Guidepost 2: Conflict - Major Points

Guidepost 2: Conflict - Major Points

Overview Shurtleff suggests that instead of using the Stanislavski objective or the generic goal/motivation, one must rather ask himself "What am I fighting for?" He uses fighting because it is an active term and there is no passive scene. To connect conflict to real life situations, Shurtleff says,

"All of life is a fight: we always want something. What seems like defeat is just another way of fighting. We always want something; we are always fighting."

 Heads up - it's a lengthy post!


Major Points of Guidepost 2: Conflict

1. Conflict
2. Dreams
3. Finding Conflict/Dreams within Your Character
4. Conflict and Relationship

Up Next Look out for the next few posts: GP2: Conflict - Application! I will be applying this guidepost to Antigone and her conflicts with all of the characters, and to two other scenes (an actual scene from a play and a "contentless scene"). Also, there will be a special post about which acting system serves as the best supplemental method for Shurtleff's work! Exciting stuff.

1. Conflict

• The actor must find the strongest, most positive goal possible. An actor must make the most active choice possible for every scene. There is no passive scene.
• An actor is looking for conflict. Conflict is what creates drama. Maximum conflict is what should be looked for.

2. Dreams

•  We don’t live for the realities but for the fantasies, the dreams of what might be. If we lived for reality, we’d be dead. Every last one of us. Only dreams keep us going.
• Romance is everyone’s secret dream – it’s why we’re alive. Never distrust romance; nothing could be stronger.  
• You need to create the fantasy of what you want, and that is what will drive you through the scene.
• Then be a fool. Dream. Dreams are always foolish.
• Don’t settle for anything less than the biggest dream for your future. Fight to make the dream come true.

3. Finding Conflict/Dreams within Your Character

• Find as many ways as you can to go about getting what you are fighting for. (This can also be referred to as tactics.)
• Always try to find ways to deepen and enrich the work.
• Playing opposite to the lines is behavior that is unpredictable. In real life, we don’t know what they are going to do next, they are not consistent, and we’re always being surprised by their doing something we didn’t expect. Interesting acting always has the risk element of the unpredictable in it.
• Call yourself “I” instead of “he/she.”
• Train yourself in the audition situation to think that every scene is about you, not about someone else. That’s the quickest way to find motivations.
• A block usually comes from a prejudice.
• If we really try to use our own feelings to the fullest extent of our imagination, drawing on our fantasy lives instead of limited ourselves to our literal reality, we can find feelings in anyone we can recognize and make real.

4. Conflict and Relationship

• Everyone is in there pitching hard for what they are fighting for, a balance is achieved through relationship (give and take, consideration, sensitivity for their reactions, an increased awareness, and how you affect each other).
• Attractions to someone don’t get “used up” – not if they are love, not if they are needful, not if they are emotional rather than just sexual. Attractions that are emotional grow.
• The character may not know it, but the love must exist in her subconscious; the actress always has to know more than the character.
• Tenderness is stronger than screaming.