Every artist—every person—wants to reach a flow state. For the actor, this means compartmentalizing the thinking phase of rehearsal—which includes early analysis of the source material—from the doing phase, when the world of thought they’ve built stimulates their psychology and emotions. My aim is to lay out a simple, reliable, and replicable order of operations that culminates in the effortless experience and expression of emotion.
Flow state does not require the actor’s mind to be free of thought but rather free of random thoughts by having accepted and rehearsed through conscious repetition the thoughts provided by the playwright, installing them as replacements for their own. Any resistance to surrendering the brain to the playwright will result in disorganized and distracted thinking as the actor’s own thoughts compete with the writing for mental space.
It's said that thinking hinders high performance, and that can be true, but it’s too broad a claim to be taken generally. Thinking is essential to high performance until one has practiced those thoughts to the point where one no longer needs to think them. A ton of thinking is required before the actor experiences “non-thinking.” Unlike solo artists like painters or songwriters, actors have got to acclimate themselves to the needs of brand-new source material each time they start a job. For solo artists, the ideas may always be new, but for actors, the application of the whole craft is reinvented with each new script. Training the mind and developing the character’s world of thought is a challenge that relentlessly returns the actor to square one.
Actors often declare, “I’m thinking too much!” But rest assured that there’s no such thing as thinking “too much,” only thinking about the wrong things or thinking about those things too late. “Too late” means that we have failed to prepare our minds to use rehearsal to do what we want to do and are stuck doing things we end up having to do. If the actor possesses a way of thinking about a script from the get-go that focuses only on the aspects of the writing relevant to their work, there will be very little confusion when it comes time to rehearse. The confidence that comes from knowing exactly what we’re supposed to be thinking about alleviates any worries about thinking “too much.” People are in a constant state of thinking, and the same holds for a character on stage. The only difference is that while people in life are free to think about anything they want, no matter how futile or counterproductive, the actor must limit their character’s thinking to those things that help propel them through the prepared narrative.
I call these elements of thought the Five Components of Character: literal meanings, arguments, wants, obstacles, and consequences.
Literal meaning is exactly what it sounds like: the literal meaning of the characters' words and corresponding thoughts. If an actor wants to ensure they are telling the story their playwright intended, they must view the words on the page not merely as words but as the verbal expressions of that character’s thoughts. This prevents the redefinition of that dialogue by an actor who treats the words as a mere technicality while thinking whatever they want when delivering them. Why is it important for actors to ensure that their characters think the same things they say? What do we call people who think one thing but say another? ...I call them “liars.” A satisfactory definition of “telling the truth” is that a person's words are meant to convey their true thoughts, not conceal them. The last thing we want is to turn our characters into liars by deciding that their words hide their true thoughts. What confounds me most is that while we call this “lying” in real life, on stage, we refer to it as “subtext,” and it has been embraced as an essential aspect of the craft for decades. My view on subtext is that it rewrites the play to mean what we would prefer it to mean, period. I urge actors to confine their thoughts to only those the writer allows them to express in words.
This may all sound obvious; it’s a simple concept but not an easy task. True objectivity is the rarest and most valuable skill a collaborator can possess. It has been said for years by everyone, from Marcus Aurelius to Sigmund Freud, that people do not experience events themselves; they only experience their judgments and perceptions of those events. It is impossible to remain impartial without the ability to minimize the interference of this filter of beliefs and worldviews, leading us to an echo chamber of our perceptions about the world. This is as perilous for an actor as it is for anyone whose job involves evaluating anything. If the SVU detective cannot set aside their biases when examining a crime scene, they will be unable to see any details that do not conform to their pre-existing worldview. This phenomenon occurred when Indigenous Americans first beheld European ships, which existed so far beyond the limits of their imagination that they were said to have been unable to see them at all. Without biases, the actor – like the detective – can grasp the meaning of what is in front of them rather than merely the meaning that thing holds for them.
When the actor approaches a new play, the first and most crucial step is to ignore the universal human habit of interpreting what the characters say to understand it better. As Susan Sontag reminds us in her 1966 essay, Against Interpretation, “To interpret a thing is not to understand that thing but to change it.” The significance of this step is matched only by its difficulty. If an actor reads the line, “Where have you been?” they will likely presume disapproval, frustration, or a myriad of other emotions under which that line might be spoken. However, the ink on a page doesn’t have feelings or attitudes; actors do, and there is no way to know what those emotions will be until the world of thought has been entirely constructed. These interpretations aren’t unreasonable, but they are premature, and deciding “how” lines should be delivered too early in the process limits the actor from uncovering insights in rehearsal that they could never have imagined. If you anticipate a choice after the first reading of a line, the audience probably anticipates the same choice. Impartiality enables the actor to read the same line, notice the question marks, and understand it for what it is: a request for information. If the circumstances of the play indicate that the subject is late getting home or that the speaker is unhappy or agitated, the best way for the actor to convey that is to hold the subject accountable for answering the question itself. The alternative is to turn the question into the subtextual statement, “I’m upset you’re late.” Dialogue in a play is not merely a placeholder for what the character truly wants to say or for some deeper, more profound truth they decide to withhold; it is what the character genuinely wants to express, and it is the actor’s job to uncover why. If that reason is elusive, the actor is not entitled to drag the moment down to their level of psychological comfort by concluding that the character must mean something else (that resonates more powerfully for them). This kind of frontloaded interpretation is problematic because it presupposes a deficiency in the literal meanings of the writer’s words from the beginning and seeks to replace those meanings with the actor’s own. We obliterate what exists on the surface by excavating a “deeper” meaning from beneath the writer’s words. That is the writer’s work of art, so, as Sarah Ruhl implores in her 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time To Write, “…please actors, don’t think one thing and say another thing. Think the thing you’re saying. Plays are not scavenger hunts.” Suppose the actor navigates the entire play with care and curiosity, treating those initial passes as a “courting period” between themselves and the writer. In that case, they will emerge with a clear understanding of what the writer wrote rather than how they feel about it. As we continue to discuss the Five Components, we will see that this initial regard for literal meaning will pay dividends once the actor’s emotions are stimulated by the play’s thoughts, words, actions, and circumstances in true collaboration with the playwright.
The second component of character that the actor will install into their world of thought is the dramatic argument: the point the characters are trying to make when they speak, the essence of their words, their thesis.
It is vital that the argument is supported by – and does not compromise – the literal meanings of the words. Arguments can threaten to become as subtextual as the words themselves, so impartiality is paramount as we examine this second component. Arguments, like meanings, involve evaluation rather than interpretation. The argument provides the context the actor needs to begin viewing their dialogue as tools designed to create an intended impact. A well-developed dramatic character uses dialogue to improve the circumstances of their world, and arguments reveal what they want that improvement to be.
Examining the same sample dialogue for argument, we have, “Where have you been?” The meaning remains unchanged, but finding the argument requires more context. To help us, we’ll place the same line in two distinct worlds: Mamet’sAmerican Buffalo and Williams’ The Glass Menagerie.
In American Buffalo, two small-time crooks hatch a plan to commit a robbery. Imagine that one arrives late to the rendezvous, and the other, who’s been waiting, exclaims, “Where have you been?” The argument here, which we can learn to express as a question, could be, “Has the latecomer spoiled the whole plan or not?” The speaker would argue that, yes, they have. If the latecomer replies, “Oh, what’s the big deal?” the writer positions the two on opposite sides of the same argument, creating a healthy dramatic conflict.
Now, let’s give the same line of dialogue to Laura’s mother, Amanda, in The GlassMenagerie. Laura has just returned to their apartment after Amanda, without Laura’s knowledge, has discovered that she hasn’t attended school in weeks. Amanda looks at her daughter and asks, “Where have you been?” The meaning is the same, but the argument will be nothing like that in American Buffalo because the circumstances are entirely different. It’s crucial to remember that differences in circumstances do not change the meanings of words, only the reasons they’re spoken. Amanda’s argument may be, “Is my daughter ready to be honest with me, or isn’t she?”
Characters on stage aren’t always engaged in the same argument, making common ground particularly challenging to find. An example comes up in a scene between the spouses Becca and Howie in David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole.They have lost their son, and their grief has turned the temperature up on their relationship. Howie is trying to reach his wife by helping her realize that she has been trying to subconsciously “erase” any reminders of their son to help ease her suffering. He argues, “Are you or are you not trying to get rid of all signs of his life?” Becca’s argument in response is, “Are you or are you not letting me grieve in my own way?” The writer presents them with two completely different arguments, making validation scarce and reconciliation unlikely. Arguments are the scaffolding that supports the dialogue, and identifying and articulating them reveals to us why our characters are talking.
Additionally, when characters are involved in the same argument, they are not always on opposing sides. This happens all the time in real life, too, as when two friends vent about a third person neither can stand: “Can you believe him??” – “I know!! He’s the worst!” In this case, a robust argument is occurring, and the two happen to be on the same side. Arguments like these are perfect for practicing the art of arguing for things, and not against people.
Notice that, so far, none of this has involved interpretation, imagination, intuition, or emotion. We are merely expressing curiosity about the architecture of the source material and extracting from it that which is instructive to the actor. While there may be various ways to articulate an argument depending on the nuances of the play, the point is that we remain in the realm of the writer’s thoughts and not the actor’s.
Moving on to number three, wants: the things the character is using their arguments to get. Consider arguments as a currency through which the character seeks something in return. It’s helpful to categorize wants into two types: “dramaturgical” and “human.” For example, if two siblings argue over who gets the car keys, the dramaturgical want is “the keys.” In contrast, the human want might be “justice,” “respect,” “to protect the other from making a poor decision,” or, say, “companionship by getting to go out with a boyfriend.” Dramaturgical wants are the textual descriptions of a character's objectives (i.e., “the keys”). In contrast, human wants describe the void that a character wants to fill in themselves by securing that objective (i.e., “respect,” “justice,” or “companionship”), and those are the wants the actor will want to focus on as they play the scene. The human want invites the actor’s heart to the party and stimulates the emotions in kind. Only when we understand what our character has been written into the play to get can we launch them on their journey to that destination. It’s not until then that the actor can begin to make their principal contribution to the story: human aspiration. Think of actors as activists for hire, for whom each new script presents a fresh cause to champion. I tell people that I teach a “giving-a-shit class” because that’s what the actor needs to do. Pick up a new script, ask, “What does my character give a shit about?” and channel their willpower toward that end. It is upon the wings of the argument that their willpower travels, and those arguments are built upon the foundation of literal meaning.
In my perfect world, every actor taking on any role would begin by thinking this way: reading the same script for the Five Components and extracting them impartially. If this sounds conformist, it is, but we’ll see that uniformity of thought at the beginning yields individuality of emotion at the end.
Finally, whatever an actor decides their character wants must meet three criteria:
First, the character needs to believe it is achievable. This doesn't mean the actor or the audience will necessarily believe it, but the character must. In Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman has to be the only person in the theater who doesn’t know the title of the play. His ignorance of (or disregard for) the seriousness of his situation is part of what makes him a great tragic hero. The audience knows that life has nothing more to offer him and that his son Biff will never live up to his hopes, but Willy never gives up. Even his suicide is a final gesture of support for his family. He knows the only thing he has left to provide is the $40,000 from his life insurance policy—a breathtaking act of service to the people he loves. His big want throughout the play—what Stanislavski would call his “super objective” or “spine"—is to “provide his children with a better life than he had.” Until the very end, everything he thinks, says, and does serves this objective, as his belief in its achievability never falters, even as others lose their faith in him.
Second, a character cannot want something they already possess or would decline if offered. In the first instance, particularly with actors just starting to think about wants, they may decide that their character wants the other person “to understand them.” But as long as the other person speaks the same language, “understanding” comes for free. A way to probe further is to ask yourself, “What do I think my character wants the other person to do once they understand me?”
A typical example of a desire that would be rejected if offered is “an apology.” Dramatic conflicts are seldom resolved with a simple apology. While the character expressing hurt or displeasure may seem to be seeking precisely that, a quick way to confirm is to ask, "If the other person said they were sorry right now, would the scene end, no questions asked?” Usually, the answer is an emphatic no, indicating that it’s not an apology the speaker truly wants.
Finally, a character’s want must require the other person’s cooperation. This is because losing the argument and failing to achieve the objective must be a possibility. For instance, we should never use our arguments to punish or humiliate our subjects, because it’s impossible to fail at something that does not require their consent. If we cannot fail at achieving what we intend for our characters, there will be no sense of risk, and vulnerability needs risk like plants need water. People perceive vulnerability in another when they see that person striving to do their very best in circumstances where the odds are stacked against them. It is only when we dare greatly that we reveal who we are and what we care about; browbeating another into submission is not particularly daring. When you start to infuse your performance with the determination of your character’s desire, remind yourselves that dramatic conflict happens when characters fight for things they believe in, not against people they disagree with. When two actors argue in righteous opposition, we witness a pure distillation of dramatic conflict founded on positive, text-based human desire.
The fourth and fifth components of character are obstacles and consequences. Obstacles are the people or circumstances that conspire to stop a character from achieving their goals. Consequences (also known as “stakes”) are the bad things that will befall that character if they fail. Even though they are textually distinct concepts, we will look at these final two components at once because together, they help to determine a performance’s proportionality. Like any discipline guided by source material, acting is about proportion. The orchestrator, editor, director, scenic, sound, lighting, and costume designer are all ruled by a sense of proportionality in service to the piece they bring to life. For the actor, the question of proportion often comes in the form of concerns over their performance’s “size.” They may be worried that they are “pushing” or doing “too much” or that they are being “too casual.” This is particularly prevalent in on-camera work as actors have been instructed for decades to “be smaller” for the camera, an unhelpful generalization. All questions of proportion can be answered by measuring obstacles and consequences to discover the appropriate amount of force the actor will channel into their performance.
An aside: many of the “be smaller” suggestions have come from TV/Film casting directors trying to get actors auditioning for small guest spots to work in a way that will pull less focus from the principals in the scene. If the show is Law & Order and they’re casting the bodega employee who hands Mariska Hargitay a pack of gum, they need someone who can do it unobtrusively. Down-regulating energy for the camera is not a general rule; it’s just good to know your character’s place in the story. If actors are “smaller” on camera, it’s not because smaller is better, but because their proximity to the viewer is much closer than it would be if they were playing a music hall, so they don’t have to put as much effort into being seen and heard. I digress.
The calculation is straightforward: the force of want is dictated by the size of the character’s obstacle and the severity of the consequences of their failure. If the force of will is disproportionate to the obstacle and consequence, the actor will be perceived as either “pushing” or “casual.”
In our example of the two siblings fighting over the car keys, the obstacle as the other sibling’s preference or current possession of the keys and we’ll set the consequences as one missing an evening with their boyfriend. For a young person, these stakes are high, but they’re not life or death. If one of the siblings is weeping and hollering at the top of their lungs without a textual reason, their performance will seem out of proportion, “pushed.” Now, imagine the same forceful performance occurring in the same scene, with the same dialogue and arguments. Only this time, that character has made plans to run away with their boyfriend that evening and get married, never to return, and agreed that if either of them doesn’t show up, they will never see the other again. The consequence shifts from “missing out on a romantic evening” to “missing out on the rest of your life.” In this case, the stakes have escalated significantly, and the dramatic performance would suddenly snap into perfect proportion, all due to the introduction of a more severe set of consequences. The difference is between two characters with a high school crush and Romeo & Juliet. For the actor analyzing consequences, one should not be viewed as any better than the other; it’s all a matter of proportion. Proportion is everything.
Impartiality in evaluating a scene's consequences, or stakes, in the pursuit of proportionality has been most compromised by the suggestion that an actor “raise the stakes.” If a director determines that an actor’s energy is too low or that they are somehow less invested than they might be, they’ll often employ this note in an effort to turn things up. As well-intentioned and observant as the director might be, the problem with asking an actor to “raise the stakes” is that it is a contradiction in terms; stakes don’t move. The consequences of a character’s failure to reach their objectives are a fixed part of the play’s given circumstances and cannot be “raised” or “lowered” at will. The stakes are what the writer says they are. Put the Five Components to work, and you’ll be reminded that stakes are not what the actor plays when they work; they play wants. How bad the actor should want those wants, however, can only be determined by an impartial analysis of how bad it would be if their character didn’t get them. So if you are a director and one of the actors needs to turn the energy up, simply remind them what the stakes actually are and ask that they “care more” about avoiding them.
“Want what you want more” is a perennial direction of mine. We always dial up the energy with argument and want, not by pretending the consequences are worse than they are. Higher stakes aren’t better; proportion is better. We don’t want to play every scene between two high school crushes as if it were Romeo & Juliet because we would fail to capture the familiar nuances of day-to-day adolescent romance. A scene between two kids in a cafeteria who risk detention for truancy still has arguments and wants just as human as anything that goes on in Shakespeare’s tragedy, and if the writer wanted it to be more exhilarating, the lovers would be robbing banks like Bonnie and Clyde instead of sharing a plate of meatloaf and cutting history class.
The connection between wants and obstacles helps predict the survival of every relationship we have. The ties will endure if the obstacles to continuing the relationship are mild enough to make its benefits worth the trouble. People grow apart when the obstacles to a continued relationship outweigh the benefits. Imagine you have a close friend you haven’t seen in a long time and feel guilty about disappearing on them. As you think about reaching out and reconnecting, the relationship between want and obstacle will determine whether you take that step. The obstacle is that you must either get on the phone or sit down for coffee, face the person, and take accountability for your mistake. This can be awkward; many people go to great lengths to avoid such encounters. If there’s little else you want from the relationship—no benefit shining like a beacon on the far side of that encounter—you’re unlikely to put yourself through it. However, if there’s a significant upside to rekindling the relationship, the obstacle of reconciliation may suddenly seem less imposing, and your chances of reaching out will increase. That’s the power of obstacles. While we may not examine our decisions this closely in life, we do when working on a play.
If your character hasn’t yet exited the scene, their want continues to supersede the obstacle to obtaining it. The more significant the obstacle and the more severe the consequences of failure, the greater the force of willpower, and vice versa. Once you fully grasp literal meaning, argument, and want, you weigh these against obstacles and consequences and get a roadmap for thought, speech, action, motivation, intention, and proportionality in performance, all derived from the source material.
If these Five Components of Character are firmly established in the actor’s mind, their unique emotional associations will be stimulated naturally. Uniformity of thought in the beginning gives way to individuality of emotion at the end.