Actor Training: A Sense of Place
by Gary Randolph

Every place you visit has unique sights, sounds, scents, and sensations. If you hear the word's "grandmother's house" what sensations come to mind? The scent of baking cookies? The smell of an old person's house? A feeling of fussiness that keeps you sitting uncomfortably in your chair and afraid of sitting down a glass in the wrong place? When I think of my grandmother's house I hear the rhythmic ticking of a mantle clock. I see the rays of afternoon sun streaming across the cornfields into her west-facing windows.

When performing, an actor's imagination becomes an important part of the set decoration. In modern productions it is sometimes the only part of the set. I once directed an actor in a monologue where she imagined she was in the temple. I traced out for her in our sanctuary the dimensions of the Holy of Holies (a 20-cubit cube) so that she could visualize it. I encouraged her to imagine it and its contents and to look around at it as she delivered the monologue. Though she stood on a bare stage, the audience could believe she was standing in the ancient temple.

Imagining the sights, sounds, scents, and sensations of the place of your scene is just the first step. What emotional reactions do those sights, sounds, scents, and sensations produce? That rhythmic ticking of the mantle clock at my grandmother's house, does it produce in me feelings of serenity? Or does the incessant ticking drive me up the wall? How do the rays of the afternoon sun make me feel? Do I feel the warmth and hominess of family as evening draws in? Do I feel forlornness in the open country of Western Indiana?

What do you feel when you think of the following?

• The sounds of the highway late at night heard from a motel off the Interstate
• The sight of a gray January sky
• The smell of stuffiness in a storage shed
• The sounds of a shopping mall
• The sight of family photos and mementos on your wall or shelves
• The feel of grass between your toes on a warm summer day

When playing a scene, imagine what your senses would experience. Then feel your reaction and build it into your performance.

More specifically, you need to feel your character's reaction. You may enjoy the feel of grass between your toes, while your character does not. But you will still need to start with your own emotional reaction, because it is the only set of emotions you know. If your character dislikes the feeling of grass between his toes, then imagine the grass is damp or muddy or you are feeling wet spaghetti between your toes. Then build your emotional reaction to that into the character's reaction. In every case let the place and the sensations you imagine from that place create your emotional reaction and build your performance.

The Terminal Game

A game we play to help actors develop a sense of place is called Terminal. We ask for six-to-eight volunteers and sit them in rows of chairs resembling the waiting area at a gate in an airport terminal. Often actors will want to immediately start role-playing imagined personas and relationships and encounters with the passengers. But that isn't the point of the exercise. Instruct them to interact with each other very little. They should simply play themselves, imagine the place, and react to it.

What would they be doing in an airport terminal? Reading? Watching people? Sleeping? How do they feel about the place where they are? Where are they traveling? To home? To a business event? To a vacation? How do they feel about that? Ask them what they imagine the terminal to be like? What do they see, hear, and smell? How do the seats feel? How long have they been sitting in those seats? Take them through several such questions to get them into the moment. Then allow them to play their reactions.

After a minute or two (longer if you have the time and really want to recreate the terminal experience) stop the scene and ask the actors what they thought, saw, heard, smelled, and their emotional reaction to it all.

Finally, tell the actors that you want them to play a few more minutes of the scene. This time they can interact with each other. And this time you are making a slight change in the scenario: make an announcement that the flight they have all been waiting for has been cancelled due to mechanical problems. The next flight is in 6 hours, and you will check to see if there is room on it. Meanwhile, they should wait. Then let them act.

The last time we played this, one actor actually began crying, forcing the others to react to her. Another actor stormed up to me and asked to see my supervisor. Everyone reached for cell phones to make calls. They were in the moment. They were in that place, and they felt it.

Copyright (c) 2006, Over The Top Publishing.
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