual splendid talents, I do not accept the star system; collective creative effort is the root of our kind of art. That requires ensemble acting and whoever mars that ensemble is committing a crime . . . against the very art he serves. The public like us in plays, where we have a clear-cut . . . superobjective and a well executed through line of action. . . . That includes everything: ensemble acting, good actors and a proper understanding of the play produced.
-- Collected Articles, Speeches, Talks, Letters
EXPLOITERS OF ART
The theatre, on account of its publicity and spectacular side, attracts many people who merely want to capitalize their beauty or make careers. They take advantage of the ignorance of the public, its perverted taste, favouritism, intrigues, false success, and many other means which have no relation to creative art. These exploiters are the deadliest enemies of art.
Characters & Roles:
Dramatic characters are very special creations. They are conceived in the imagination of a writer, then brought to life through the interpretation of an actor. They must appear to be real people in every possible way, yet they are fictitious. They must give the illusion that they lead full and complete lives beyond the stage or screen, but like the false fronts of a Hollywood backlot street, there is nothing real beyond the surfaces that we see. In another of the paradoxes of acting, the more we know about an actor, the less "original" the character is for us. For when an actor becomes so famous that everyone knows his native personality well, some of that inevitably "shows through" the character. In the case of an actor like Arnold Schwarzenegger this can be an advantage when playing a character with great physical strength. But for an actress who is notorious for her promiscuous private life, playing a nun can strain credibility. Actors who are relative unknowns have the advantage of working with a clean slate in the creation of character--the audience can't tell which part is them and which part is created. When a new face does the role of a total nerd, we have no way of knowing if he is a bit that way in real life, or is a stud who is also a great character actor.
Here's another way to visualize this paradox. You know that you can easily be see through a fine silk scarf when it is held up in front of a light. If you move the light to the front of the scarf you can now only see the image or pattern printed on its surface. Think of a role as a human-sized silk scarf that the actor holds out in front of her like a body mask. The printed image is the character that the actor has created. At times, if she is very skilled, you are only aware of this image. But at other times your attention is drawn to the actor who you can see standing behind the scarf. Much of the time we are seeing some of both.
On a football team each player has specific responsibilities in the overall effort to advance the ball down the field. In a drama, certain characters, like a quarterback, have the most important roles, while others play in support. The most important characters spend more time on stage, have more lines, and we get to know more about them than any other. We shall look at characters in two ways: as literary creatures, and as elements of production which we call roles.
Characters as Literature: In classical drama the most important central character is often known as the protagonist, while a character who may be in conflict with him is the antagonist. By the age of melodrama in the nineteenth century this complex relationship was reduced to the simple formula of hero versus villain. Of contemporary drama on stage it is often said that there are no more villains, that we live in the age of the internalized villain. The central characters have qualities within themselves that make them their own worst enemies. This is closely related to the concept of the antihero--a central character who is not very nice that we are asked to sympathize with. This twentieth century phenomenon is often traced back to the 1950s and the British play Look Back In Anger and the film The Wild One with Marlon Brando. In these pieces we see central characters whose bad behavior we are asked to excuse because of the injustices they suffer. Many protagonists today have at least some aspects of the antihero. In popular studio films, the age of melodrama continues unabated with clearly defined heroes, heroines, and villains. The heroes and heroines may now have flaws, but the villains often remain the same inexorably nasty and uncomplicated creatures.
Because of time limits on performance, writers don't have the space to fully develop more than two or three central characters. Next in level of importance (and the greatest in numbers) would be secondary characters. These include the relatives, friends, and close associates of the central characters. Before the age of realism characters could reveal their thoughts directly to the audience by means of a soliloquy. Today, writers often use a particularly close friend, called a confidant, in order to motivate a central character to "spill his guts." This sidekick or buddy is there to reveal his innermost thoughts to for the benefit of the audience. These characters also provide a handy norm against which the relative goodness or evil, wackiness or normalcy of the central character to be gauged. Finally there are the minor characters who round out the telling of the tale. These folks have at the most one good brief scene, or at the least a line or two.
All dramatic characters are exaggerated versions of real people. The degree of exaggeration depends on the type of drama. In serious realistic drama this exaggeration is very subtle. For example, in real life our conversations are riddled with filler words like "ya know" and "uh." We say the same thing several different ways in our struggle to be understood. But even when dramatic characters appear to be inarticulate, it is only an illusion. They are actually communicating a lot of information quickly in order to keep the plot in motion. In real life people take time to process feelings and information, but on stage these reaction times are speeded up. In comedies, and especially farce, the exaggeration of character is so extreme as to be a source of humor itself.
Robert C. Huber
Characters as Roles: A word needs to be said about the relationship of actors to roles in general. Terms like ingenue or leading man may be applied either to the role as written, or to an actor who appears to naturally fit such a part. Actors are said to have a type or range. Type is a category of person as defined by such factors as sex, age, occupation, and personality. Some call this a "look." Range is the degree of character variation that an actor is capable of playing believably. For instance, a seventeen year-old actress with a mature face may be able to play an age range of from 18 to 30, whereas her shorter babyfaced colleague of the same age may be stuck playing adolescents from 13 to 15. Range can also apply to type. Some actors can play both heroes and villains, red-necks and sophisticates with ease. As a general rule, the stage allows for greater range since the actor is seen from a greater distance, whereas the close-up media of film and television require actors to be closer in age and type to the roles they play.
Those who produce plays and films need a handy way to categorize types of characters and the actors who play them, and there are lots of terms in use for this purpose. At the top of the list are the leads, the casting term for the central characters. Leads may be played by many types, but when they are romantic leads are usually filled by a leading man and leading lady. The term leading man describes a mature male with classically handsome good looks. Leading men may range in age from about 30 up to 60. A leading lady is also sophisticated, mature, and classy, but her age range is narrower: from late 20's up to only about 50. Such is the basic unfairness of our culture. Leading ladies are striking rather than cute, and may have strong features that are often described as handsome. Some current popular leading men are Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Richard Gere, Brad Pitt, Denzel Washington, Jimmy Smits, and Antonio Banderas. Leading ladies include Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Jessica Lange, and Angela Bassett. A younger woman would be an ingenue: an attractive, perky, and somewhat innocent actress in her middle teens to early twenties. Current ingenues include Lindsay Lohan, Anne Hathaway, Mischa Barton and Natalie Portman. Juvenile describes child actors and roles for children. Any one of these categories can be written as the central character.
The next category is supporting players. These roles run the gamut of types, but their time on stage or camera, and their importance to the story as a whole is less than leads. At the upper end, a supporting role can even rival that of a lead in importance. Almost every year there is a controversy in the Oscar and Tony awards about how someone nominated as a supporting actor was really a lead or vice versa. Some lead and supporting roles are called character roles. Character parts are mature adults who are less obviously attractive than romantic leads. Danny De Vito is an example of a character actor whose range allows him to also play romantic leads such as in the 1999 film Living Out Loud. When leading men or ladies lose their looks through the effects of aging or hard living, they often "become" character actors. Others, like the British actor David Suchet (Hercule Poirot of PBS's Mystery series) are character actors by choice. He says: "I am a character man; I play lots of different types of roles. I am not a personality player. The majority of actors you see will tend to be that, and you will go to see them." Actors do tend to fall into either the personality or character type.
Another large category of supporting roles are what are generically called types or stock characters. You may have heard an expression similar to the following: "He looked like a banker right out of central casting." This refers to the age-old dramatic practice of reducing complex human beings down to simplified, almost cartoonish, caricatures. It is a shortcut used by dramatists to provide characters that are already familiar to an audience, thus saving the time normally required to explain what they are all about. Such characters have been around since the classic comedies of the Greeks and Romans, and while their specific names have changed, they remain amazingly similar. Some of the many twentieth century stock types include: the dumb blonde or bimbo, the tough detective with trench coat and hat, the air-head surfer dude, the gum-chewing sassy waitress, the hooker with the heart of gold, the mad scientist, the nerd, and the gangster. In the last example, the gangster has evolved from Mafioso to Hell's Angel to urban street thug--gangsta. Bad guys in general are sometimes referred to as heavies. Stock characters can be heroic, ordinary, or villainous. And in the bad old days such stock character (stereo) types included "ethnics" (Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) and "eccentrics" (mentally and physically disabled). When stock characters make an appearance the audience already knows pretty much who they are and what to expect from them. The time saved by this device can then be devoted to more carefully developing central characters. Casting directors and agents use such stock types to categorize both the roles and the actors who can readily play them.
Finally there are the smallest roles which range from the fairly important cameo, to the least significant extra. A cameo role is a very small part that is played by a famous actor. The purposes may include the use of the famous actor's celebrity status to attract attention to a film with an otherwise unknown cast, a favor to the director, or to launch the comeback of a formerly famous actor who has fallen on hard times. Since a cameo can be shot in just part of one day, a busy star can afford the time. One recent example of a cameo was Jim Carrey's part as the best friend as an adult in the movie Simon Birch (1998). He appeared at Simon's grave only at the beginning and end of the film-probably one day's work. Cameo roles as such do not exist on stage where even a small role requires the actor to be there all night (gotta hang around for the curtain call), every night. Most other minor characters exist to "fill-out" the story and add a sense of reality to scenes. The waitress who takes the drinks order from the leads or the pizza delivery man who has five or six funny lines and then is gone are the more usual minor characters. At the bottom of the acting food chain are those roles called variously background, extras, bit parts or walk-ons. The term walk-on may have had its origin in the 1700s when members of acting companies who played such roles were called Walking Ladies and Gentlemen. Perhaps because they had no lines and merely strolled or stood around upstage. Background work as such exists only in the worlds of film and television for the same reason as given for cameos. In the theatre, such small parts are doubled or tripled by actors who may also have larger parts in the play.
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2007 & 2008 pomo.vtheatre.net | blogs 360.yahoo.com/anatolant + bloglines.com/blog/anatolant | knol.google.com/k/anatoly-antohin
