Keep it fresh

So what are the Words (of Wisdom) this week? They are Keep it Fresh. One of the things that actors often have to do is to repeat what they have just done, sometimes over and over again. If you are playing a part in a long running play in the theatre you are having to deliver the same lines over and over again, maybe six or eight times a week. If you are shooting a film you may have to play a scene for take after take, and then maybe deliver the same line again for a different shot of the same scene.

You have two opposing problems here. The first is to keep your performance consistent, so that your intentions and those of the writer and director are carried out, and so that your fellow actors can rely on what you are going to do, so no-one can say “But that’s not how we rehearsed it!”

At the same time you need to make it seem to the audience as if the events being depicted are happening for the first time. The people in the audience want to be able to believe, with at least part of their minds, that nothing has been pre-planned and that the outcome of the story is uncertain.

So Keep it Fresh. Be ready but don’t over-prepare. Vary your performance fractionally so that it doesn’t dig too deep a groove. Adopt a frame of mind at the beginning of the scene that this is the ‘now’ moment and don’t rehearse the rest of the scene in your head before it has happened.

Every time you play a scene it will, unavoidably, be slightly different. You will say the words and perform the actions slightly differently; so will the other actors; if there is an audience their reaction will be different each time. There are so many variables that you can never play a scene the same way twice. Welcome this randomness and use it. It’s all part of the way you can Keep it Fresh.