Thursday, August 26, 2010

Character Qualities - HUMAN COMMON DENOMINATORS

Human Common Denominators are those experiences very common to human beings. Anything that most of us experience qualifies, including birth, childhood, school, rejection, acceptance, game-playing, winning, losing, becoming aware of sexuality, falling in love, having children, aging, seeing one’s faculties diminish, and death.

Shakespeare understood Human Common Denominators perfectly, and built his plays around them. Othello experiences jealousy; Shylock, greed; Macbeth, thirst for power; Romeo & Juliet, ruinous passion. Human Common Denominators, all. Here is his straight-forward statement on Human Common Denominators, from As You Like It:

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

Human Common Denominators are largely how the audience recognizes a character. They see what a character is doing, thinking, and feeling, and they respond with “Oh, I’ve been through that! Let’s see how HE handles it!” So, you’ve won their interest and understanding, sympathy or empathy.

A smart actor will go about consciously spotting the HDCs his or her character represents, and a smart director will help them. If the world’s smartest playwright thought it wise to build every play and sonnet around these experiences, wouldn’t you think it wise to follow in his footsteps?

When looking over a role, ask yourself what that “person” experiences that YOU’VE experienced, just for a point of comparison. HOWEVER, DO NOT USE YOUR EXPERIENCE TO CREATE THE CHARACTER, PLEASE! This has been amply discussed above. Instead, just note the points of comparison and know that these are HDCs you can use to earn the audience’s support and understanding.




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EXERCISE: Look over a selected scene with your character, from a play. Look for HCDs. Compare what the character goes through with the simple fact that you’ve gone through similar things, without getting into your own life, or a string of painful recalls. Just note the similarities.

With a partner (as possible), run the scene five times, stressing in your performance the elements of these common experiences. Is your character in love? Has he given up on life? Is he desperately trying to succeed at something? These are HCDs. Use them to color your performance. At least five time through, until you know you can locate a HCD, and use it to help an audience understand the character.

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