Playing the Arc

I spend a lot of time working with volunteer actors as a director of a church drama ministry. Beyond the standard yada-yada of gee you're doing something good for the church and for the community, I find a lot of fulfillment and fun in it. More than that, there's a lot to learn at it, too.

Newbie actors present a whole new range of challenges, and, trust me, most church volunteers are newbie actors! One of the things newbie actors need to learn is that every scene has an arc to follow.

Every scene starts at one place, but ends up somewhere else. The peak of the arc, it's highest point, comes when the main characters learn something new. It's an "ah ha" moment, and there is one in every scene. At least, there should be one. If you can't find it, grind every word and see if the author buried it in his choice of words in the dialog. If you still can't find it, you have to ask yourself why the scene is in the play in the first place. If it doesn't support the movement of the play, well, there may be a little round can next to your desk...

Within the scene, characters must follow an arc too. They begin the scene in one frame of mind, and exit in another. Obviously, this is true for major characters in a scene but not necessarily for the bit players. It would be really strange for the waiter who has two lines in a scene to have an epiphany while pouring iced tea!

The arc may be revealed in the writing, like someone bursting in and saying "Johnny's the guy who shot Willy!" But most often it is left to the actor to show the moment of revelation. The character grows, in knowledge, in attitude, in something that he needs to move the play forward. The audience needs to see that growth on the actor's face.

In playing the arc, the actor needs to be aware of his levels (I use "his" in the place of "his or her" or "their" because it's just silly to waste all those words. Let's you and I agree that by the word "his" I mean "his or her"...really, this gender-correctness thing is way out of whack!). Their performance needs to have an arc to it, too. In order for the revelation to come in as a high point, it must be preceded and followed by low points. Equally but oppositely, a low point must be bookended by high points. That way, the audience can see that the character has had a change.

My daughter had a middle school teacher who taught her kids to memorize speeches in a specific cadence; Four SCORE and seven Years AGO our forefathers BROUGHT...and whenever the school had a speaking event, you could tell which kids came from that teacher's class. Listen my CHILDREN and YOU shall HEAR of the midnight RIDE of...

Playing the arc needs to be subtle (unless you're doing melodrama, in which nothing is subtle). The low or high needs to follow the end of the previous scene. The lows and highs need to be in the same plane of realism. The revelation shouldn't be accompanied by a sudden gasp or the drop of a platter, unless called for in the script. The change needs to be big enough for the audience to see it, but small enough to pass for reality. You don't want the audience going "duh duh DUH!" in their heads when they're watching your scene.

Finally, you want the moment of revelation to be real for the actor. You want him to feel it, because the audience will feel it with him. We did a piece about a betrayal just a couple of weeks ago. The actress who played the betrayer completely stole the piece when her character had to decide whether to do the right thing or to tell a lie and betray her friend. Her face became ashen, tears rolled down her cheeks, and she paused and paused and paused until I started to think she might be dropping a line, and then she let out the line. The audience, as a unit, sighed in disappointment. They were 100% in the moment with her. I asked her later why she took that long pause. She said it was because she didn't want to betray her friend. You can't fake that reality, my friend.

So, there, my directorial friend, are my thoughts on playing the arc. Once you help your actors see the arcs in the pieces you direct, you'll find a whole new world of performance opens up for them.