Division 1: Building a Character
What really goes into creating and performing characters in plays? Have you ever been called “a character”? In this class, students learned the various ways to explore, develop, and perform all different types of characters.
We began by looking at different acting techniques and schools of acting. We learned a little about Stanislavsky and the various methods that grew out of the Stanislavsky System. As we learned about these techniques, we discussed who might be missing from the picture, and what kinds of methodologies of acting are out there that aren’t as easily accessible?
In order to dive into the practical side of character development, students embodied characters from three plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Servant of Two Masters, and After the Rock Left.
Please scroll through the page for a peek into our process.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Exploring Shakespeare’s characters
First things first: we needed to know who the characters were and what the play was about. Below you will see students’ tracking characters and their notes on what they thought was going on in the play.
If you would like to know what’s going on in the play, feel free to read this summary!
Once we got a pretty good handle of the story, we jumped into character development and portrayal by staging the final scene of the play. In this scene, most of the characters come together in a joyous and ridiculous celebration. Theseus and Hippolyta have just been married, and two other couples joined in on the ceremony: Demetrius and Helena and Lysander and Hermia. For their entertainment, the Rude Mechanicals perform “The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.” While the performers struggle through their play, the newlyweds heckle the actors. Below are photos of our staged scene.
A Servant of Two Masters
Commedia dell’Arte & Stock Characters
Commedia dell’Arte is a style of performance based on stock characters and ridiculous situations. It originated in Italy around the 16th-century, and has influenced theatre, television, and movies for centuries.
For our unit on Commedia dell’Arte, we used Carlo Goldoni’s 18th-century script A Servant of Two Masters. This is probably the most famous scripted commedia play, as it features so many of the stock characters, and leaves a lot of room for improvisation and silliness!
Below are some images of the class performing the final scene of A Servant of Two Masters. In this scene, everyone who wants to get married gets married (sound familiar?), and all of the characters prosper!
You will also see images of improvisation exercises using the characteristics, proclivities, and desires or the stock characters.
What do you see? How are they using their bodies? How are they interacting with one another (while keeping a very safe distance)? What does it look like the characters want?
One of the defining features of Commedia dell’Arte is that the actors wore half-masks when they performed. The masks covered the top half of the face, but we decided to flip the script and make our own masks that covered the bottom half of the face! Below are the students’ mask designs.
Genesee Brown
Dottore
Frances Mathews
Clarice
Jack Ozro
Truffaldino (Zani)
Madeleine Pelletier
Pantalone
Samson Gelber
Pantalone
Rose Kiok-Kirshenbaum
Clarice
Charlotte Rice
Zani
After the Rock Left
Building Character with freedom and creativity
The last play we worked with was After the Rock Left by Bilal Dardai. This existential piece about co-dependent objects was a fun way to end the trimester. Each object’s description and characteristics left a lot up to interpretation, which was a great way for the students to apply what they had learned throughout the trimester. Each student chose one character to focus on and, using the script and their imaginations, crafted a character that was completely their own.
