hello welcome to organic acting and today we're going to talk about how to create
real emotion with stanislavski the reason why i wanted to make this video is over my years as a
teacher of drama i've always had a lot of students who when it comes to performing monologues will
find me and say what is a great monologue where i can cry so like i just want to find a monologue
that'll like show me crying so i can like show how good of an actor i am like like yeah
hopefully this video will get you away from showing and more towards experiencing
so constantine stanislavski was a 19th century russian actor director and theatre practitioner
who took a look at the acting world around him and realized that everything was steeped in
melodrama melodrama was all about showing how well you could act and how well you could play emotions
how well you could cry how angry you could get and rather than serving the character or the
plot or the story it was about showing off and stanislavski said there has to be a better way
of doing this there's got to be a more um real visceral organic way of creating emotion within
an actor emotion that is on par with what a character should be feeling at any given moment
so here we're gonna look at objectives or character motivation why are objectives so
important well they help stir and galvanize you as an actor they give you something to aim for
if you know what your character wants at any given part of the piece or the play
you've got something concrete to drive you you're not just trying to think
what you should be doing next or you're not getting lost you have one single want i want to
open up good feelings in the other person i want to leave the room something as simple as that
and as i say it helps concrete the reason for you being in that performance space more importantly
it stops you trying to push for emotion for emotions sake stanislavski said the mistake most
actors make is that they think about the result instead of about the action that must prepare it
by avoiding action and aiming straight at the result you get a forced product which can lead
to nothing but ham acting so discovering what your character wants what their objective is
is the first step to creating real emotion from any objective we should always have obstacles
i'm sure you all know about plot and story and the bare bones of that is that a character wants
something that's the whole point a character has a need a want sometimes something is taken
away from them they have to go on a mission to get that thing back but there are always
obstacles there's always something stopping them getting what they want if there wasn't an
obstacle and your character just got what they want within the first scene the first page of the
script the story would be over the plot's finished there are always things stopping your character
that creates conflict conflict is drama and with obstacles they can be outside forces
they can be other characters in that scene with your character you may have another character on
stage who is opposed to you has a different want to you for example if you have a character that is
trying to reconnect with um an alienated spouse or lover and all they want is to get back with that
person maybe their objective is i want to open up good feelings in you and that character doesn't
want that they want exactly the opposite they just want to be rid of you they want the relationship
done with there you have a really strong obstacle to what you want you have some resistance you have
conflict and the best thing about obstacles is that they help create the emotion if your
character wants something and something is stopping you straight away that conflict
can create some really interesting emotion in you from frustration for example let's go back to the
example i just gave you if you you are trying to get back with your spouse to open up good feelings
in your spouse and your spouse does not want to know there's a frustration there so always find
out what the obstacle is to your objective steaks so what is at stake when i say steak i don't mean
the cut of meat i mean what is at stake for your character if they don't get what they want if
that objective is not fulfilled going back to the relationship scenario the stakes could be pretty
high here if your character wants to get back with their spouse with their lover the stakes are going
to be high i mean it could be the case that if your character doesn't get what they want then
the marriage is over the relationship is over the stakes are right up there compare that for example
to you have a character who is going to see their best friend and they want to convince their friend
to come out on a saturday night and party and that person is their wingman that person gets the party
started if that character that other character your friend doesn't want to come out to party
it's maybe not the end of the world the stakes are quite low this is where you as an actor need
to use your empathy you need to put yourself in that character's shoes what happens if your
character doesn't get what they want so i hope you can see with such a simple tool as objectives
we can find out what our character wants we can give ourselves a guidance system to getting to the
root of the drama and the emotion and it stops us from trying to be over the top it stops us from uh
playing and just showing rather than experiencing are we ready to go ready ready for action okay
as always i hope you enjoyed this video if you did drop me a like and the comment uh subscribe
if you haven't please share this video it really really helps me out
i've been chris and i will see you next time bye bye