Power of the Actor, CHapters 1 - 3

I have to say that I have begun to appreciate the required text, The Power of the Actor, by Ivana Chubbuck, who I had mistaken for being a man in an earlier blog. Evidently she has had an influence on many successful actors who have taken her classes or have turned to her for help in winning a role in a movie or sit-com.

Few of her examples refer to the stage. Perhaps it is because a movie or an episode in a sit-com once done is done. She gives an example of a young actress who made her one episode role into a character that demanded to be continued in further episodes, by making her bit part seductive and hot, and sex sells. Subsequent scripts were written to make room for her reappearances. In a play, if the young woman playing Desdemona decided on her own to make Hamlet want her, so he would not tell her "to get thee to a nunnery," chances are subsequent performances would not have her character a winner of her SCENE OBJECTIVE to seduce Hamlet and avoid suicide.

On the other hand, actors can have a considerable influence on the final script while rehearsing for the premier performances of plays. The playwright is most fortunate to work with a company of actors from one play to the next. Shakespeare had this advantage with the Globe players. His Falstaff character once created by the collaboration of the playwright and his actor, demanded to be featured in further plays by the Bard. Ms Chubbuck does occasionally cite examples from plays, like The Glass Menangeie, but for the most part she is Hollywood based, which makes her claims to help actors to"win" more understandable, as film and television unlike theatre, are primarily, commercial enterprises and secondarily intended to be works of art.

Chubbuck's chapter on Scene Objectives is quite good, for the most part, even though her examples of objectives are too often "to get another to like me" or "to get another to want to make love to me," and the like. And she tends to make universal claims that always apply. For example, on page 35 she says in determining your OBJECTIVES, "Always Make Selfish Choices" and continues: "To help another selflessly can make you feel good, but it doesn't have heat to it because there's nothing personally at risk for you." While this may be true at times, to claim that one should "Always" be selfish is certainly questionable.

Her chapter on OBSTACLES is very good, and loaded with examples of what she calls the three kinds of obstacles: physical, mental and emotional. Again, she occasionally goes overboard with her superlatives, like when she claims the more obstacles the better. I recently saw the film, Pursuit of Happyness, where the character played by Will Smith had so many obstacles to overcome to achieve his goal of getting a high paying job so he can establish a good, stress free, home for his son that is is extremely stressful to watch. And then when he gets this desired position, it is as a Wall Street stockbroker, which is perhaps one of the most frantic and stressful jobs imaginable. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.