ON ACTING: Tri-Part Structure

Scenes, like life, which all acting must imitate, have a beginning, a middle and and end. They are born, they grow and they die. Ideas are introduced, they are expanded upon and they conclude--always resulting in new knowledge. Topics are established, debated and resolved; an initiating event happens, a complication occurs and a (new) resolution (and new emotional state) is achieved.

There is in every good scene a sense of inevitable growth and change, the dynamic progression from beginning to middle to end; A>B>C is an essential structural component in all scenes; it makes them ordered, dramatically compressed and audience-identifiably rhythmic...and hence exciting to the audience.

Good writing inevitably has structure. So when analyzing a scene (and preparing to perform it) the actor is charged to find the beginning, middle and end of it; the introduction, the engagement and the resolution...and the change to which that leads.

Good acting requires no less.