PERFORMANCE PERSPECTIVES

"Ae Fond Kiss"

BEING ACTIVELY REAL

Ken Loach makes films about ordinary people. His actors are required to be engaging in their ordinariness – and this is what ‘realism’ is all about.

Rehearsal Room actors have recently been pointing out how some actors on Australia’s “Blue Heelers” for example, have an element of believability about them but are in fact boring to watch. The general reason that is offered for this outcome is that the actors are focused on themselves and not on the interaction of the scene. When this occurs it doesn’t feel as if the characters are wrestling with the drama but rather they are simply present while the events of the story are happening. Consequently there is a sense of lack of engagement.

Making Decisions
In “Ae Fond Kiss” all the actors are constantly engaged with the drama. It’s the character’s difficulty in sorting out the problems of the story which provide the drama. It’s the choices the characters have to make that this story is about. If characters aren’t engaged in making decisions the story isn’t happening.

Paul Laverty’s script is very tight. Every scene clearly has a purpose and this sort of writing is clearly of great advantage to the actor. But there is another element as well, and that’s the actor’s contribution. In this story both ATTA YAQUB as Casim and Roisin played by EVA BIRTHISTLE make great contributions to the unfolding story. The dramatic tension of the plot, in which a second generation Pakistani-Scot falls in love with a lapsed Irish-Catholic music teacher, is generated by the difficulties that will emerge if Casim commits to a relationship with Roisin. This is, in one sense, a very simple story. It’s a story of the difficulty of making one important decision. All the drama comes from this story thread. How does the audience know this?

Fight or Flight
It is plain that the actors/characters are having difficulties with resolving this problem because we can tell they are actively engaged with the issue. We know this because we can see that the animal in them is alert. When animals sense a potential problem they are all ways have some degree of readiness to act. This is the ‘fight or flight’ mechanism that we all inherently possess. Its survival instinct. So, if an actor achieves a good level of relaxation, we find them very believable but there is a distinct possibility that we will not believe that they are at risk in anyway. The reason we are watching is to see how the characters deal with risk. If relaxation eliminates the risk, story becomes static and the audience becomes bored.

A simple trick for the actor is simply to find an appropriate level of relaxation for the character under the given circumstances AND THEN RAISE THE ‘CENTRE OF GRAVITY’ a small amount. It is interesting to watch both the lead actors in ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ for their high centre of gravity and how their hopes and fears keep them always above a state of comfortable relaxation. The still opposite embodies that /image of a high and active centre of gravity. Of course, this is the usual way anybody emerges from cold water but the sense of readiness for action that is seen in these two figures is a constant throughout the film. EVA BIRTHISTLE is particularly active. Whether she is deep in thought, enjoying a moment of humour, succumbing to passion or confronting a major disappointment she is always wonderfully and actively engaged. This means it is impossible not to watch her.

Warm, vibrant and always engaged these are performances worth seeing.

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