One of the most important things you can do as an actor is to dig into the script in front of you. This is referred to as script analysis.
Your playwright or screenwriter will have provided you with the information you need in order to understand the character traits, character arc, character motivation, character backstory, character goals, character relationships, and character wants that make up the character’s perspective.
It is your job as the performer to be a vessel through which the author is able to tell their story and convey the playwright’s intent. So, it is important that you understand that story and your role in it as well as possible. Here are some tried and tested techniques you can use in order to work on your acting script.
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The First Read Through
Before you start your script analysis you, of course, need to read it! Stanislavski thought the first read-through was a sacred part of the process for actors he recognised that the first read-through was as close as the actor was ever going to get to the audience’s experience of watching the play. It is your only opportunity to capture your first impressions.
So, you need to set aside some time where you won’t be disturbed and you can take your time reading. Then, you need to read through the entire play, start to finish, and take your time with it. Once you’re done, grab a notebook and write down all your first impressions.
This can be first impressions of the character, moments that stood out to you in the play, the overall message, or anything you think of the script you want to hang on to. This is a great way to start working with scripts to practice acting.
Perceptions
This is a classic exercise that helps you discern your character’s position in the play and find out new information about them, giving insight into the character perceptions. This is a good exercise to do after you’ve done your first read-through of the play. It is a simple exercise and exists of making some lists. All you need to do is go through the play and make a list of:
- Everything your character says about themself
- Everything your character says about others
- Everything others say about your character
This will give you a great insight into your character, their position in the play and their relationships from the actor’s perspective. This is the first big step in script analysis.
5 Ws
These are the 5 w questions you now need to answer about your character. The five ws are:
- Who am I? (Your identity. Your name, your job, the kind of person you are.)
- Where am I? (Specific location and general location. E.g. – my bedroom in my father’s house in the East End of London, England. All of these separate details are important.)
- When is it? (Again specifics and general information are needed here. 1pm, lunchtime, 30th April, Spring, 1945)
- What do I want? (What do you want for your life? What is the main thing you want for yourself?)
- Why do I want it? (What is your deeper reason for wanting what you want?)
The 5 ws example above shows how to answer the “who what where when” questions. Go through all of these once you have read the script a couple of times and you will have a deeper insight into your character.
You will then be able to build off this information to figure out what you need to communicate with your acting, or if there’s anything you need to research into in order to play your character.
This may be the time period it’s set in, including customs of the time, the character’s job, or where they live. Answering “what are the 5 w’s” is a key part of script analysis, just like the 5 ws in writing are important for authors.
Objectives
This is linked to our “what” question in the 5 w questions. Character objectives and scene objectives are crucial when it comes to building your character and improving your acting. Action is all about doing actions to achieve your objectives. How can you do that without knowing what your objectives are? Your objectives are your goals, your wants, the things you want to achieve.
The first thing you need to think about is your Super-Objective. This is your character’s objective over the course of the entire play. This is potentially also linked to the character’s objective for their life. While you may feel like they have more than one, try to focus on one thing in particular, or see if there is a wider objective that you feel encapsulates all the things they want. These can be linked to bigger universal ideas such as freedom or power.
Then you need to figure out their objectives in each scene. What are they trying to achieve in each scene, what do they really want? Specifically, want do they want from another character or what do they want to do to another character? Objectives are always best when linked to another character in the play.
Obstacles
These are linked to the character’s objectives in the play. Character obstacles are what create the stakes and conflict. If they didn’t have obstacles or things stopping them from getting what they want, then they would simply go out and get what they want. Unfortunately for our characters, plays don’t work like that. Fortunately for us, they’d be pretty boring if they did!
So, you need to find the main thing that stops your character from achieving their super-objective. What is their biggest obstacle in the play? Try and be specific with it. What is the specific thing that is holding them back?
You can then go on and do this for each scene. For each objective that you’ve chosen for each scene, come up with an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to achieve it. Sometimes they may succeed, and sometimes they may fail, but they must always fight to succeed.
Previous Circumstances
This is an important part of script analysis because it tells you where you are at the start of each scene. This is especially important for entering the stage with the right energy, or figuring out where you’re at in the story when you’re shooting a film out of sequence.
All you need to do is figure out from the previous scenes and the beginning of the current scene where you were and what you were doing directly before the scene starts. Write down where you were, what happened, what you were thinking about, and anything other information you think will be helpful. Then write this as the beginning of the scene. You can use your 5 ws as inspiration.
For example: “Walking home from work. It’s cold and raining, and late in the evening. Annoyed and rushed because the bus didn’t come and now I’m running late. Thinking about how I’m going to apologise when I get back”
Beats or Bits
Called either beats or bits by various teachers, this is the process of breaking your scenes up into sections. This is generally done by pacing a ‘/’ at the beginning and end of each section – or beat in script. The reason we split scenes up into sections is to help us understand the shifts in the scene that makeup it’s journey. We tend to start a new section whenever
- There’s a shift in mood
- The topic of the conversation completely changes
- Someone new enters the scene
- Someone exits the scene
These are clear shifts in the events and tone of the scene. Of course, there are many things that can change a beat in script but these are generally a judgement call and you can decide these on however they see fit. Then go through and give each beat a name that encapsulates the beat. This doesn’t have to be exact or specific, it can be representative or metaphorical such as “The dog chases its tail.” It just needs to communicate the tone of the beat to you. What does a beat mean in a script? It’s a section that represents a shift or change.
If you’re working on a big production, you will generally go through these with the director and the rest of the cast so you’re all on the same page. However, most times, you will have to go through this yourself before you start rehearsals.
Also, for a monologue, you may have to just get on with this yourself. I know you may be wondering how you could possible break up a 2-minute monologue into even smaller sections! My advice here would be to simply break it up into 3 beats – a beginning, middle and end.
Actioning
Now we need to decide on our actions or tactics. These are the things we do in order to achieve our objectives. Generally, this is done using transitive verbs, or action verbs acting.
Miriam-Webster says; “The meaning of TRANSITIVE is characterized by having or containing a direct object“
This means that a transitive verb is a doing word that is done to another person or object. For instance, “to think” is not a transitive verb because it cannot be done to someone. However, “to poke” is because we can do it to someone.
Take each line in the play and assign it a transitive verb from your list of actioning verbs. These actioning words for actors can be as literal or as metaphorical as you like. As long as they speak to you about what you are trying to do in each line then that’s all that matters! Write each of these verbs next to the line you assign it to, so you have it next to your lines to refer to. This exercise takes a little while but it is one of the most important parts of script analysis. Actioning for actors is a key skill.
Punctuation
I have covered this in my post on Shakespeare, as it is particularly important there. However, punctuation is important in any text. It gives us an insight into the pace and fluidity of the character’s thoughts, and therefore their feelings. For instance, if there is a very long sentence that normally means the character’s mind is running away with them and it’s all spilling out. If there are lots of short sentences and full stops, it means the character has a degree of control. Go through the text and circle every significant piece of punctuation – commas, full stops, exclamation marks, question marks, dashes, colons and semi-colons. Think a bit about what these might tell you about the character’s state of mind.
Significant Words
Another thing that will help you to understand the text further (and maybe give you some clues on how to deliver it), is to make note of the significant words in your character’s lines. These are the words that jump out to us.
Top Tip: As young actors, we may feel that the words to do with emotion are the most significant. However, these can actually make our performance vague and unspecific. The most significant words are usually nouns – the actual things we are referring to, for example, family, window, afternoon, sun etc.
The most significant after that are usually verbs or doing words, for example, walk, hit, take, and speak. Then after that the significant words may be emotional words such as happy or grief.
Go through the text and underline, highlight, or place a mark over each of the significant words in the script. Take note of the ones that really jump out to you as these will be the ones that really link you and your perspective to the character. You may even want to mark these ones in a different colour.
Subtext
This is the first step in developing a deeper understanding of your script and character. The subtext is what the characters mean but don’t actually say with their words. We do it in life all the time! The subtext often depends on the context, the previous circumstance and the character. Here’s an example:
A: How was your day?
B: Fine, thanks.
The subtext is what these characters really mean when they say these things. So when A asks “How was your day?”, they may really be asking “Are you in a good mood?” or “Did you find out that secret I’m keeping?” or “I don’t know what else to say to you.”
When B answers “Fine, thanks.” they may really be saying “I don’t want to talk about it.” or “I’m glad to be home.” or “You’re so nosy! Go away!” As you can see, it all depends on the circumstances of the play, the characters and their relationships.
Go through each scene and see if you can figure out what your character really means when they say each line. Then you can write each of your subtextual lines next to your lines or in a notebook. This is one of the more interpretive exercises you can us in script analysis.
Explore Script Analysis Further
Get Taped! have made an amazing video covering script analysis and why it’s so important. Check it out to see how the professionals analyse a script.
Conclusion
Here are some great spots to start with script analysis. If you do all of this you are sure to have a solid understanding of the play and your character. Now that you’ve collected all this information, you are ready to start building your character and doing more creative and playful work.
I promise you, if you follow these steps of script analysis, then you will be able to create far deeper and more well-rounded performances. This is the first step on the way to you doing your best work!
