Desperately Wanting and Pursuing

Roberta: Here it is, a message from Jim.
[Reading the Personal Ads]
Roberta: “Desperately Seeking Susan. Keep the faith. Tuesday. 10AM. Battery Park. Gangway 1. Love, Jim”
Leslie: Who’s Jim?
Roberta: Oh, God. Tuesday, that’s tomorrow.
Leslie: Who’s Susan? You know these people?
Roberta: No. You see, Jim follows Susan all over the country. Last January she was in Mexico City, then Seattle. They send messages back and forth. That’s how they hook up. And now they’re in New York. Desperate. I love that word. It’s so romantic.
Leslie: Everybody I know is desperate, except you.
Roberta: I’m desperate.
Leslie: You?
[laughs]
Roberta: Sort of. -from the script, Desperately Seeking Susan written by Leora Barish

For the actor…

Deep down, everyone desperately wants something.

Few have clarity over what that is.

And, setting opportunity aside, even fewer have the courage and discipline to go after it.

But on stage (or screen), we want to watch people–heroes and villains alike–who know what they want and pursue it at all costs.

(Even Hamlet desperately wants something. He just keeps changing his mind about what exactly that is.)

Besides knowing your lines forwards and backwards/exactly as written, you must know what you desperately want in each beat, each scene, the whole play. An early acting teacher framed it this way: “What do you want to badly that you will die if you don’t get it?”

Use your private time at home to figure out what that want might be.

Use your rehearsal time, along with input from your director, to try out all kinds of different wants. Figure out what’s the strongest want and the one that leaves you the most vulnerable to the other person.

When it’s performance time, step out on that stage desperately wanting and pursuing something. As a result, you will be fully alive and riveting to watch.