There are definite techniques on how to develop a characterization from the printed script, and how to approach a part that has specific requirements.
IT HAS BEEN STATED IN SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT WAYS THAT ACTING IS THE PROCESS OF INVESTING YOUR TOTAL PERSONALITY IN THE BEING OF ANOTHER PERSONALITY.
Consequently, any characterization that you create is a combination of your personality and what you understand your character to be.
YOU are the clay which you mold into different shapes and emotions.
THIS IS WHY YOU MUST TRAIN YOUR PERSONALITY TO IT'S FULLEST, FOR THE ORIGINAL CLAY DETERMINES THE ARTISTIC PRODUCT.
What is the power that shapes the characterization you want to create ?
The process of creating a character can be thought of as three (3) major steps with many minor steps in between.
The three major ones are:
THINKING
An actor has a very special thinking process that begins with the first reading of a script and continues through every performance.
After reading the selection through once, the actor must start thinking.
FIRST, he must understand what the playwright has said about the character. Usually the playwright will give a short description, but most of the information will come from the lines the character speaks.
This is where the actor's thinking process must be sharp and thorough.
People reveal what they are like by the things they say. Timid people have a timid vocabulary. Braggers have a bragging vocabulary.
The actor is also a psychologist who tries to study the personality by the choice of words that are said.
SECOND, the actor analyzes the what and why of all the words he will speak. When he has given a why answer for all the words he will speak, he has solved the motivation.
If there is a logical motivation for everything in the script, the actor will never be confused.
FEELING
The essence of the theatre is emotion.
An actor's art consists in his ability to arouse emotional feelings in the people who are watching (audience).
The real test of acting is always:
Empathy in the theatre means the ability to identify oneself with the experience on stage.
The first feeling the actor must have is one for the character he is creating.
The actor is not creating a caricature , but a human being who must be true to life.
To do this he must feel and sympathetically enter into the thinking of his character.
The fine line between completely losing himself in the emotion of the scene or of keeping in control of the situation as an actor must be fund through rehearsal. The control that allows an actor to shift emotions swiftly is technique.
This control will be developed with experience and rehearsal. An actor must train his whole being to be very sensitive to emotions.
No one has the exact formula for developing the right amount of feeling to be effective with an audience, but many will agree that first the actor must be able to empathize with the character he portrays, and then sincerely work to create the feeling outwardly so that others will empathize with him.
DOING
Composed of two (2) parts:
2. He must perform the actions according to stage technique.
In your imagination you must see the person who is in the scene with you.
Which lines give a reason to move away...to sit down...to gesture ?
All this is a part of the thinking process.
Charles Northrup
He must begin to analyze the character from what has been given in the script, and begins to build in his mind the picture of the character he is going to create.
The success of the performer depends on his ability to arouse empathetic responses in the hearts of the audience.
You must also see the envionment.
As you read the scene, you might move toward the imaginery actor.
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