GP1: Relationship - Homework

GP1: Relationship - Homework

Your turn! Describe the relationship between your character and that of your scene partner. Where’s the love? What are the facts and what are the emotions?

Facts: ______(EX: Juliet is the daughter of our rival family.)_______
Feel: _______(EX: I am so incredibly in love with her.)__________

GP1: Relationship - A Final Note

GP1: Relationship - A Final Note

Here's a final note to wrapping up Shurtleff's guidepost on Relationship. Just remember to ask/sing yourself...



Leave it to the Black Eyed Peas to turn a principal acting question into a catchy tune.


Up Next Summaries and applications of the next guidepost: Conflict!

GP1: Relationship - Application: Antigone and Creon

GP1: Relationship - Antigone and Creon

Overview Ah, yes. Finally, the major relationship throughout the play. Antigone's relationship to Creon is very important for the delivery of the lines. Time to find out where the love is.

Brief Summary of Application

• Factual: He is my uncle (his sister is Jocasta, my mother), but we are not close.
• Emotional: I do not love him because he took the throne from my father and then later on from my recently-deceased brothers, and because he refuses to bury my brother (also his nephew). He does not love me because I am a product of incest, and he believes that I am trying to steal his throne. All of these factors make me dislike him.
• Love: Do I want him to still love me? I know that he does not, but if I do the right thing (burying my brother), then maybe he will forget the fact that my shameful reputation as Oedipus's daughter, and he will finally love me?

Critique Helpfulness: 4/5 Overall, this guidepost has been extremely helpful. If I choose to play the relationship as a positive one, the stakes are higher when he still chooses to have me killed. If I choose to play the relationship as a negative one, then my objective will be much stronger during the trial scene.

Supplement Needed: It would be only beneficial to read the other two Oedipus plays (Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus) to understand Creon's character better. Whatever he portrays to the royal family then will most likely be the way that Antigone views him and can only further the factual relationship.

GP1: Relationship - Application: Antigone and the Chorus/State

GP1: Relationship - Antigone and the Chorus/State

Overview Antigone's last scene is spent talking with the Chorus, a group of people that represent the city of Thebes. It is important then to consider what Antigone's relationship is with the Chorus in order to pursue whatever her objective may be. The core question "Where is the love?" must be answered.

Application The plays Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Corilianus take place before Antigone does. An actor can use these two plays as backstory for Antigone's character. Antigone and her siblings had to live through the shameful incest of her father as well as the dishonorable death of her mother. Therefore, it can be assumed that Antigone, in suffering through the shame, had the bad reputation forced upon her.

So, where is the love?

A very possible choice that I am working towards is the choice that Antigone desires love from the Chorus/citizens of Thebes. They have always seen her as a product of incest and perhaps even a sub-person. Therefore, in addition to burying her brother for all of the right reasons (honor, familial duty, etc.), she may also feel that by doing the right thing, the people will finally stop their judging and accept her for who she is. She can finally remove the shame of her parents and gain the honor and the love she has always wanted.

This choice is helpful in that the stakes become higher. She fights harder to convince them that she is doing the right thing, and when they still refuse her, she is even more distraught.


Critique Answering this love question for the Chorus has been very helpful. I would say that it requires a supplement of Stanislavski's paperwork preparation. The background information had to be researched in order to fully understand the magnitude of Oedipus's shame. It could have been imagined, but then the performance may lack a certain rock-solid historical foundation.

GP1: Relationship - Application: Antigone and Haimon

GP1: Relationship - Antigone and Haimon

Overview Just like the previous post, this post will look at answering the question "Where is the love?" This time, however, I will be answering the question concerning Antigone and Haimon.

Application In speaking with my director, we came across two possible answers concerning Antigone's relationship with her cousin and fiance Haimon.

1. Lack of Love: Perhaps Haimon and Antigone are merely pawns in a chess game of continuing the royal bloodlines. Is their impending marriage a marriage of convenience that solidifies Haimon's right to the throne once his father (and Antigone's uncle) Creon dies? Is there any love between the two? Does Antigone actually love Haimon while he does not, or vice versa? If there is no love from Antigone, it would explain why she does not ever mention him.
2. Overflow of Love: Maybe Haimon and Antigone really do love each other, and the question of appropriate lineage does not exist. Then why does she not speak about him? It could be that she is trying to protect him, and she fears that any word she utters about him may result in his death; perhaps she loves him too much to let him suffer the same fate as she for a duty that he does not share. This could relate to a later passage in which she laments that "[Oedipus's] marriage strikes from the grave to murder [hers]." It could illustrate the anguish she feels at having to give up her true love in order to repair the dishonorable reputation brought on by her father.

Critique By exploring these two options, it gives me - as the actor portraying Antigone - two different response choices in Antigone's scene with Creon and Ismene. In that scene, Ismene and Creon discuss how death will be separating the bride from the groom; Antigone, however, does not speak throughout the segment. Why does she not speak? If there is a lack of love, then Antigone may appear indifferent and impatient at this talk. If there is an overflow of love, then Antigone may instead appear distraught at the realization that she has given up her chance at true love in order to die for her family's honor. By answering this question, a very poignant illustration is made that shapes the character and develop an honest performance.

GP1: Relationship - Application: Antigone and Ismene

GP1: Relationship - Antigone and Ismene

Overview Keeping the last post in mind, I will use the Relationship Guidepost to develop Antigone's relationship with her sister Ismene. To view the full text of Antigone (Fitts and Fitzgerald translation), click here.

Brief Summary of Application

• Factual: We are sisters, who grew up together in a family torn about by prophecy and ignorance (click here to read a summary of Oedipus Rex), which makes us very close.
• Emotional: I want her to prove her love by agreeing to bury my brother. If she loved my brother, she would bury him. If she loved me, she would help me.
• Love: Because she refuses to help me, I am distraught. I came into the scene with the expectation that, as my sister, she would blindly and willingly help me. She refuses, and the scene becomes one about the rejection of love.

Critique How is this technique helpful? Does it alone satisfy the needs of the scene, or does it require a supplementary technique?

• Helpfulness: 4/5 This question does not satisfy the scene. However, it proves helpful in building the relationships between Antigone and Ismene. The actor will know how to fight for his objective and how to react to his partner's lines, and it also raises the stakes. It allows me to ask the following questions (though, they are not limited to): What do I have to lose? If I love her and she refuses me, how does that make me feel? If I don't love him and he refuses me, how does that make me respond?

• Supplement Needed Coupled with Stanislavski's system of paperwork (given circumstances, background story, etc.), it can serve as a powerful foundation to creating an honest performance.

Guidepost 1: Relationship - Major Points

GP1: Relationship - Major Points

Overview Shurtleff begins his first guidepost (Relationship) by explaining:

"Every scene is a love scene. The actor should ask the question, 'Where is the love?' of every scene, or he won't find the deepest emotional content. This does not mean that every scene is about Romeo and Juliet-type love; sometimes the scene is about the absence...of love."

With this question as the foundation, one should be able to develop an emotionally honest relationship with their scene partner.


 Major Points of Guidepost 1: Relationship

1. Commitment
2. Love
3. Questions to Ask Yourself
4. Other Important Notes

Up Next Look out for the next few posts: GP1: Relationship - Application! I will be applying this guidepost to Antigone and her relationship with all of the characters.