Magic If

Having to choose someone I saw on the way to school to adopt and act as proved to be quite a task as I pass quite a few people on my journey to school and I generally don't pay much attention to them. I decided to choose a girl I had seen opposite me on the bus to school who kept checking her watch and seemed extremely anxious. She stood quite turned in on herself, almost as if she was trying to make herself as small as possible. I chose her as it looked as if we were similar ages which made her easier to relate to and adopt. Her posture and her need to check the time regularly gave me, as an outsider, a chance to guess at her personality which I perceived as quite nervous and/or shy. 

We had to completely embody the character and were given different situations to act in as if we were, for example; what if your person found a 20 pound note on the floor or what if your person had just stepped in dog shit?. This exercise was an example of Stanislavsky's method of 'Magic If' - Stanislavsky believed that by understanding 'Magic If' it can aid the actor in making new discoveries about their character and that it is essential to make their performance believable. This exercise really helped me understand the person I was trying to portray as it really made me think and put me in their shoes - I wasn't thinking as myself when I reacted to these situations, I was thinking as the character.This really helped me understand how to get into the mindset of my character, how I had to completely open my imagination up and approach new ideas to explore about my character which I can use in later performances. It's an extremely important exercise that really helps the actor get under the skin of the character, really managing to understand the personality traits and the characteristics of the character they're trying to portray. It's an extremely useful exercise that I enjoyed carrying out in class and I found very useful when developing the character I was trying to perform - It's an exercise I will definitely use in later rehearsals and development in future roles.