Wednesday, September 1, 2010

THE SPIRITUAL STATE OF THE CHARACTER

Everyone could be said to have some sort of spiritual state. They do not believe in a thing, or they do believe, and if they believe, they generally believe in something specific, and that belief (or non-belief) can color their actions, thoughts, and emotions, not to mention their objectives.

Many people and characters assume a spiritual belief as their principle objective in life. Service to God, or a belief system, is not unique as a life choice. This can certainly be true of a character, such as Shaw’s St. Joan, or Ben Kingsley’s Gandhi. And needless to say, an actor playing Buddha or Jesus or Mohammad will be playing a character with a strongly defined spiritual state.

Non-belief is a state, as well. One’s choice not to believe in prevailing religious doctrine can certainly color not only their own actions, but how others around them perceive them and respond to them.

You should always takes a few minutes to determine your character’s spiritual state, and add it into their character history.

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EXERCISE: Take your character in a play. Determine his beliefs or non beliefs. Look over the play and decide how his or her religious state affects the character’s behavior (as in Step IV.) Determine how the religious state of your character affects other characters reactions to your character (as in Step V).

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