The Emotion Skit
I don't know the origin of this skit. I saw someone else do it, and I am sure they got it from some other place, but it's been a valuable tool and a great performance piece for years.
The Emotion Skit works like this: actors read it through straight the first time - no inflection, no emotion. Then you start choosing different emotions, archetypes, quirks, etc. to use in the scene. Whatever emotion is chosen, the actors exaggerate it as much as possible. If you pick happy, everyone is over the top with happiness and joy. If you choose sadness, there should be wailing and tears. If it's anger... well, there's a whole range of different kinds of anger. You can be specific on a certain kind of anger, or just let the actors explore. Either way it's a great exercise in studying how to play emotions.
Our brains are split between the logical side (the side we use when acting) and the instinctive side (the side that governs real emotions). As actors, we have to teach our logical side to behave in the way our instinctive side already knows. Exercises like this allow us to explore emotions, reactions, and feelings, to break them down into components so that we can reproduce them. How does my voice sound when happy? How do my eyes look? What about my posture, my walk, my face? The more we study these emotions, the easier it becomes to recreate them in our acting performances.
What spiritual applications do you see in this exercise? What does the Bible teach us about emotions, and how can an exercise like this help us to obey God in regards to them?
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