“Good efficiency, very well acted … however any probability you possibly can increase the stakes a bit bit?” It’s a reasonably frequent piece of suggestions for an actor to get—particularly from a director or casting director seeking to get a bit extra from you in a scene. It may also be a irritating piece of suggestions. A low-stakes power in a scene doesn’t essentially imply your efficiency is dangerous, it’s that there’s extra you are able to do to seek out some dramatic rigidity and pleasure within the piece. Fortunately, it’s one thing you possibly can shortly get your head round and prepare your self to work on. Let’s speak about how you can increase the stakes in your performing.

If you wish to know how you can increase the stakes in your performing, look to analysing your script and interrogating your character. This can assist you to construct plausible obstacles and circumstances right into a given scene that permits you to discover the underlying rigidity. After getting an understanding of the story world, you possibly can make use of methods round your character’s goal and motion inside a scene that will yield extra thrilling outcomes. Lastly, be open to exploring and experimenting with how a scene or a personality is portrayed. You by no means know what you may uncover!

On this article, we’re going to stipulate six issues you possibly can discover to lift the stakes in efficiency. You may discover that loads of these areas are pretty basic with regards to the actor’s craft. Don’t let this deter you: it’s typically in returning to performing fundamentals that we remedy issues in our work that will appear way more daunting and complicated. Let’s dive proper in…

What are Stakes?

Stakes are the dangers and rewards related to a personality’s actions in a narrative. The upper the stakes, the extra influence that character’s actions (or lack thereof) have on their lives and the bigger story world. From an exterior (viewers) perspective, larger stakes make a narrative really feel extra essential—and subsequently extra thrilling. If the stakes are low, the chance to the character is diminished. And if you happen to’re not cautious, the viewers will begin checking their watches—or switching off their gadget fully.

Let’s use an instance from our free apply scripts web page. Within the scene Cufflinks, a rich house owner is attempting to barter the return of cufflinks their cleaner has discovered on their rounds. What seems like an interrogation and accusation of stealing activates its head when (spoiler alert) the cleaner reveals that they know the cufflinks don’t belong to the house owner in any respect.

A low stakes studying of this piece may render the cufflinks unimportant. The cleaner doesn’t actually need to carry onto them, the house owner doesn’t notably need them again. Excessive stakes renders them as a life-or-death commodity. If the cleaner holds onto them, they may blackmail the house owner for hundreds of thousands. And if the house owner doesn’t get them again? Scandal. Spoil. Destruction. Sounds rather a lot higher, hey?

How one can Elevate the Stakes in your Performing

Right here’s the key on how you can increase the stakes in your performing: they’ve to learn by the script/story/world. Too many (normally younger dude) actors assume that elevating the stakes is so simple as making your character “secretly, like a hitman? And he’s attempting to kill her on this scene?”—it is a direct quote from an performing class, with names redacted to spare the responsible. Excessive stakes aren’t plucked from the plot of John Wick, they’re present in script evaluation and deep thought on character.

#1 Greatest Case State of affairs, Worst Case State of affairs.

In any scene requiring a stakes-hike, ask your self two questions: What does my character stand to win on this scene? and What’s my character liable to shedding? If you happen to can maintain this stuff in thoughts based mostly on the bigger context of the story, you’ll convey that all-important sense of, effectively, significance to proceedings. And if there’s no bigger context? You want to invent a finest/worst final result you’re feeling suits comfortably throughout the narrative.

At drama college, my mentor (a playwright, however bear with me) informed me this: each scene is a battle, and characters must battle to win with each interplay they’ve. Find the importance of mentioned interplay, and your stakes will rocket sky-high.

#2 Outline your ‘Second Earlier than’

What has occurred simply earlier than your scene begins? What’s simply occurred to your character? Are they coming from some horrible expertise, or have they been dreading the interplay they’re about to seek out on stage/display? Discovering a compelling, participating ‘second earlier than’ is a terrific strategy to construct larger stakes into your work.

A second earlier than can actually assist to elevate a scene with seemingly little dramatic rigidity. Say two characters meet up for a espresso and a chat. On the web page? Kinda flat, not a lot happening. But when your character’s second earlier than is that they had been caught behind an enormous pile-up on the interstate as they drove to the cafe—forcing them to consider mortality and the way they need to inform this particular person they’re assembly that they’ve been head over heels in love with them for ten years—there is likely to be one thing in that to excite proceedings?

#3 Exploring the Given Circumstances

Associated to the above. Hold your given circumstances in thoughts all through a scene: they’re a few of the finest issues for elevating stakes.

• Who am I?
• The place am I?
• What time is it?
• What do I would like?
• How will I get it?
• The place did I come from?
• The place am I going?

GC’s are helpful as a result of they reply on to the stimuli provided by the script as present in your scene evaluation. However that’s to not say there’s no room for interpretation. If it’s 2am on a New York avenue in December, odds are your character goes to be feeling chilly, drained maybe a bit susceptible, even a bit tetchy? And if the scene in query is a drug deal, all of the sudden your character may discover themselves trying like they’ve explaining to do. That’s dramatic rigidity proper there, earlier than you’ve even spoken your first line of dialogue!

#4 Re-examine your Goal

Typically a scarcity of stakes is expounded to an unclear or weak goal. Be sure that your goal is one thing your character desperately desires, and out of your scene companion and is one thing you possibly can obtain earlier than the scene is finished. Any sum of those elements will work to some extent, however rob you of dramatic rigidity.

Probably the most obvious omission from an actor’s goal is normally the inclusion of the scene companion. With out the opposite particular person within the scene, you’d be performing a soliloquy (though that’s to not say you’re speaking to your self in these both.) So speak to the actor you’re working with! Talk with them and search for what you need from them. This permits them to do the identical again, creating battle: the essence of all drama.

#5 Play Dynamic Actions and Ways

In case your goal is what you need, your actions/techniques are how you get them. Weak actions will at all times equal low stakes. The identical goes for boring or apparent selections as effectively. Let’s have a look at an instance with a easy line of dialogue: “Martha, can I borrow $25?”

Let’s say you do your motion homework and choose the extremely secure, boring, pedestrian motion of “ask”. Audible sigh. Clearly you’re asking for one thing: “ask” is in regards to the worst phrase an actor can put down as an motion of their margin, exterior of “query”…

Nearly some other motion raises the stakes, as a result of it performs stronger—riskier, with extra to lose. How’s about “demand”? “Beg?” “Plead?” “Flirt?” “Allure?” “Threaten?” “Cut price?” Every of these actions are mini tales in themselves; they every converse to an concept that’s way more fascinating than our generic first selection.

#6 Experiment with How the Scene is Performed

Lastly, maintain your self open to attempting various things—experimenting with totally different concepts. Discovering larger stakes in your performing comes from attempting and exhausting selections which may not at all times repay. Why? As a result of high-stakes is at all times a threat for the character, and you might not get the result within the scene you had been hoping for. Nonetheless, persevere. It could require you getting farther from the scene you bear in mind to seek out the actually thrilling methods of bringing it to life.

After I coach actors as a part of the StageMilk Scene Membership, the perfect piece of suggestions I get to present is to experiment. It means the remainder of the work on a monologue or scene has been performed, and now the actor will get to play. Is every thing they fight golden? Normally, it’s the precise reverse. However in these experimentations, the boldest concepts are inclined to current themselves. So take the chance: for the character and also you, alike.

Increased Stakes Doesn’t Imply ‘Larger’ Selections

One final piece of recommendation: one thing we have now mentioned in roundabout methods all through this text. Increased stakes doesn’t imply your selections must be larger, or louder, or extra dramatic. Excessive stakes doesn’t imply yelling, or being aggressive, or being wacky.

Certain, these is likely to be issues your character does to react to stimuli. However is it how they’d really react, or what you assume they need to do to be extra fascinating? If that’s the reasoning behind a high-stakes selection, it’s at all times going to come back off as hole. Be real, and do not forget that a personality feeling or enduring Massive and Horrible Issues will at first attempt to look calm and in management.  They’re solely human, in spite of everything.

Conclusion

There you’ve gotten it: our cheat sheet for how you can increase the stakes in your performing! There are such a lot of locations to seek out the dramatic rigidity of your scene—within the script, inside your character, within the phrases on the web page themselves and even wit the assistance of your fellow storytellers. So keep current and maintain your self immersed in your work. Do your analysis, do your evaluation and know the half in and out. No diligent actor can ever be accused of letting the ball drop and the stakes fall to nought.

Good luck!