Character Analysis

 The more information you gather, the better and more informed your acting choices will be.  Find below most questions you should clarify for yourself before you make you acting choices:

1. The Story

1. How does your character relate to the plot, mood and theme of the script?

2. How do you (the actor) relate to the theme

2. The information

3. Find all your character lines. These are lines in the script that reveal something about your character. These can be :(a) what your character says about him/herself; (b) What your character says about other characters; (c) what others say about him/her; and (d) what the author says in the italics about your character or the characters in general. You can underline these lines (in a distinct color) or, preferably, write them in a separate notebook or place in your script.

4. Describe all the previous actions for your character. This is everything that has happened to your character before the script begins, and everything that happens offstage after the script begins (both during the time shown offstage and between acts or scenes)

5. Write a brief summary of everything your character does. Example: “ I enter, light a cigarette, start to smoke, ditch it when Mom comes in answer the questions about Madge. Then I yell at Bomber then chase him off when he is insulting… Don’t summarize everything your character says but do include all of the important things that you do

3. Character Motivation

6. What is your character’s super objective (or spine)?  What does he/she want the most? How urgent is that want?

7. What are the opposition forces to the super-objective? (What’s in the way of what you want to achieve? Who is against you?)

8. How vigorously do you pursue your super objective? How do your personality characteristics modify the way you pursue your super objective?

9. How does the social environment (mores, manners, etc) modify the way you pursue your super objective?

4. Character Relationships

10. Indicate all of the character’s relationships. To whom or what are you most heavily involved?

11. How is your character physically or physiologically different from the other characters in the script?

12. Who likes or dislikes you? Who do you like or dislike?

13. At the beginning of the script how do you feel toward any of the other characters? Why do you feel this way?

14. During the script do your feelings toward any of these characters change? If so, Why? In what ways?

15. Who helps you? Why?

5. Biography

Begin with the specific information the script has given you. Proceed from there to your own inventions, basing these upon the specific information. Write the biography in the first person. Things that should be included are:

16. Who are you? Full name

17. Are you single? Married? Divorced? Children?

18. Where were you born? Where have you lived since then?

19. Into what social economic class were you born? Have these changed since then?

20. What education have you had?

21. What important things have happened to you?

22. What is your present occupation? Do you like it?

23. Is money a big concern in your life? or do you have sufficient that you don’t worry about it?

6. The Physical

24. Sex

25. Age

26. Height

27. Weight

28. Color of the hair

29. Color of the eyes

30. Skin

31. Posture

32. Appearance 

33. Defect or unusual physical features?

34. General health

7. Personality

35. Are you generally extroverted or introverted? What is your general level of self-confidence?

36. Is your behavior partly in compensation of personal insecurities?

37. What is your general response to other people?

38. How do you want to appear in general?

39. How do you wan to appear?

40. How do you want to appear to yourself?

41. What appearance do you want to avoid at all costs?

42. What appearances must you avoid with each particular character?

43. Is your character head, heart, gut or groin centered? Explain.

44. What is your degree of nervosity? (what is your general level of nervous energy)?

45. What is your emotional climate, including the intensity of your emotions?

46. How do you respond to emotional stimuli?

8. Values

47.  Who is your God? This is not a question of religion. It means who or what are the guiding values in your life?

48. Who is your private audience/ if you knew that someone was watching all of your actions, who would you be living or playing for?

49. Find the bad in your good character, or find the good in your bad character.

9. You, the Actor and the Character

50.  What are the similarities between you, the actor and your character?

51. What are the differences?

52. What qualities of the actor are needed: Physically, vocally, personality and special-skill qualities.

53. What specific things do you think you are going to have to work on to fit yourself to the character?

10. Things to do

54. Do character observation. Find a person you might base parts of your character upon. Possibly find several people. Observe them and incorporate the traits into your character.

55. What animal best represents your character? Animal checklist technique

56. Endow all if your properties. Give an imaginary history to the props and set items that you handle, just as you have done for your character.

57. Be ready at rehearsals to answer the following questions: when you enter where have you been; why did you enter; when did you exit, where are you going? Why?

58. Paste the script and write down the essential action, the tactics per unit of thought and the subtext.

Example:

From A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennesee Williams

SCENE I: Blanche Dubois confronts her sister about the loss of their family plantation.

Essential Action	TEXT Beats	Actions/Tactics	Sub-Text	As if
To get my unfair sister in my corner	I, I, I took the blows on my face and my body! All those deaths!	To Correct	I sacrificed my life by staying in Belle Reeve.	(personal choices) : Connecting with how my sister minimized my hard work and sacrifices.
	Father, Mother, Margaret that dreadful way. So big with it, she couldn't be put in a coffin, but had to be burned like rubbish!	To plague	Your own blood died in horrible ways but you weren’t there but I will try to make it graphic
	You came just in time for funerals Stella.	To contrast	The terrible things were over when you got involved
	And funerals are pretty compared to death. Funerals are quiet, but deaths not always.	To wheedle	Since you are the youngest, this is what you saw, the pretty
	Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, sometimes it rattles, sometimes they cry out to you, “Don’t let me go!” Even the old sometimes say it- “Don’t let me go”. As if you could stop them!	To torture	This is what you missed so I want you to have a better and more specific idea of how horrible it can be.
	Funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And oh, what lovely boxes they pack you away in!	To Pacify	What made you sad and cry was  a walk in the park compared to what I went through
	Unless you were there at the bed when they cried out “Hold me” you’d never suspect there was struggle for breath and bleeding. You didn’t dream, but I saw! Saw!	To provoke	Imagine this? Truly! Put yourself in my shoes!!!
	And now you sit there telling me with your eyes that I let the place go. How in hell do you think all that sickness and dying was paid for?	To refute	How dare you blame me for the loss of the plantation?
	Death is expensive Miss Stella! And old Cousin Jessie, right after Margaret’s, hers! The Grim Reaper put his tent up on our doorstep! Stella, Belle Reve was his headquarters. Honey, that’s how it slipped through my fingers.	To lecture	You have no idea because you didn’t take any responsibility but these moments are also about money and making decisions quickly.
	Which of them left us a fortune? Which of them left us a cent of insurance even? Only poor Jessie- one hundred to pay for her coffin. That was it Stella!	To Mock	You are clueless but everyone was broke and there wasn’t any money left but 100 to pay for Jessie … obviously not even close to what was needed
	And I with my pitiful salary at the school! Yes, accuse me! Sit there and stare at me, thinking I let the place go. I let the place go!	To Degrade	Even though I do have a job (you don’t) I tried my hardest but point the finger at me
	Where were you Stella? In bed with your Polack!	To Shame	While I was suffering you were enjoying life with a brute!