Our work as actors is especially difficult because, for example, how do we define a ‘mistake’ as opposed to a ‘misstep’? Once detected, a misstep can increase our awareness by pointing to something we’ve overlooked.
Let’s take a look at one of my recent blog entries; the one about ‘Objectives.’ To refresh your memory: I used Blanche Dubois’ character in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire as a basis for researching ‘Objectives’. We decided to make a list of her ‘actions’ in order to help us find Blanche’s ‘overall objective’. They were as follows:
a) Persuade Stella and Stanley to let her move in with them on a permanent basis.
b) Persuade Stella to side with her against Stanley.
c) Persuade Mitch to marry her.
We discovered that these ‘actions’ conflict with one another, and that Blanche’s ‘overall objective’ - as a non-functioning alcoholic - is ‘finding someone to save her’.
I still think that is essentially true, but I have egg all over my face because I left out one particularly important action, without which this character might be interesting, but not really Blanche at all!
I made this discovery while working out on my elliptical - I try to exercise every day, and while my arms and feet commit themselves to a boring, tiring routine (I’m not a very athletic person, to put it mildly) my mind is wholly occupied with the movies I obsessively rent from Netflix.
On this particular occasion, I was absorbed by a recent film, Dare, which was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2009. One of the leading characters, Alexa Walker, a prudish misfit, played by an excellent Emmy Rossum (The Day After Tomorrow, The Phantom of the Opera), is desperately trying to find the key to Blanche’s character for a performance in a scene showcase at her high school. Alan Cumming, in the role of Grant Matson, a former student of this drama class - and the only one to make it to Broadway - condescends to attend a rehearsal. He praises the boy playing Stanley, but cruelly disdains Alexa’s pathetic attempts at Blanche. She’s determined to find the essence of the character, and corners Grant after the rehearsal. In what is probably the movie’s best scene, Grant proceeds to do to Alexa, albeit without physical contact, what Stanley does to Blanche in the rape scene. Because of this encounter, Alexa goes on to success in the scene at the expense of her well-being and the happiness of several other characters.
Watching Dare and the amount of wattage that Cumming projects over this timid, but desperately willful kid, I realized that I had missed the most important ‘action’ employed by Blanche in Streetcar, i.e. sexual pursuit. She stalks Stanley – just as she attempts to gobble up Mitch, although any comparison between the two men is like putting a dragon next to a lap dog. There is one genuine, significant difference – she is physically attracted to Stanley – although, simultaneously, he terrifies and disgusts her. Nature takes its course, and because of her eroded mental condition - plus the fact that Stanley is her beloved sister’s husband – Blanche descends into madness.
But, let’s back up a minute. Since we are principally concerned with the ‘objective,’ what difference does it make whether all ‘actions’ have been considered? The most obvious answer is: since ‘actions’ support the ‘objective,’ leaving one undiscovered might make us stumble onto the incorrect ‘objective.’ But even in this case, where the objective remains the same in spite of the oversight, we must be vigilant and include all the actions in our pursuit of the character, and this is why: a character is a person – an entity, a whole into which all its various parts are integrated. Awareness of all ‘actions’ is necessary to the ‘wholeness’ of the character; without it the viewer comes away feeling disappointed, knowing that something is missing - a hole in the ‘wholeness’.
Cumming is unforgettable in Grant’s one crucial scene, because he conveys a disappointed, rageful, chauvinistic sadist. This man, in order to make himself feel powerful, will devour any woman who comes too close. Grant is a small part, so the actor playing him has to imagine the reasons why the character behaves this way – hence the intelligence and good fortune in the casting of Cumming, who must bring about a believable reversal in Alexa’s behavior, which in some ways mirrors the real Blanche.
In order to play the character of Blanche, Alexa, who is too young and inexperienced to find the character honestly, loses her way. As a result of Grant’s manipulation, Alexa becomes sexually active before she is mature enough, causing harm to herself and others – in some ways mirroring the real Blanche.
This element of the ‘sexual predator’ is knit into the fabric of everything that Blanche Dubois feels and does. Along with all the other actions that Blanche employs, her need to sexually conquer every man she meets – if not actually have sex with him – is manifested in her sensuality, the colors she chooses to wear, the perfume she sprays to attract Stanley, provocative body movements, voice with its husky Southern draw.
In French, ‘blanche’ means ‘white,’ the color of purity, and ‘Du bois’ means ‘from the wood.’ The name Blanche Dubois conjures an image: a white creature, dainty and innocent, in a dark wood, where the big animals are closing in. Her objective - ‘to persuade/charm at least one of the other bigger animals to save her’ - becomes much more playable, when we add on to Blanche’s other actions ‘using everything in her body and nature to attract the biggest animal, the leader of all the others.’
So, I will not view my oversight as a ‘mistake’; instead as a ‘misstep’ which, when it is corrected, becomes a major step in the right direction – and that’s what we actors call ‘process’…
No comments:
Post a Comment