Ask Judith: Submission #14

Submission Number: 14
Submission ID: 98
Submission UUID: 7aac2de5-a1e6-4d48-b35d-08625d0fb772
Submission URI: /web/ask-judith

Created: Fri, 09/24/2021 - 03:51 PM
Completed: Fri, 09/24/2021 - 03:44 PM
Changed: Tue, 12/26/2023 - 12:58 PM

Remote IP address: 49.195.62.113
Submitted by: Anonymous
Language: English

Is draft: No
Webform: Ask Judith
Submitted to: Ask Judith
Name Walter Lee
Email (optional) waltex@gmail.com
Question Dear Judith

Thank you so much for this opportunity to ask you questions.

How do you direct or guide actors in scenes when they are the only character in the scene?

I feel a lot of the instructions are around actors affecting each other - but what happens when the actor is there in the scene by themselves?

You write "A moment means the actors stop each other, and affect each other." (p-134)

How does an actor affect themselves?
What does a director say to guide an actor though these scenes?

In an interview you also relate how Meryl Streep is asked, "How much of your performance do you get from the other actor?" Meryl Streep replies, "All of it".

https://youtu.be/luA6mGAXw2s?t=1991

So what happens when there's no other actor? Where does her performance come from?

Thank you

P.S.

May I suggest a couple of examples of scenes where the character is by themselves:

Someone on a bench overlooking the sea, thinking about their son who has committed suicide a few days earlier?

Or someone who is sitting online in a café waiting for their date who is late and eventually never turns up.

Of course, please use any other example you may like to use.
Reply Hi Walter! Thanks for your question. You actually answer your question yourself by the examples you suggest of an actor who is playing the only character in a scene. In those scenes, even though there is no other actor, the lone character is still in a relationship. The parent staring out to sea whose son has committed suicide a few days earlier, is still in a relationship with that son. She may be having a silent dialogue with him, begging him for answers; she may be replaying in her mind memories of events from the past. Those memories might produce waves of guilt; or they might produce feelings of comfort and the beginning of healing. The person waiting for their date is of course imagining all the reasons the date might be late -- all the way from in a car accident to having changed their mind about coming. In other words, the actor uses their imagination. In the chapter on Listening in the new edition of my book (Directing Actors 25th Anniversary Edition, which came out in April 2021), I talk in more detail about this. But to reply to your question about "how to direct or guide actors in scenes where they are the only character" I would say -- always start by asking them what they need from you, or what ideas they already have. Or better yet, let them first try the scene without any direction. Best wishes, Judith
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