Expert: Peter Messaline - 6/12/2009

Question
Hi my name is.... and a "stageaholic", which means i'm addicted to that feeling you get when you've been onstage or watching a live performance. My question is, i've been studying all my parts, analyising the character and what they want to achieve within the scene. The problem is i find that everytime i play a character i'm melodramatic I cant ever get the character to be normal they are the pittiful victem or the agressive preditor. I just don't know how i can stop this. Apparently the melodramticness comes through in my voice which is bad. I am told that my melodramaticness is because i'm female (which i dont believe) or because in my personality in tough situtations I am also melodramatic (true). So what can i do to block this out?

Answer
It is a high, isn't it!

Don't listen to the person who said it's because you're a woman. Look at Judi Dench, or Helen Mirren.

From what you say, you have delved so deep into your character that her humanity has been burned away, leaving only the stark emotions.

An Italian run may help you. If you're not familiar with the term, the idea is to play the scene as fast as possible
+++ without losing the sense +++.
Don't scribble, don't fall into unnatural rhythms, just act as if a director had said, "I need you to play the scene a little faster. Like about three times as fast."
Do an Italian run of your scenes with a partner, or run your major speeches that way if you can't find a helper. See if the exercise of holding on to the truth of the scene during the 100-metre sprint will force you to drop the extras you're adding.

Any other technical exercise might help, anything that puts an obstacle in the way of your melodrama. With the same truth as a regular run, using the same arc for the character, play the part in the deepest voice possible, or as though the character were really drunk, or standing on one leg and tapping out the national anthem with the other foot.

Once you've done a exercise like this, without thinking about it immediately run the scene again normally.

Dustin Hoffman, I think, when asked for his advice on acting, said "Don't let them catch you at it."