Play and Action

A frustrating difficulty of certain talented actors is that they capture the play tactics of a scene quickly, and begin to play them. But they do it with such mastery - and so automatically - that they forget their stage partner. And since there is no action without a stage partner, the play tactics kill the action.

We have all witnessed it: we see a well-played performance, and we enjoy it very much at first, but bit by bit we begin to get bored. This is because the actors are playing, but they aren't pursuing a concrete action.

There is no doubt that doña Helia, in Today's a Holiday, wants to greet her cousin, wants to talk to him, to accompany him on this holiday, etc. All of that is great fun, and the scene is written that way: those are the play tactics of the character. But if the actress who performs doña Helia doesn't discover what the character wants, and doesn' try to pursue that action, then the play tactis will suddenly become false and the scene will stop working.

Helia wants to cheer Silverio up, wants to accompany him, for sure, but what she really wants id to find out what is going on between him and Pilar; she wants to find out what's gotten into Silverio. If she pursues this action actively, then the rest will suddenly, come alive, and will acquire a certain agreeable ambiguity, much more interesting for the audience. And this is impossible without connecting with the stage partner.

Play tactics aren't actions. Action gives life to play.