Performance Essay on Tartuffe

THEA 010- Introduction to Acting

Luis Carazo

Performance Essay- “The Walking Dead”

The television show “The Walking Dead” contains great quality of acting that can be shown with careful analysis of the scenes, and the choices that the actors make. I have chosen to analyze two scenes and play close attention to two actors in both scenes. The first scene takes place between two police officers, while they are eating lunch and talking about relationships. The second scene takes place as two men decide to execute two zombies, and what occurs when they take out those plans. These scenes really provide insight into how the actors have taken many parts of acting into consideration as they perform. Through these two scenes and three actors parts of acting that include strong emotional involvement and intense preparation are shown while analyzing such things as goals, others, tactics, obstacles, expectation, units, and beats.

The first scene is dialogue between two police officers, who I shall refer to as Actor A and Actor B from now on. A part of the scene shows A doing a mock interpretation of a preacher, trying to amuse his friend. B at that time is looking off into the distance, and giving soft laughs. It is clear that A has the intention of cheering up his friend and is doing so by keeping a joking manner present in the car. He continues to do so by mocking the girls that he has been with, and keeping a tone of women being stupid with regards to turning off lights. They share strong laughter after A admits that his strong façade of being mean to women is fake, and says he uses the polite version. You can see that A continues his goal of cheering up B, despite the fact that B is proving to be an obstacle but not being fully involved. A has a strong goal set here in this first unit, and his tactics of making strong jokes and making women seem silly help him to achieve such a goal, despite his friend in the scene obvious discomfort.

A beat of a few seconds’ leads into the second unit of the first scene, with laughter fading into a serious question from A. B immediately answers with a joke answer relating to the first unit. His discomfort here shows his tactics of playing everything off, so he doesn’t seem weak in front of his friend. A remains strong in his goal of talking seriously with B, and sticks with his new tactic of stern questions. B finally reacts to his friend’s questioning and opens up with what’s really bothering him. B now has a different goal of talking to his friend, and discussing his relationship. He adds a small touch of rubbing his chin while admitting difficulty, to show he has issues, a small choice by the actor to emphasize the obstacle he has of admitting relationship issues. A continues through with his tactics by strongly encouraging B’s talking with snorts and grunts that are used to acknowledge and agree. B finishes the conversation with the tactic of bringing back the original theme, and emphasizing his pain in his relationship.

A shift in the unit occurs again when the police radio enters the scene. Initially both actors sigh with relief, and begin to listen to the radio somewhat uninterested. It can be shown that they would have the expectation right there to not have to react to the radio, since they probably hear things like this all the time. They do shift their demeanors as the chatter continues, and become much more focused on a new goal for both of them. They are devoted to their job and their other goals are dropped. Their new tactics are to quickly shuffle through the food and get it into a bag to throw away. A forcibly slams the trash into a bin while hanging outside of the window, to show that his new goal is very important and he can’t waste time. This last unit shows that the actors were able to pretend that the radio was new to them and adjust accordingly, despite the actors’ prior knowledge.

The second scene focuses not on dialogue but on strong silent action. There are two separate parts of this scene, with each one focusing on a different actor. I shall label the third actor C, and the actor B from before is present here. B’s scene begins with a trip to an open park with nothing present, and his goal is not really known. However later in the scene it is shown that his goal is to find a zombie he encountered earlier. His obstacle here is that he cannot find the zombie. The zombie to him is a strong other, it is someone who he has too much pity for to allow her existence to continue. He speaks to the zombie to reveal this goal, to show that he still has respect for the zombie. He even kneels down next to the zombie as he kills her, and takes a strong beat of a few seconds after shooting her to look around. You can still see the actor’s expectations of dealing with a zombie, when he quickly shoots her the moment she makes any mouth movement. This short scene reveals a great deal about the character, created by the actor.

This scene also has an actor C who makes the decision to find his wife who is now a zombie. It starts with him searching through old photos, and softly smiling as he sees pictures of his wife. This begins the view of the other in the scene; she is his wife, someone who he cares deeply for. His goal is revealed to be to move past his wife and end her zombie life, and this emphasized by the actor’s choice of having him state “come on baby”. He is desperately looking for his wife, and his tactics are to shoot at zombies until he finds her. His expectation is that he will be able to kill her, but it is shown that his obstacle of still loving his wife is too strong. The actor makes the choice to constantly be crying and to break down. He drops his gun multiple times, and tries to motivate himself to continue, but eventually accepts his conclusion after multiple beats of struggle.

These two scenes show the strength of the actors, and how they can use techniques to fully immerse themselves into a character. The first scene shows a casual conversation between two cop friends who begin to delve into a deeper conversation about one’s relationship issues. The actors show their goals of talking and their obstacles of hesitance, and their tactics of using humor to relate more. They also show shifts in units with a change in conversation and the emergence of a police call. The second scene doesn’t focus on dialogue, but on the actions the actors take. Actor B makes the decision to act on his goal of ending a life his pities and does so by overcoming the obstacle of finding the zombie. Actor C deals with a bigger obstacle of loving his wife too much, so that he cannot achieve his goal of killing his zombie wife. These scenes from “The Walking Dead” show the immense preparation and involvement actors have in creating something that just seems like real human interaction.