People lie to each other all the time.
And that’s a good thing!*
*for good theatre, silly*
Subtext
We rarely say what we mean as human people. We suppress the truth for a variety of reasons.
We don’t want to:
- Hurt feelings
- Offend people we depend on
- Admit to ourselves that we aren’t as attractive as Idris Elba
There’s a word for what we really mean — subtext.
Sub - Under
Text - Words
Writers use subtext because it is the artistic expression of how people subconsciously socialize.
You need to learn the subtle art of subtext in order to make your acting substantially above substandard (I can do this all day folks).
Subtle Subterfuge of Subtext
While discovering subtext is not necessarily a memorization technique, it is a useful tool to help memorize your intentions and objectives in a scene.
But there are a couple of prerequisites that you will need in order to implement this process in your acting journey.
- A trustworthy acting coach
- A safe space to do scene study
- A group of actors to practice with
- A fully memorized script. Lines & cues.
You may be tempted to skip this process so you can get to “the good part of acting,” but that will lead to you having stale boring scenes where you do the same thing over and over again. Please don’t skip this process.
Also …
… don’t substitute subtext for the actual lines of the script. The lines the playwright gave you are the lines you need to say (plus your scene partner kinda’ needs them because they are their cue lines). Discovering the subtext does not give you permission to paraphrase the script. Subtext is not a substitution, it is something that provides depth and emotional spirit to the lines.
Mining for Subtext
In order to find subtext you must first define the text that you are subbing under.
This of course are your lines. But, lines aren’t just lines, they can be categorized you know.
For the purposes of this exercise we are going to break our script down.
Text categories include:
- Grammatical lines. One line that is a complete sentence.
- Thought/Idea Lines. These are more so a collection of lines that make up a single thought or idea of your character.
- Beats. A section of the script this could be several of your and your scene partner’s lines together that are like a mini-scene within the scene.
So a single line can have subtext.
Several lines can have the same subtext.
An entire page or beat could have a single subtextual idea underneath it all.
Once you’ve broken up your script into smaller chunks then you can start adding subtext to explore what your character might actually be saying in the background of their mind.
Usually you can find the subtext of a moment in the script by asking one of the following questions:
- What’s the opposite?
- What’s the secret?
- What’s the truth?
What’s the opposite?
This is one of my favorite little tricks to make my acting more interesting to watch. Play the opposite. What that means you find a subtextual approach to a line this is literally opposite to what the line implies on the surface.
We do this all the time:
You say:
“Man, you so stupid, dog!”
You mean:
“Cherished friend. I love you and you bring me sincere joy.”
If you said the line “Man, you so stupid, dog!” Without the subtext of fun and appreciation that line would instantly become a horrible insult.
This can work in the opposite direction too. I call it “manufactured enthusiasm.”
Small children are usually the victim of this acting tactic.
You say:
”Let’s clean up the house today.”
You say it like:
“Let’s eat ice cream all day!”
Soon the child will learn about your subtextual manipulations and you will pay.
What’s the Secret?
Any writer who is any good will always ensure there’s a good secret buried in the story.
Next time you are in a conversation with someone as you are talking about grocery shopping have the thought
“I got something to tell you.”
This officially is your subtext now.
You may be talking about buying food, but your friend can sense that there is something else.
Denzel Washington is the grand wizard of this technique. His characters are so mysterious because he always has a secret he keeps just out of sight. It is magnetizing.
It’s like when you answer the phone and say
“Hello”
Someone close to you might immediately ask:
“What happened?”
They can “hear” the secret in your voice.
Imagine. You, the great actor, can have a “secret” the entire show. It forces the audience to lean in whenever you speak because they (the audience) wants to know what you know …
… but you never tell them.
You simply say the words of the script.
Oooo, you’re good.
What’s the Truth?
What would your character say if they had taken a truth potion before the scene started?
This is very close to the secret, but it has a more gravity because this is where the character actually hides the truth from the character(s) they are interacting with in the scene.
Villains are notorious for veiling the truth in order to get what they want. You have to think of it like this, at some point in the scene or the play or story your character is some other character’s villain.
Whenever there is conflict and power dynamics there is subtext.
If you have done all the work to download the script in your brain, all this work will become much more obvious to you because you can see what the playwright is doing under the hood.
Subtext Submitted
Remember:
- Subtext is how people hide what they mean
- When you discover the subtext of your scene it gives it depth, you are going beyond the surface of what is said.
-
Ask yourself:
- What’s the opposite?
- What’s the secret?
- What’s the truth?
Use subtext. Wow the world!
See you next week!
