Maybe some of you have been in a position to prepare for one-act play script. Then what will you do when you are already in a position to prepare for the role? Maybe some of you are confused about what to do to prepare the characters. Here are at least 3 main things you must do to prepare your character.
Preparing the Authorized Capital
The first thing you must do to prepare for the role is to prepare the basic capital of the actor. What is the basic capital of an actor? The basic capital of the actor is the body, voice, emotion or feeling, and mind or insight.
Because when you are in the phase of having to prepare characters, then the 4 capitals must be ready too. At least in basic readiness. For example, your body, at least your body already has flexibility at a certain point when preparing your character who is an athlete or something. If the previous body did not have flexibility at all or the capital was not properly nurtured, then the process of preparing the character might not be optimal. Why? Because your body has to learn a lot more and it takes a long time.
Research
Alright, after you are done with the basic capital, then now is the time to enter the research phase. In this research phase, there are many activities that you have to do. The first thing you must do is read the script carefully. Why is reading the script so important? Because it is in the script that your character begins. Except in certain cases where you have to create your character, according to the direction of the director without a script. But in most cases, the script is the main foundation of the character you will play. So in research, the first thing you encounter is the script. Try to look closely at the script.
Pay attention to everything that is written in the script and relates to the characters. In the script, there is text and subtext. The text is what is written in the script, while the subtext is what is behind the text. It could be emotion, meaning, or something else hidden in the text.
Self Isolation
After you are done with the research phase, the last thing you can do to prepare for the role is to isolate yourself and start getting into character forms. In this phase, you have at least found 70% – 80% of the characters from the research results. The rest you find by doing everything as a character.
Self-isolation is refraining yourself from appearing in your characters. A simple example is like this, you have the shape of the O leg, while the character doesn’t have that kind of foot shape, then you have to isolate the shape of the O leg so that it doesn’t come out when you play the character. You’ll need to temporarily save the O shape of the legs so you can fully use the character’s way of walking. This phase is not as complicated as the research phase. But in this phase, you will experience fatigue which may be more tired than the previous 2 phases.