Keeping a Character Journal

In The Stanislavski System, The Professional Training of an Actor by Sonia Moore, she describes method acting as taught by Konstantin Stanislavski.  In this system, actors are encouraged to consider certain elements of action.  Specifically, using questions "What would I do if I were in Hermia's position?" This "magic if," as Stanislavski called it, transforms the character's aim into the actor's action.

"Puck" stated that she found this journal
in the forest.  From the first page, it appears
to be a lost journal from another character
in the play, Helena!  

To encourage this exercise in character development, Spotlight students were assigned the task of creating a "character journal."  This journal should include only entries written from their characters perspective.  Last week two brave cast members shared examples from their journals.  The first example cited here was inspired through a circumstance where the actor wrote from their characters perspective after experiencing some of our unusual Chicago area weather:

"The weather keeps changing... my boss and the queen must be fighting again!  Don't get me wrong, I do love to see a healthy 'spat,' as humans say, between couples, but the constant weather change is exhausting. 

Just today, on a trip through a village  it was sunny and cold, then it started drizzling, then pouring, then out of nowhere it started snowing, then it turned into a full out blizzard!   

Oh, today I caught one of the Queen's fairies out stringing cobwebs up on the farmers barns.  I sneaked up behind her and changed the design.  When she turned around, she squealed in surprise to see her work changed.  It was awesome!"  ~ Puck

In a desire to expand the use of female cast members and provide another female member in Theseus court, the character of Philostrate was cast as a woman.  The thoughtful young actor cast in this role wrote the following example from the actor's experience in rehearsal and clues taken from the text:

"Tonight my royal mistress summoned me to her chamber once again. But she did not speak right away. Instead she stood at the window for a long time, until the summer sky had turned black and the moon had risen quite high. It was a crescent moon; I remember because she said that its shape reminded her of a silver bow. She is always saying things like that. I don't know that I will ever quite understand Hippolyta and her love of wild and manly things, but she has chosen me as her friend, and I must do my duty.  

When she finally did speak, after turning in her abrupt way from the window, she told me of a certain man Egeus who had come to the Duke earlier today. This Egeus, she said, was accompanied by his daughter Hermia by name, and two young men, Hermia's rival suitors. Egeus favors one man to marry her, but the daughter loves the other--quite adamantly, the way Hippolyta described it. Apparently Egeus asked the Duke either to force his daughter to marry the favored man, or to let him dispose of her life.  

At this point in the tale Hippolyta became upset--that is, she stopped talking and swept to the window again. I know what troubles her. She finds a kindred heart in this Hermia, who will not marry someone she claims not to love. As for me? I pity the girl, but she is foolhardy. Who is she to resist out strong Athenian law? ~ Philostrate

Most of our students have begun character journals, and were instructed to make at least one entry per week, (although the more they write, the more they expand their characterization).  Sonia Moore went on to describe Stanislavski's theory by saying: "A rich imagination will also contribute to characterization when an actor interprets the lines and fills them with the meaning that lies behind - the 'subtext.'  The lines of the author are dead until and actor analyzes and brings out the sense that the author intended.  If an actor with the help of his imagination finds interesting meaning behind the words, his intonations also will be expressive and interesting  'Spectators come to the theater to hear the subtext," said Stanislavski.  'They can read the text at home.'"