Learning Lines

Probably my most frequently asked question by those who aspire to the dramatic stage is… “What is the best way to learn my lines?”
I usually respond, in my typically glib way, that there exist no hard and fast rules or techniques for the learning of lines, and that if one were to ask a thousand actors how they personally approached the task, one may well receive a thousand different answers.

Having said that, it is useful to have at the very least an idea as to the possible approaches one can utilize when faced with a dramatic text… so here are a few tips from me on learning lines.

An actor's job is not primarily to learn lines but to communicate the character he's playing, so anything that helps him to get learning them out of the way is a blessing. Professional actors rarely learn lines by sitting in a chair staring at a page and repeating the words over and over again; most pick them up by a kind of osmosis during rehearsals. One day they're walking about the set with the book in hand, the next they've left it on a chair. How does this happen?

There are several techniques, but perhaps these are the most important and simplest to master:

First: find out what induces your character to behave the way it does.
At first glance this might seem to have little bearing on line-learning, but believe me it's crucial. In every well-written play, the characters are in conflict with someone or something. The actor has to know what drives his character to participate in this conflict, and every character has a good reason. It's that reason you have to uncover. For example, if your character is emotional, he is emotional for a reason. Every action is performed for a reason, and . . . the REASON precedes everything else.

You cannot learn lines by playing emotion; you can only learn lines by playing the REASON for the emotion.
There comes a day during every rehearsal when an actor will suddenly ask questions like 'What am I doing?', 'What do I want?', 'Why is my character on stage?', 'What is he after?' Each question is really a different way of asking, 'Why is my character doing what he's doing?' A character is not alive until that question's answered. So; don't worry about learning lines; find out why your character says them, every one of them! If you do that, then you'll know them.

Secondly: Make line-learning physical.
Actors think on their feet; they learn lines on their feet. Few actors can learn lines well until they've memorised the blocking. Anyone having difficulty learning lines might try the following excellent method of 'walking' the scene by imagining his character performing the physical actions. For example, once you know the blocking well, talk yourself through it:

My character stands offstage right, with left hand on the door handle, he turns the handle, pushes the door, and shouts "Mary!" as he enters the set. He stops. He looks around. He hears Mary answering from offstage. He walks below the couch to the small table left of the couch as he calls 'Had a rotten day at work; you'll never guess who showed up . . . ' and so on.
Any scene in which the lines are particularly difficult to commit to memory could be approached this way. It works very well indeed.

These two rules work together. When your character says he had a rotten day at work, you the actor not only physically visualise yourself crossing below the couch to the table as you say them, but you also must know WHY your character had a rotten day at work, WHY he's walking to the table, WHY he's telling this to Mary, and so on.

The art of acting is in many ways the art of getting another character to change his mind to support your character's objective. It should go without saying that you, the actor, has to know what your character is after before the lines he speaks make sense to you.

It would be wonderful if all those actors out there would respond with their own experiences and ideas on the subject.