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Ben Guillory
by Rosemary Leyson
(July 2003) |
Ben Guillory on Acting for Writers
On July 19, The Scriptwriters Network welcomed “Acting for Writers” guest speaker Ben Guillory. He is an actor and director with numerous film, television and stage credits spanning twenty-five years. He also wrote and hosted a TV documentary series on Dr. Martin Luther King. Currently, he is the chairman of the Board of Directors for the Robey Theatre Company in Toluca Lake.
The non-profit theatre company was founded by Mr. Guillory and Danny Glover in 1994.
Mr. Guillory said the goal of the theatre is “to bring to life, stories from the Black experience from around the globe.” This goal is woven into their playwright and acting labs.
For our seminar, Mr. Guillory brought four of his actors -- Kierstan Morgan, Angela Matemotja, Carl Calhoun and Amad Jackson -- to illuminate on the acting process. After a brief introduction to The Boom Boom Room and The Island, a scene from each play was performed. A question and answer session followed each of the work-in-progress scenes.
For the first scene, an impromptu stage scene of a dressing room in a nightclub was created for The Boom Boom Room. The scene was between a bar dancer, played by Kierstan Morgan and her female co-worker, played by Angela Matemotja.
The second play, The Island, is set in an island prison off the South African coast in the 1950’s when apartheid was the norm. Amad Jackson and Carl Calhoun played the prison cellmates.
After each performance, Mr. Guillory asked his actors how they felt about their performance. Did the scene come through the way it was intended? What was going on for them? Members of the audience gave feedback and some explained how they interpreted the scene. An engaging dialogue was exchanged between Mr. Guillory, the actors and the audience. Mr. Guillory noted that subtext is as important on the page as it is for the motivations for the actor in any scene.
He explained that an actor’s job is to understand the essence of the character and the whole arc of the scene. This chipping-away process is worked out by the actor’s assignment to identify their character’s objective, action, obstacle and need for each scene and as well as for the story as a whole. Understanding what is at stake will help the actor be true to the character and his or her actions.
A question was raised regarding if and when an actor or the director changes the writer’s dialogue. It was made clear by the actors and Mr. Guillory that there must have been a reason the writer wrote the way they did, adding that there is an obligation to be faithful to the words and their meaning.
Understanding the meaning and the words is part of the acting process. If this chipping-away process still does not shed enough light about the scene, the director will approach the writer at this point.
From an actor’s point of view, “being specific based on the script, one moment at a time,” is crucial to identifying a scene and how characters are played. The use of “backward thinking” is also employed to motivate the actions. Knowing what the character wants, what the obstacles are to getting it and how desperate are they to get it are all motivations for the actions or reactions.
Mr. Guillory discussed how important all the elements of writing are to aid an actor in understanding the essence of their character and the story. Style of speech is as important as what is being said. How a character moves is as important as the act of movement. Be appropriate in behavior and gesture to time period, location and character, he added.
A comment was made that established actors have difficulty finding good scripts worthy of their time. How can writers attract an actor to a script? Mr. Guillory and the actors had several suggestions. First was getting the script to the right person. This is very subjective, and what one actor may connect with may not be so for another.
Some practical suggestions when writing a character include giving them “characteristic actions,” like chain smoking or other physical habits. These habits convey character traits, and actors need and use these traits to personalize and embody who they are playing. Also, use scene directions to give actors clues to the essence of the character.
“Using specific words are better than general words. Great works and voices are recognizable by themselves,” Mr. Guillory pointed out. He cited works by Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare and August Wilson as examples.
Since it is somewhat unpredictable and subjective to say who will connect or not connect with a script, Mr. Guillory reminded the audience that you must trust your work and be true to yourself. He gave his own example for his company’s play, For the Love of Freedom. It is a story told in a trilogy about three Haitian leaders in the 1700s and their role in the only successful slave revolt in the world. Despite having the elements of an epic tale and high stakes drama,
Mr. Guillory was dismayed by some of his colleagues’ ho hum reactions to the story. Five years in the making, he said. You have to believe in your work.
With humor and encouragement, Mr. Guillory closed with suggestion that we, as writers, make contact with actors and get our scripts read by them and “hear our work to get it to the next level.”
Rosemary Leyson is currently in post production on The Perils of Commuting, a short DV comedy she wrote, produced and directed.
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