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Most American actors have a lot of experience acting with an American audience. When acting in a play written in Britain, however, most actors don’t realize how much they have to change their style in order to make a British comedy accessible to an American audience. Most American theaters, in the age of high action films, are prepared for very physical, very loud comedy. Because of new technology, American audiences like their jokes handed to them, and most expect the theater to be the same reactive experience as a film, as opposed to the interactive experience it actually is. Most American actors acting in a British comedy will realize the first time they step onto the stage that they will need to conform their style to the script, and not vice-versa. Another important aspect of the acting experience is the director of the show. At least one time in an actor’s career, he or she will most likely work with a student director. To make this experience the most enjoyable one possible, there are changes in attitude and outlook that need to be made. Most oftentimes actors who work with a student director have found it more tight-knit and more personal due to their interaction with the director and the typically small cast. Acting in a British comedy is different than acting in an American comedy in the realms of movement and physicalization, speech patterns, and interaction with the audience. Working with a student director is unique because of the changes that need to be made in attitude, treatment and involvement in the show. Most British plays, especially ones that were not set in a modern time period, have a lot of emphasis on movement and physicalization; or lack thereof. On the major areas of British stage movement is posture. Even in stage introductions of a character in a script it will say ‘He has a very tall and stately manner’. This emphasis on posture cannot only be seen in older scripts, but also in very modern comedic stereotypes of British people. Therefore, while acting in a British comedy whether it is satirical or not, the actor will have to change their posture significantly. Standing up straight and sitting up straight can also be done with the use of corsets and limbering warm-up exercises. By warming up an actor’s body first, the muscles will not be as objective to staying in almost one position of two hours. Movement in British comedies is also very controlled. Most comedy is not physical, but verbal. This means that to an actor who is onstage, possibly making a joke with the audience, small, controlled movements can mean everything. Audiences will become more ‘trained’ to look at every actor’s smallest movement to absorb more humor from the script. By using the actor’s body in controlled movements, he/she can better explain small subtleties in the script to the audience. If the actor does warm-ups involving fluid movements, this should help convey the feeling of a British script to the audience. Most people in Britain, especially in the 1900’s, had a much more fluid range of motion than Americans. By practicing a ‘gliding’ motion with the feet for the ladies, and a very stately movement for the men, this should give the illusion (or the reality) of being completely in control of your body, and this allows any physical movement to be more determined and pronounced among a script that typically may not have much movement. Besides movement, there are many other ways actors try their best to convey an idea or an emotion, one of these such ways is through speech patterns.
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