Script Analysis - Part 2

Clue Me In

Our play, Winter's Night , has three characters: Rachel, Jacob and Sarah. Two questions an actor must answer are:

• Who is my character?
• What are the relationships between my character and the other characters in the play?

To answer these questions, you need to develop a "Character Profile" by looking for clues in the script which will tell you something about your character. These clues will be found in the dialog, stage directions, author's notes, and in history and geography.

History and geography? Yes. The author wrote the play in a specific time, the play is set in a specific period of time and set in specific places. One can make certain assumptions about characters and relationships based upon time and place.

For instance, this revised version of Neith Boyce's Winter's Night was written in 1928 (originally written in 1916.) It is set in a rural farmhouse in the early 1900's. What might these facts imply? An unmarried woman, without children, living in a rural setting in the early 1900's would have an extremely difficult time earning a good living. In such a time and place, where jobs or other money making opportunities are scarce, Rachel's survival could seriously be at risk. Jacob's ill-timed proposal, although rejected by Rachel, would be a reasonable offer for Rachel to consider to ensure her survival.

Rachel's decision to start a dress shop in a city is a bold move for a woman living in a rural area in the the early 1900's. It would be risky. If she failed, she could literally be out on the streets with no money and no resources. Given these circumstances, one might assume that Rachel is an educated woman (to run a business) , who has confidence (believes her dream can become a reality) and trusts her abilities (believes she can make a success of it).

The dialog can easily support these assumptions about Rachel.

"I wish I had some work to do. I could never sit idle. There's that dress of Mrs. Gray's - but I suppose it would seem heartless of me to sit sewing tonight..."

"I never meant to stay here forever. I've had ambitions..."

"That's why I took up dress making....I like the work."

Of course, if you know nothing about rural living in the early 1900's, then you would not be able to understand those aspects of Rachel's character that are shaped by her time and place. An actor's job is to learn about the history and geography which shapes the characters the actor plays.

History and geography are only the beginning of script analysis. The script provides many, many clues about your character (your character's profile ) which must be uncovered.

Read our play, "Winter's Night". While you read the play, make a list of everything in the script that tells you something about your character. This will include stage directions and notes as-well-as dialog. When reviewing the dialog for things about your character, you should look for things that your character says about himself/herself as-well-as things the other characters say about your character.

Keep in mind that the things said by or about your character might not be true, but at this point, you are only interested in the things that are actually said, true or not. Make a list of them all.

For this exercise, our character will be Jacob.

Click on the links indicated, then use your "BACK" key to return here.

• The character notes at the beginning of the play give us our first clue - Jacob and Rachel are related through marriage.
• The next clue is that Jacob is driving a wagon or buggy and team of horses and that he can be responsible for taking care of them.
• Next we get a description of Jacob.
• He is concerned about Rachel's welfare.
• He smokes a pipe.
• He outgrew his coat, probably doesn't wear such clothes too often.
• He is Daniel's brother (Daniel is Rachel's husband, the guy who they just buried.)
• He is usually not clumsy.
• He hasn't eaten all day.
• He is pained about his brother's death.
• He likes the color red.
• He is 47 years old.
• He never married.
• Six years ago, he promised Rachel he would stop drinking and he has kept his promise.

Go through the rest of the play and complete the list. The things on your list should only be the things that are actually stated in the play about Jacob - either as stage notes, stage directions, or dialog. When you are done you will have a list of THINGS I KNOW ABOUT MY CHARACTER (Jacob.)

Since Jacob interacts throughout the entire play with Rachel, you should also know things about Rachel. So go through the play again, but this time you will develop a list of THINGS WE KNOW ABOUT RACHEL.

OK. So now you have a list of things you know about Jacob and/or Rachel. What do you do with this information? NOTHING . That's right - NOTHING . You just think about it for awhile. Put this information on the back burner to simmer for awile. Let your sub-conscious brain simmer for a bit - mingling all those fine thoughts about into a sumptuous delight you can dip into later.

Don't try to figure anything out yet, or make any assumptions about your character, or try to develop any action. Just let things simmer. Let your sub-conscious brain do it's job. It can work very well on it's own without your conscious brain interfering with all sorts of brilliant ideas. Give it some time.

Now, while your sub-conscious brain is simmering, you are going to prepare another list. This list you can title "THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY CHARACTER."

What goes on this list. Anything you want to go on the list!!!   That's right, Anything!!!  

There are about a gazillion things about the characters that the author did not state in the script. You, as the actor, have the freedom to make all those gazillions of things up - or at least as many as you feel are useful to you as you develop your character.

For instance:

• What kind of gun does Jacob shoot himself with?
• What is the name of the town, county, state where the farm is?
• What are the names of the horses?
• What is Jacob's middle name? Does he have one?
• Are Jacob's parents still alive? Where are they? If they died, how long ago? Did he even know his parents?
• What about Rachel's parents?
• Did Jacob go to school? Where? How much education?
• Did he like his brother a lot?
• Was he smarter, stronger, a harder worker, taller, shorter...then his brother?
• What kind of crops or creatures does the farm produce?
• How big is the farm?
• ??????????

Whew! And that's just the beginning. As you progress through subsequent readings, you need to be open to other questions that arise about your character and the relationships your character has with the other characters (remember, Daniel is a character in this play even though he does not appear in it. The thoughts and emotions the other characters have regarding their past relationship with Daniel are significant to the action.)

As new questions pop into your head, write them down too. Continually add new questions to your list.

Of course, you must also answer your questions. And here's another neat part of this acting stuff - you, as the actor, get to - Make up all the answers!!!   That's right, You make it all up!!!   If it's not in the script, then you have to invent it
all           by           your           self.

However, there is one rule you have to follow:

In other words, you can't decide that Jacob actually hates Rachel and he is just trying to drive her mad so she turns over her share of the farm to him so he can get rich. There is nothing in the play that supports such a turn of events.

Or you can't decide that Jacob really wasn't Daniel's brother, that they were actually homosexual lovers. Again, there is nothing in the play to support that.

Or that Jacob didn't really shoot himself in the end and he comes walking back on stage, says "I missed!" and Rachel falls madly in love with him and they live happily ever after. It just would not be a logical, truthful conclusion to the play (and Mz. Boyce probably would not appreciate the ridiculous re-write of the ending.)

Or that Jacob looks and behaves like a grotesque gnome, drooling and belching all over the place, walking with his feet crossed one over the other, his back deformed into a massive hunch. Such misguided, fanciful flights from the reality of the play might seem interesting, but they simply can't be supported anywhere in the script.

So the things you invent have to be truthful to the circumstances of the play.

As you rehearse the play, and new thoughts arise, you can change your "THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT MY CHARACTER" list (after all, you made it up in the first place.) Change the answers to items, get rid of items, add new ones.

Now, if you're still with me (this is one of the "hard" parts about acting. You would be amazed how many people drop out after they get to this lesson - lazy actors won't get very far.) start compiling a list of "THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT JACOB" (or RACHEL or even SARAH, if you like.)

So now you have your lists of "THINGS I KNOW ABOUT My Character" and "THINGS I DON'T KNOW ABOUT My Character." What do you do with them? NOTHING . That's right - NOTHING . You just think about them for awhile. Put this information on the back burner to simmer for awile. Let your sub-conscious brain simmer for a bit - mingling all those fine thoughts about into a sumptuous delight you can dip into later.

While you were compling your lists, you probably started having thoughts about your character and the play. If not, then get you thinking caps on and start getting thoughts. What kind of thoughts? Oh, anything that might occur to you. There is no real set formula. For instance:

• Does Rachel like Jacob?
  • Probably. At least she doesn't despise him.
• Then why is she so aghast at his proposal?
• Why does she react so intensely?
• Why didn't she just pooh-pooh the whole thought of marrying him and blow the thing off as ridiculous, the result of Jacob's emotional distress over his brother's death?
• Was the intense reaction a result of the circumstances?
• Of unspoken thoughts about Jacob that Rachel has harbored over the years?
• The result of something else?
• Did Jacob's silent love for Rachel really   go unnoticed by Rachel all those years?
  • Hmmmmmmmmmm.

As you start to think of such things, jot them down, then see if you can find hints in the script that might lead you to discover answers.

This is the "interpretation" part of acting. And interpretations can differ. One actor might decide that Rachel's intense reaction is the result of her circumstances - her moral upbringing, the year and place the play is set in, her devotion to Daniel, whatever.

Another actor might decide that Rachel actually had thoughts of love toward Jacob, but her circumstances caused her to rejct and supress those feelings.

J.      Yes - for you! Why else do you think I've stayed here? Wasn't there other things I could have done? Do you think I had no ambitions? Haven't I got a man's heart in me? Why do you think I've lived lonely here beside you? - Don't you know, Rachel?

R.     Jacob!

J.      Don't you know I've loved you all my life?

(Long pause)   

R.     Jacob - and Daniel - not - not even cold in his grave.

J.      I loved you before he did. You knew it. - You knew it. I loved you before he ever laid eyes on you. All my life - all my life. You - you - never - knew that? You never knew?

R.     You're crazy!

Write down such questions and supporting script elements. Write them in pencil, because these are pliable, you can alter an interpretation - and should alter an interpretation - several times as you repeatedly read the play and continue to formulate more thoughts and questions about the characters, their motivations (units of action) and their relationships.

Now, read the play through a few more times, and write down your thoughts and supporting script elements. And what will you do with your list of thoughts?

NOTHING . That's right - NOTHING . You just think about them for awhile. Put this information on the back burner to simmer for awile. Let your sub-conscious brain simmer for a bit - mingling all those fine thoughts about into a sumptuous delight you can dip into later.

Clue Me In - Some more

A well written play does not have unnecessary dialog. Each word on the page is there for a good reason. If there was no good reason for it to be in there, the author should have edited it out before it was published.Dialog has a variety of functions. Some examples:

• Set the time and date of the action
• Give the audience important information (exposition)
  • Convey historical info
  • Forshadow events to come
  • Relate events occurring off stage
  • Reveal info about characters not on the stage
• Move the plot along
• Convey characters' thoughts and intentions
• Establish character relationships
• Obscure the truth about characters, events, time or place, whatever.
• Create a mood
• Elicit emotion
• Cause one to think

Your job, as an actor, is to determine how your dialog functions in the play. For instance:

Early in the play, this dialog appears:

R.     Death is a strange thing, Jacob. It changes everything. Daniel's gone.

J.      Yes.

Rachel's line, "It changes everything."   forshadows that everything in our characters' lives is about to change. And Jacob agrees. Rachel's desire to stay on the farm will change, Jacob's silence re: his love for Rachel will change, their relationship will change, Jacob will die...lots and lots of changes. The changes will even effect Sarah, at the end, when she discovers Jacob's suicide. "It changes everything."

So this is an important line. If one simply blathered out the line, speaking quickly, with no emphasis of any kind ("Deathisastrangething,Jacob.Itchangeseverything.Daniel'sgone.") it would have no impact - it would lose it's function and the performance could be slightly weakened. Of course, if one delivered the line with great emphasis on every word ( "Death    is    a    strange    thing,    Jacob.    It    changes    everything.    Daniel's    gone." ) it would certainly let the audience know something was up, but the effect would be clumsy, way too melodramatic and poorly acted.

It is the actor's job to find a way of saying the lines so they will convey to the audience, in subtle ways, that the characters of this play are about to be changed forever. How do you do this? Well, you try out different things. Different ways of emphasizing words, different word to emphasize, pacing, rhythm, etc. Take a look at the AWOL lesson, " ACTING AS CONVERSATION" for some ideas re: how to go about it.

Now, go through the script, and make some determinations about the functions of the lines. Use the list above.

In this lesson, we have briefly touched upon the "Structure" of a play, determining the "Units of Action", developing "Character Profiles" and determining the "Function" of the lines.

All these things were simmered together as your sub-conscious brain worked on them, bringing up a spoonful when you needed to. You tried things out. You thought, and thought and thought.

You took lots of notes so you could go back and remind yourself of thoughts you had throughout the analysis process. Then you thought and thought some more. Acting requires a lot of thinking.

Hoo boy! I think I thunk too much. Take all your thinking, and start applying it on your next play. Use the AWOL lesson, " ACTING AS CONVERSATION" to turn all that thinking into action.

Find an audition - Go to it - Get a part - Analyze your script - Do the work -