Actioning

Actioning is when you go through your scenes and you look at your lines and movements and what is the driving force behind them. For each scene you have to work out your super objective – what you are trying to get from the scene and then break down the scene into sections and lines and what your objective’s are for those and what you want to get from saying those lines. Also it show’s the internal thought of the character and the sub-text within their lines and what they are really trying to communicate to the other characters that isn’t being said in the dialogue. Then you have to work our your action – what you have to do to achieve your objective for example, “I flatter you” could be an action if your objective is to get someone to do something for you. Alongside the action there is normally an obstacle – something that is making you have to apply the action to gain your objective. This is really good and helpful as an actor to do to your script because it puts a solid meaning and intention behind the line and it gives you something to work with physically and connect with emotionally. Also many line can be said in different ways with different intentions behind them, each relevant to the character, by actioning you are establishing you character and the techniques that they would use to get something for example some people might go in harder with “I threaten you” where as weaker characters may play “ I plead to you”. These all help to create, develop and shape you character and allows you as an actor to create an individual interpretation of a character.

By actioning you are also engaging with a more naturalistic style of acting and being more natural and instinctual on stage rather than faking you character and not being invested in them or their situation or relationships. Actioning also allows you to subliminally communicate to the audience or another character and builds these relationships, sending a message to them.