Building Character

The biggest challenge for improvisers and actors when it comes to characterisation is to make the character both believable and playable at the same time.  The character must be believable, from the audience’s point of view. That means they must be able to accept that the character’s actions are well motivated and true to life. But the character must also be playable from the perspective of the actor.  The actor must be able to communicate what the character thinks and feels on the inside by making the character say and do things on the outside. To make the character playable, you need to know what it does, its actions. To make it believable, you need to know how it performs the actions, its attitude.

By looking at the 5 essential aspects of character building for actors, you can learn what the essential aspects are for building your own personal character: that which makes you your own unique self. It can provide you with a framework for behaving true to character, i.e. in line with your values and motivations. I t can also help you to know which outer actions will best communicate your inner life. The reverse is also true: it can help you evaluate your outer actions to see if they reflect who you are inside. It helps you to align your profession with your passion.

Actors need 5 essential ingredients to find the playable actions motivated by believable attitude.  We will use a play scenario to explain. Some years ago I was creating a story with students for high school learners. We wanted to explore the issues of peer pressure and pressure from parents and teachers to achieve. We chose to centre our story on a sports event at a typical South African high school (if such a thing exists). The event was a soccer game between the local school and their arch rivals. We wanted to come up with believable characters that can help the audience explore the themes of pressure from peers and parents, but the characters had to be easy to play, since we were working on a tight schedule.

Here are the 5 main ingredients for building character:coach

  • The function or occupation of the character refers to a collection of related activities.  These related activities do not necessarily indicate the ‘job’ of the character, but rather his role, or function. Examples of these from our story are: The over bearing father, the supportive coach, the ambitious team captain, the gangster and his sidekick.  For the occupation to be playable it must involve interaction with other characters. Such roles must also be archetypal because such characters are easily playable and immediately recognisable by the audience. Archetypal characters are those found over and over again in fairytales, myths and fables from all over the world.
  • The related activities that make up the function are called occupational activities. It is important to find as many occupational activities as possible to provide a wide range of options for the actor.  Some such activities for the over bearing father may be as follows: Walks up and down field, shouts orders to players, criticises son, boasts to friends, buys hotdogs, drinks coke, adjusts clothing, ignores wife, laughs too loudly, fights with referee.
  • The character chooses its occupation out of passion – a desire that moti­vates his activities.  The passion is a singular choice and will simplify the character enough to make it playable, yet provide sufficient depth to make him intriguing.  Fulfilment of the passion will bring final happiness to the character.   The passion should be a broad and obvious choice, it may even be unoriginal e.g. a need to be influential (coach) or to be worthy of authority (team captain).  The passion has a ‘back story’, a reason for its coming into being and although it is something the audience never sees – it motivates the character’s actions emotionally.
  • Primary Needs are those needs that most directly serve the attainment of the passion.  ist2_4741473-white-rapperA good primary need in terms of playability is one that calls to mind many occupational activities that could lead to its fulfilment.  The primary needs are all connected to the passion, which is the core desire.  E.g. if the passion is recognition, primary needs may be wealth, the need to be seen with the right people and the need for achievement on some level (gangster’s sidekick in the sports day scenario).
  • The last element flows directly from primary needs:  primary activities.  They are the activities that reveal the primary needs.  What would a gangster do on sports day at the school if just appearing rich, was a primary need?  He would be wearing a lot of ‘bling’ and the right brand of clothing, he would be buying food and drink for all his supporters, he would be belittling the guys who don’t have the right ‘gear’. There should be several primary activities for each primary need.
Function/occupation: Over bearing Father
Occ.  activities Primary activities Primary needs Passion
Walks up and down field, shouts orders to players, criticises son, boasts to friends, buys hotdogs, drinks coke, adjusts clothing, ignores wife, laughs too loudly, fights with referee. Walks up and down field, wears loud colours. laughs loudly

Boasts to friends shouts orders to players

Fights with referee., criticises son

To be seen and heard

To appear knowledgeable

For son to score goal

­­To be recognised as a good father
Actions Attitude

The needs and passion hang together to form a mini value system that motivates the character’s behaviour. For the ambitious team captain this may look as follows:

Supporting values (Primary needs)

These are means to an end.

Core value (passion)

This is an end value

Have good people skills

Motivate his team

Have knowledge of the rules

Respect the coach

Work hard

To win and prove his worth as leader

The function of this mini value system is to guide the actor so that she always knows what to do and how to do it believably. For actors who use a script, the mini value system helps her to say the words in a certain way and use her body to communicate the attitude with which she is saying those words. In the work of improvisation actors, the mini value system becomes even more significant. For an improviser, everything except the mini value system is uncertain. She has no text, she does not know who the others are going to play and she does not know what is going to happen next. The only thing she is sure of is her own characters’ attitude that will inform her reaction to what happens and the set of actions available to communicate that reaction. .It is her framework for every new situation and comment that comes her way. It ensures that no matter what happens, she responds in character.

Here lies the value of every person having a clear picture of their own value system. If you are not sure how to respond to what happens around you, or what choices to make, your value system can help you to react in character – true to yourself. However, it also works in reverse: if you have reacted impulsively or instinctively and your behaviour is questionable, it can be very useful to look at the values that motivated your behaviour. Identifying those values can help you to find less hurtful and less destructive ways of achieving the same goal. You may even discover that the value driving your actions is not part of who you would like to be and make a deep change so that your outer behaviour becomes more in line with who you want to be.

There are three more aspects of character that help to perform believable yet playable characters: fears, strengths and weaknesses. In fact, fears really just embody the opposite of the passion. The weakness is something in the character that works directly against the characters’ fulfilment of his passion. The strengths work to redeem the weakness. All three these aspects, therefore, simply tell an actor and an audience member more about the character’s passion. Typically these aspects of a character are personified by the other characters in the story. We will look at this again when we talk about character relationships.

Petro Janse van Vuuren

Improv Your Foxy Skills in Gauteng – 10 Oct

Improvisation skills to help you deal with the demands of change and uncertainty

In the uncertain ever-changing world of today you need the ability to adjust quickly, think on your feet and come up with creative solutions. Often you are required to do this in a group without the luxury of time or individual authority to move forward.

This workshop will help you:

  • Cope better in uncertain times.
  • Work better in a team with diverse ideas.
  • Create an atmosphere in which innovation can thrive.
  • Be more aware of changes in your environment.
  • Be more adaptable.

These skills are the same as those employed by improvisation actors who respond to ideas from their audience, fellow actors or the scenario quickly and creatively and in collaboration with one another.  Yet, these skills are not based on talent; they are learnt and can be practiced and honed.

In the words of bestselling author Clem Sunter, you need The Mind of a Fox or according to acclaimed writer Daniel Pink, you need a Whole New Mind. You must develop right brain capacities not just to cope with, but to excel in the world of today.

Playing Mantis specializes in the teaching of these skills and can equip you for an unpredictable world.

We will teach you how to play using your right brain, reflect on the experience and apply it to your real life situation.

Who should attend:

Individuals who want to learn skills to thrive in spite of change and uncertainty.

Leaders who want to inspire their team members to be more innovative as a group.

Can you afford it?

 

With an economic recession causing avalanches of worry to surge over you, can you afford not to align with your passion and cultivate foxy skills? Consider the time and money you spend on keeping your body physically flexed and ready for action – gym fees, hairdressers, clothing bills, healthy food. Can you afford to spend some time and money on getting your heart, mind and spirit flexed and ready for action?

Free follow up consultation

To ensure that you get your money’s worth; we offer you the option of receiving a free 1 hour consultation after the workshop. This is to make sure you get the help you need to apply the new knowledge in your unique context. The ability to apply the skills we teach is part of our promise and we will do what is necessary to assist you in this step

What people say:

The methods that you use have the extraordinary ability of getting people thinking on their feet, out of “the box” and more creatively than they imagined possible while pushing them to become more adaptable. If improving your team’s creativity, adaptability and unity is what you are after, Playing Mantis is who you are looking for. – Mark Baker, Industrial Psychologist, Excelebrate

I feel that I have tangible skills to use in order to cope with the changes in my life. – Nadia Jappie, Marketing Manager, Symphonia

Workshop details

This is a 6 hour workshop that includes 5 hours contact time
with a 15 min tea break and 45 min lunch break.

Date:

Follow your own flute: Sat 3 Oct
Improv your foxy skills: Sat 10 Oct

Time: 8h30 – 16h00

Venue: Melville Junction Church, cnr of Seventh Avenue and
Fifth Street

Cost: For our first time in Jozi you get these exclusive workshops at the highly reduced price of R650 for 1 / R1100 for both.

We like to keep our workshops small and exclusive, so BOOK NOW to avoid disappointment.

For bookings e-mail us at connect@playingmantis.net or call Burgert on 0822559625

To read more about Playing Mantis and our Facilitators click here

Play reflect apply

Follow Your Own Flute in Gauteng – 3 Oct

Reconnect with your passion and align with your internal motivation

In our interaction with companies and individuals we meet an increasing number of highly talented yet intensely frustrated individuals who feel a deep need for new inspiration. Many express the desire to rekindle their passion and reshape their professional careers to express that passion.

This workshop will help you to:

  • grow in self esteem
  • get a framework of what drives you and the values that guide your choices
  • Acquire confidence in aligning your life to reflect these values.
  • Know the sound of your own voice and the feeling of listening to it.

Join us on a journey back to your unique self, the source of real joy, inspiration, creativity and motivation. Rediscover your passion, feel great about being you and reshape your career to mirror who you really are.

Playing Mantis specializes in helping you grow through connection with yourself, your passion and your relationships.

We use storytelling and improvisation to play with new ideas and perspectives, reflect on the discoveries you make about who you are and apply the new found knowledge to reshape your professional life.

Who should attend:

Individuals who are looking for the security of knowing whether or not they’re in the right place and the ability to trust their own voice.

Leaders who want to lead with self confidence and make clear decisions in spite of uncertainty.

Can you afford it?

In these times of economic uncertainty, can you afford not to align with your passion?

Your passion and unique motivators are the only things that truly distinguish you from others. We would like to help you align your external context with your internal life so that you are more productive and more effective.

Consider the time and money you spend on keeping your body physically flexed and ready for action – gym fees, hairdressers, clothing bills, healthy food. Can you afford to spend some time and money on getting your heart, mind and spirit flexed and ready for action?

Free follow up consultation

To ensure that you get your money’s worth, we offer you the option of receiving a free 1 hour consultation after the workshop. This is to make sure you get the help you need to apply the new knowledge in your unique context. Too many workshops leave people excited and ready for action, but without a practical plan to make it work for them.

The ability to apply the skills we teach is part of our promise and we will do what is necessary to assist you in this step.

What people say:

It was as if a flashlight was shining through my muddy waters. It showed me a way out and that there is more for me in life than mud. – Amanda Jooste, PRO for artists

 

I enjoyed the creativity – this is the most fun I have had in ages. – British American Tobacco HR team member

 

Your unique way with stories and characters opened a fresh perspective on my own character and story. I was moved by the way in which the stories brought the participants straight to the heart of their search for meaning. Dr Jeanette de Klerk, Philosophy of Education, University of Stellenbosc

Workshop details

This is a 6 hour workshop that includes 5 hours contact time with a 15 min tea break and 45 min lunch break.

Date:

Follow your own flute: Sat 3 Oct
Improv your foxy skills: Sat 10 Oct

Time: 8h30 – 16h00

Venue: Melville Junction Church, cnr of Seventh Avenue and
Fifth Street

Cost: For our first time in Jozi you get these exclusive
workshops at the highly reduced price of R650 for 1 / R1100 for
both.

 

We like to keep our workshops small and exclusive, so BOOK NOW to avoid disappointment.

For bookings e-mail us at connect@playingmantis.net or call Burgert on 0822559625

To read more about Playing Mantis and our Facilitators click here

Play reflect apply

Developing six new senses for the future

In his ground breaking book A Whole New Mind Daniel Pink references three prevailing trends pointing towards the future of business and the economy: Abundance (consumers have too many choices, nothing is scarce), Asia (everything that can be outsourced, is) and Automation (computerization, robots, technology, processes).

This brings up three crucial questions for the success of any business:

  1. Can a computer do it faster?
  2. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?
  3. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?

When these questions are present, creativity becomes the competitive difference that can differentiate commodities. Pink outlines six essential senses:

  1. Design – Moving beyond function to engage the sense.
  2. Story – Narrative added to products and services – not just argument.
  3. Symphony – Adding invention and big picture thinking (not just detail focus).
  4. Empathy – Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and intuition.
  5. Play – Bringing humour and light-heartedness to business and products.
  6. Meaning – Relevant feelings and values connected to a person’s passion and purpose..

Playing Mantis specialises in both story and play.

Storytelling

storytelling
Story is the skill to simplify that which is complex and organise it into a sense making whole. It also helps you to make concrete those aspects of your reality that is abstract and hard to grasp. When it comes to relationships and team work, the way that story places characters in sense making relationships with one another highlighting the causes of conflict and their resolution, can be of great help in managing business relationships.

Similarly the way in which storytellers organises human attributes and role functions into archetypes, can be of great use in understanding the different roles people play in your life. Stories can also assist you in understanding how you can develop your own character by looking at how the hero of a story grows and develops.  This can greatly assist in leadership skills development.

What makes this sense so accessible is the fact that we all already use it. The way in which you relate your day and how it went to your partner before bedtime, the way in which you tell a colleague about your weekend or how you sum up an overseas trip all carry the characteristics of a well made story. You pick a theme and select scenes to support and carry that theme. You populate your story with characters that either worked with or against you. You shape it with a beginning middle and end. In fact, any experience can be made sense of in retrospect by organising it into a story, Even the most confusing and emotional experiences, perhaps especially these experiences,  are made sense of by trying to organise it into a story.

Story is also the way in which we remember things and make sense of the world by linking seemingly unrelated events and ideas. Simple lists of facts do not make sense to us, but linking them with cause and effect turn the facts into one story and makes it memorable. The king died and then the queen died, are two seemingly unrelated facts, but saying that the king died and then the queen died of grief, immediately makes it into a story by adding an emotional component that link the two facts logically. We all do this with things we read and learn and experience. It is a sense well worth cultivating and understanding so that its power can be utilised in areas of our lives where meaning still escape us.

Kids playing with blocks

Play, on the other hand, is the most effective way of learning, working and enjoying it.  It is the way in which children learn. It is their method of organising their worlds into sense making sections. Through play they discover how the world works and what their own place in it is. And while their games are fun and light-hearted, they take it very seriously. Improvisational Theatre utilises the same characteristics of play in a way that makes it accessible and usable for adults. Through this kind of play it is possible to learn how to deal with things that happen in your life that is hard to make sense of – especially if the situation ask you to change how you have done things or understood things until now.

Again improvisation is something we all are able to do in ordinary circumstances. When unforeseen things happen and you have to adjust your plan, you improvise. When someone asks you a question you sort of know the answer to, but not quite, you improvise. When you are cooking and discover that you miss a certain ingredient, you improvise. You use what you have and, maybe more importantly, you use what others have to offer. Honing these skills can greatly help you in dealing with change and uncertainty so that you are less apprehensive and are able to trust you own ability to adjust.

Perhaps even more poignant is that improvisation helps you to remain light-hearted and playful amidst times of stress and confusion. The playful attitude is not the same as being frivolous and superficial, but rather one of great seriousness, but with a certain detachment to the outcome. Think again of the seriousness with which children engage in play. To them it is not at all unimportant and inconsequential. Marrying work and play is the goal of cultivating the sense of play in business..

The other four senses of empathy, symphony, design and meaning all are cultivated during the workshops where we create a creative experience for learning. This experience aims to involve all of the multiple intelligences including emotion (empathy), sprit (meaning,), lateral thinking (symphony) and aesthetic judgement (design)

Summary of benefits:

The most important reasons for using story and improvisation both for team building and for dealing with change relate to the kind of play that is stimulated by these activities. This kind of play

  • Unlocks hidden potential, opens up all your intelligences and puts you in touch with your instinct and intuition,
  • Enhances focus and effectiveness and provides a sense of purpose which is absorbing and motivating,
  • Raises self esteem and self confidence and rekindles your spontaneity,
  • Inspires individual and group creativity, forms a communal paradigm and lets group knowledge surface,
  • Provides understanding and insight into fellow players and creates common focus and priorities while allowing for the safe expression of feelings,
  • Clarifies and simplifies things that are abstract and complicated and produces innovative solutions.

We will teach you this kind of play, help you to reflect on its significance for you and apply the skills you learn to your real life situation.