Today in class we warmed up and then talked about Matt’s definitions for text-work: super objectives, scene objectives, beat objectives, activities, tactics, and actions.
Matt’s rules for objectives are that they must: 1) be phrased in terms of what you want from the other person(s), 2) be phrased as a positive, 3) have a bull’s eye or target with an implied moment of achievement, 4) excite you, and 5) be physically capable of being done but be more than a chore.
The reason I restate these is that to my mind these rules are extremely useful in text work that will support interesting acting. Rule number 1 makes sure that you are always engaged with others on stage, either your fellow performers or the audience. That makes you dynamic, involved, and constantly active. And yes, I believe you can form objectives that involve you directly with the audience. Either the audience represents the audience, in the case of many one-man shows and any monologues that break 4th wall, or the audience could represent some external or internal entity, a sort of model of the dualist self with which one may interact (I would posit this would be handy in a Shakespearean soliloquy, where one is not necessarily breaking the 4th wall but one still wants an active, externally engaging objective).
Rule number 2 is to keep us heading towards something instead of away from something else. Not only is this stronger, but as Matt said today: often focusing on a negative just causes you to collapse into the thing you’re avoiding. For instance if you tell yourself not to do something, your brain has no alternative to focus on and so ends up doing it anyway.
Rule number 3 keeps you on track so that you know exactly where you’re going at all times. Perhaps there are multiple ways a character could achieve a given objective, but depending on the one you’re pursuing at the time, your tactics will change. Having an exact and concrete notion of what you want from moment to moment keeps your actions specific.
Rule number 4 is possibly the most important. Choosing an objective that is intrinsically exciting to you as a performer ensures that your performance will not be boring; it will instead be exciting! Something that excites you will excite higher stakes and higher energy in the pursuit of that objective. High stakes and high energy is what the audiences pay the big bucks to see.
Rule number 5 ensures that your objective is not so abstract or spiritual that it cannot be pursued effectively or specifically through physical choices and our interactions with others.
Another thing we discussed in class was how to choose objectives in such a way that they are never achieved. Though this sounds counter-intuitive, the reasoning is simple. If I choose an objective and it is fulfilled at any point in any scene, even the final scene, for the remainder of that scene I have nothing left to do. I can only smile. I literally cannot continue to act because there is nothing to act upon. And the performance flat-lines and becomes boring until the merciful blackout occurs. This makes sense to me, since if you choose your scene objectives carefully in such a way that you always have something more to strive for, it will produce a more consistently interesting and thrilling performance. On the other hand, this worries me because it seems as though it might be possible for a play to have an arc where a character’s journey is defined by his finally achieving contentment. Obviously contentment is not particularly interesting, but the way it is achieved might be, and in that final moment of the play it seems as though the pursuit of an objective is almost in definitional opposition of ‘contentment.’ This is just one hypothetical example I can think of where I wonder if there might be an exception to the rule. And probably there are others. Or maybe I’m wrong about this. I would be interested to discuss it with Matt sometime.
Certainly though, I agree that if a character’s objectives are ever met, even temporarily, either they need to get off stage or the show needs to end immediately.
For Jason, I’m leaning towards thinking that his super-objective could be something like, being seen as redeemed in the eyes of his family. I’m not sure if that is as exciting as it could be though. But I’m also not sure how to hyper-charge it, and maybe it doesn’t need to be. Redemption is a powerful thing to strive for, and is thus a powerful motivator.
As for the spine of the play, or the overarching super-objective that all of the characters may share, I feel that it must have something to do with wanting a sense of permanence, a recognition of their lasting significance and efficacy by everyone they encounter. I’ll keep thinking about that though.
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