APR
14

Vacillation on Stage

How to Make It Look Like You’re Not Acting 

By Jon Jory 

Jon Jory is the author of six plays with Pioneer Drama Service.  He also has written two textbooks of tips for actors and directors, respectively.   

If I had a film of you making breakfast, there would be some...  vacillation.  That is, for instance, you would start for the fridge, decide you want to put the coffee on first, but on the way to the stove, you see grains of rice on the floor, pick them up, and put them in the garbage, and then start getting the coffee out, but remember you’ve left your favorite mug in the breakfast room and go get that.

Why is it, do you think, that we see so little vacillation on stage?  Instead, the actor does this, then they do that, then they do the other things, all with no hesitation.  They’re masters of efficiency!

A little vacillation invites reality to the stage.  An actress who has been sitting on the sofa rises, picks up her car keys, and starts for the door.  A realization strikes her like a freight train, and she stops dead on the way out:  she wants a divorce.  Having ingested the thought, she exits.  One beat.  Then, she reopens the door for a last look at this room that has been part of her life, and then exits again, closing the door behind her with authority.  We might just call that “using the exit” or we might call it vacillation.

I’ve seen whole plays and musicals where no one ever vacillates.  Oh, that I might live in such a clearly intentional world!  The reason we don’t see it on stage is that — shhh! — the actor isn’t thinking and their performance is rote.  Is this a problem?  Uh-huh.

Rote performance is a dead man walking.  A play might be everything we could hope for...  except thought process.  Thought process is like a ball in an indoor handball court, bouncing around everywhere.  You hit the ball.  It hits the left wall, angles up off the ceiling, hits the right wall, then dribbles off at an angle.  Sure, there are moments when we go straight to the door and exit, but not every time!  Why is it then that on stage we so seldom see a person start to say something, stop, then start again and, after saying it, shake their head because they’ve realized it was stupid to have said it?  I do that every Tuesday.  Wouldn’t it make the play more realistic to see hesitation or an interrupted thought process on stage?  The actor might even do it physically while talking quite rationally or vacillate in their speech while moving confidently.

I often explain to actors that I hope to see significant vacillation used in each performance.  I’ll also tell them if they’re doing too much of it.  For instance, there is one example of vacillation that is used far too much, though it’s sometimes the only bit of vacillation I see in an entire performance.  Someone starts to exit, stops dead just before they reach the door, stands with their back to us, then turns back to tell us some deep, dark secret.  They look at the person they’ve spoken to in silence before exiting, slamming the door on the way out.  I rarely ever see a movie where this isn’t used!  Poor old boring vacillation!  There are other ways, you know?

If all actors were really thinking on stage, it would be a festival of vacillation.  Vacillation adds a little excitement to “crossing left.”  It also reflects how we actually behave and brings a moment or line to life.

At the heart of vacillation, your brain is having its way with your body and/or your speech.  The latter might also involve movement, but it could happen even when you’re standing dead still.  You’re in the middle of a sentence when you stop because it has occurred to you it isn’t wise to say it, but then choose to go on because it must be said.  Explain to your actors that when we talk, we don’t always know where we’re going with the thought, and it often changes direction or tone in the middle of a speech or bit of dialogue.  Again, think of that ball in the handball court.

I often tell actors that they should spend an hour sitting quietly in the green room listening to the twists and turns of speech.  Many times, you say the line, “Look, I just want to tell you I love you” straight, but sometimes you say, “Look, I just want to tell you...  (two-beat pause) ...I love you.”  Because you know your life will change when you say it.  That pause could happen after any word in the sentence and could be a split second or two seconds or you might just say the line straight through.

Vacillation is, in fact, a tool every actor has in their toolkit.  Use it.