Ohne Worte

We are here in Berlin studying the impact that plays can have without the aid of words. Characters such as the lady in pink (Dr. Bernhardi) and the husband in the wheelchair (The Last Guest) play such important parts in these stories or productions, yet they have little to actually say. And when you ask someone how they define an actor, they usually mention something about simply memorizing a bunch of words. I feel like I can recognize the importance an actor can have without words (especially now have seeing the two plays), however I am still very curious about these types of characters. When we saw Dr. Behrnardi I was intrigued by the lady in pink writing on the wall. I thought that she might return later and have an influential impact upon the story, but she never did. Furthermore, she did not bow with the other actors. “Oh?” I thought, “She must be part of stage crew, dressed in a costume.” However, talking about the show later to everyone I realized that she was in fact part of the ensemble. This raised many questions for me that I so desperately wanted to talk to her about. The main one being her opinion on her character. I recently played a character who spent most of the play solely walking across a stage. I did all my character development and crafted the heck out of each Canadian cross, so that I was not simply just a girl walking across a stage. Yet during one of the runs I realized something. I realized, we could tell the audience the exact same story if I was simply just a girl walking across a stage. Yes, I was an actor who desired for my character to have great meaning and technique behind it, but there was something so equally important about me as an object in this production. I felt similarly about the lady in the pink dress and the husband in the wheelchair. Technically the actor could have simply gone onstage every night and just wrote some words on the wall, without all this painstaking Meisner or Uta Hagen work behind it. She still has such a great impact on the audience by the simple tasks she does. 

As actors we want great paragraphs of words that we can analyze. Everything we do onstage we want to have great personal meaning behind it. However, regular actions preformed onstage have such a big impact on the audience that it really makes me question the role of an actor. 

I started this blog post after the first show we saw here and have been struggling with this concept for the past two weeks. However, I believe that it is something that I will not reach a definite answer about. The role of the actor is something so complicated, and cannot be defined simply by a few guidelines. I think that one thing (amount so many others) that I'm learning here in Berlin is that there is so many things that can define an actor, other than what just the typical American actor is.