Ask A Healer Creative Wellbeing Series
What your Character Never Says and Why you have to hear it
Copyright, Neva J. Howell
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What is subtext and why is that important for the actor?
This is part of my series on creativity and specifically, performance skills for the actor.
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Questions about Acting: I'm not sure I understand what subtext is or how to create that in my characters....what is subtext, exactly?
Answers about Acting: You hear a lot about subtext in acting school but what is it, really?
Basically, subtext is what is going on underneath the words, or even in opposition to the words.
A lot of times, the subtext doesn't even agree with the words and is often more interesting that way.
You have experienced this type of subtext in your own life, haven't you? One very common example is when you ask someone how they are and they say fine but
you know, you just know, they are not fine.
How do you know the person who just insisted they were fine is not, in fact, fine at all? Subtext - what is going on beyond words or actions in the moment.
You know because things don't match up.
Their internal dialogue or monologue, their subtext of reality, creates unconscious changes in their body, voice and mental process.
These changes relate to how they are truly feeling. They may say one thing with their mouth but their body movements, vocal tone, breath, eyes, etc. tell a different truth.
Why is subtext important for the actor?
Ever notice when you are watching a film, how often you are watching reactions? You will hear the other actor speaking but the camera will be on the actor who is listening.
When an actor is required to relay any strong emotion without words, they must make the situation real enough internally to affect a believable and organic change in their demeaner, posture, facial expressions, breathe and tone of voice, to create subtext that an audience can pick up on
and understand.
I read somewhere (could have been in Michael Chekov's book on acting which I recommend highly) that an actor once had to play a man with an unspecified mental disorder. So, he created a character who was afraid of pictures. That was part of his character's subtext.
Of course, this phobia was never addressed in the script. It was known that the man was insane but no one knew why he would suddenly be taken by fear or paranoia. It would happen when he got too near a picture or saw a picture, thought of a picture, etc.
By having this subtext for the man, the actor could justify irratic behavior for his character in unlikely times and keep the character fresh. It might not be every time he looked at a picture but only if he saw it in a certain light or got too close to it, etc.
A person could be afraid of people breathing on him, afraid of dirt on fabrics like curtains, seat cushions, etc. Perhaps a character is afraid of entities only he or she can see, and then decide when they will enter the room during the role.
These sorts of unspoken choices can really flesh out a character.
Another form of subtext is where the actor must convey, without words, that something is going on within them that is emotionally rich.
In order for the audience to connect with and believe that an inner struggle or process is occurring, the actor must have some inner
point of focus that is real.
The subtext is what the actor is saying, thinking, remembering, imagining or processing, in response to the demands of
the scene, which is coloring their reactions in the scene.
I remember coaching a professional story-teller once. She was talking about a particular house that had meaning to her.
I stopped her and asked her what the house looked like. She didn't know. Because she didn't know, I didn't believe there was a house.
Once she called
the house forward in her imagination and could see the rocking chair on the porch and the indentation in the wood behind it from having been rocked on for decades, and the white shutters, and the willow trees blowing in the breeze in the front yard, then I saw something real
happening to her face. I believed her then.
What is subtext? It is what tells us the truth, regardless of what is being said. It is that which fleshes out the words with what we never hear but, nonetheless, understand.
