Audiences and Words

You read the lines, you learn the lines, you deliver the lines you've learned and it's very important to get the words right. A rough approximation simply will not do. The writer will have gone to a lot of trouble to compose each line so that it reveals character and advances the plot and it is disrespectful to cast his or her intentions aside and deliver your own version. Of course, in rehearsal, you may well find instances where a line does not roll off the tongue easily. If you want to suggest a change ask the director, who may well refer it to the writer.

Sometimes a problem with a line can be resolved by a change of emphasis and actors need to be adept at this. A good exercise is to take a sentence and run it repeatedly with all the possible emphasis in turn. For example:

"SHE said she was happy ... she SAID she was happy ... she said SHE was happy ... she said she WAS happy ... she said she was HAPPY." Feel the different implication of each version. Start by hammering out the words in capitals, then gradually make it more subtle and therefore more realistic.

And another important thing to remember: the audience is not stupid. They are intelligent people. You don't need to lead them to conclusions by the nose. If it's there they will 'get it.' No need to exaggerate. Subtleties are better than stereotypes.

The audience is not stupid

It's hard to define what good acting is but we sll know what overacting is and recognise it when we see it. It's excessive emoting that isn't true to life. It doesn't allow for the audience's intelligence and this week's Words of Wisdom are The audience is not stupid.

In particular there is one aspect of intelligence in which an audience is more sensitive than an individual person and that is emotional intelligence, based on the ability to share and understand other people's emotions. As we are social creatures we are naturally equipped to feel the pain and joy of others. Someone feels a particular feeling, smeone else receives that feeling, shares it and transmits it again. It is obvious that in a large group of people the feeling will be that much more magnified. That is why a crowd will often behave much worse than any of its individual members would. That's why the larger a demonstration is the more likely it is to turn into a riot. If we are sitting at home watching a football match we can see the game perfectly, it's as if we are sitting in the best seat in the ground, but it's much more exciting to be at the match and experiencing the atmosphere, the shared emotion.

So the audience at a play also feel the shared emotion and are particularly sensitive to falsity. Often their unconscious mind will be telling them that something is not quite right. If the actors are overactiing and not believable the performance will not communicate true emotion. It may be superficially impressive but will lack honesty.

The audience is not stupid.