"What's My Motivation?"

A solution to my blocking dilemma is coalescing in my brain...it’s not quite perfect yet, and I think it’s a little obscure, but maybe if I take it slowly I can sort it out.

Any actor can tell you that intention is the beating heart of theatre. It may not have been popular in Shakespeare’s time, but ever since Stanislavsky, and certainly in the wake of the American Method, intention has been the actor’s primarily tool to character development and execution. Some actors are so fiercely devoted to it that they will even resist a piece of blocking if it doesn’t appear to have an intention.

(It’s an old joke. Director: “Now walk downstage and sit down.” Actor: “What’s my motivation?” Director: “Four hundred bucks a week.” Of course, Walterdale actors are volunteers, so the joke falls flat for them. Or maybe it’s even funnier. Anyway...)

My thematic exploration of potential blocking methods has led me into the land of Balance, and I think that, while it might take them a bit of adjustment, my actors will respond well to the idea that their movements can literally destabilize their theatrical universe. Their intentions can then be boiled down into very simple, physical categories: Edmund speaks and moves because he lusts for power. He wants to be in the centre of the world, and to sweep all his adversaries off its edges. Cordelia may move because she senses an imbalance, and she wishes to correct it. Kent moves in circles around Lear because he wants to keep the focal point on the old King, and he is lending him his gravity.

It may seem like I’m reducing complex characters to black and white extremes, and I guess that I am. But when you start out, it should be simple. It should be black and white. Shades of grey come later, when you’re doing runs, and even once the show has opened. At the start, it should be very simple: advance, retreat, or circle.

So that’s Step One. I work with actors on a scene. I get them to identify each line according to the movement—the drive. Is it forward-moving? Are you vying for status? Or are you relinquishing or lending your status to someone else?

But that system implies that the characters will be in constant motion. And so they are—on the inside. But we need another step, in which the actors can determine when to literally move, and when to internalize their movement. Sometimes, Edmund may want to advance, but the ground is too unstable. He needs to know when it’s safe to stride forward, and when to feel his way along.

I think the key to that step lies within Shakespeare’s verse, which is a very important subject about which I’ve been silent for too long. To be continued...