Rehearsal 3 - Objectives and the Context of a scene

This lesson was one of our most important lessons yet and that was using the Stanislavskian methods of Objectives, Given Circumstances and Circles of Attention. These methods are important for us as actors because they help us develop our scene and characters because they help us understand the context.

Given Circumstances:

• Facts and opinions about your character
• Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you doing it?
• What time is it? What's the date? Where are you?
• What just happened to your character behind the scenes? It could have been just now or something from long ago that affects him up to now.
• Where do you live
• Who you are related to 

To accomplish all of these points is to look through the whole script and research the context of the play as well, and that is the only way. It is important to know everything about your character in your performance because anything that happens to your character should affect how you act as them. For example if the whole play your character is quiet and doesn't say much, but at the end he kills someone, you as an actor need to be able to show signs that aren't obvious throughout the play that your character is capable of murder.

Objectives:

• Super objective - the characters task that spans the whole play. What are they after or need? Are they running away from something? Are they persuading? etc

• Objective -  the character's task in the scene. What are they trying to achieve in that scene

 These two types of objectives cannot be obtained if you don't act towards your given circumstances. The objective of your character is probably the most important thing as an actor, especially in naturalistic plays. The character must have a reason to be there or it doesn't look natural. It is like in real life and you're in a room. You have an objective whilst you sit in that room. You may not want to be there so you might want to leave and that's your objective, just like in a performance, if you show no real reason to be there you might as well be off the stage.

Circles of attention:

=  Public

                                   Private   =                             

= Personal 

 

 

Circles of attention can not be achieved without the first two methods, in my opinion. You cannot know which circle to be in if you don't know the given circumstance or the character's objective. It is important that once you've established them you can.