Topic 4 Finding your objective

One of the great theatre practitioners of the 19th century, Constantin Stanislavski, wrote about techniques to improve your acting. One of those techniques, or frameworks, involved looking into the text and yourself as the character, and locating their objective. In other words, the reason they are speaking.

If they had nothing to say or got what they wanted they would not be speaking, so what is driving them to perform this speech? What problem are they trying to solve?

In other words, a character’s objective is what they want to achieve; this should signal action rather than thought or an internal objective. Finally, the objective does not need to be achieved by the endof the play.

Typically, actors go through their lines and find a general objective for each scene. Then they break it down line by line. Although its not necessary, it can be incredibly useful for actors as it can add more depth and richness to their performance.