In the late 1800's and early 1900's Stanislavski developed a technique for acting that eventually revolutionized actor training throughout Europe and United States. For the last 100 years, the majority of the great actors... and most likely your favorite actors... were trained in some form of Stanislavski's work.
A large part of Stanislavski's technique is based on identifying character motivations and objectives. It has become cliche to joking say "what's my motivation" to impersonate an actor. There is good reason for this... a good actor is constantly asking that of themselves as they figure out a character.
One term that is used with this technique is Super-Objective. The exact definition of this may vary a bit depending on what teachers of the technique one has had, but, in my mind, the Super-Objective is the one major thing that a character is trying to achieve throughout the course of the play. The more of the play the Super-Objective encompasses, the better.
So... if we were talking Romeo and Juliet, and if I was playing Romeo, I would NOT say that my Super-Objective is to marry Juliet. Why? Because Romeo doesn't even know who Juliet is until the end of Act 1 and they get married in Act 3. That is only about 40% of the play right there! Instead, I might use a Super-Objective like "I want to spend eternity with my one true love." We could argue that almost every single thing that Romeo does throughout the course of the play is covered by that one Super-Objective.
But I'm not Romeo... I'm Cassio. So I'm not trying to figure out Cassio's super objective. At one point I thought maybe it would be something along the lines of...
"I want to do everything I can to become general someday."
Othello is general and this Super-Objective does imply a lack of connection between Cassio and Othello. Cassio was just promoted and now he wants Othello's job? hmmmm
After more though... including the observations that happened from the exercises that I wrote about over the last few days... it is clear that Cassio and Othello are tight. I don't think I want to work against that.
So perhaps another option is...
"I want to prove that I was the right man to be promoted."
This is something completely different. Trying to prove my worth in every scene could be interesting. Trying to show my the soldiers, or Desdemona, or Othello, that I am worthy of being Lieutenant could be a great jumping off place for exploring most of my motivations in these scenes.
So now that I am going to play with this as my Super-Objective... I will start going through each scene and try to figure out what my Objectives are for each scene.
More on that tomorrow.
Side Note: This one is especially for my Acting II class. Had an audition today. I tell my Acting II class all about potential distractions in an audition room. Well, today I was auditioning while hammering and drilling were going on in the room above me. It was rather comical but at the same time it was an opportunity for me to show the auditioners that I can be a good sport and that I can overcome that kind of stuff. By the end of my second monologue, I got a nice laugh from the five people watching me despite the fact that a drill was buzzing. hahaha You have to be ready for anything at an audition!
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