pyat

Pyat’s Theory of Acting

You may recall that famous scene from Dead Poet’s Society, in which Robin Williams plays a teacher who asks one of his students to read a famous essay on judging the quality of poetry by rating it in two different areas, and basing it’s greatness on the area it covers on a bar graph. He instructs the students to tear the essay from their books, and dance about on their desks like jackanapes, sounding their barbaric yawps to the golden sky-roof as they learn about love and loss and come-of-age.

Or something like that. I never did see the whole thing.

Well, forget that anyway. I rate actors in nearly the same way as the essayist rated poets – except I don’t go so far as to use numerals, and I admit the existence of a more intangible characteristic.

The greatness of an actor may be measured, primarily, on two indexes. The first I call “Depth,” and the second is “Range.” Because I have certain very narrow interests, I shall draw examples from Star Trek and old movies.

Depth
Depth indicates the believability or “force” an actor is able to impart. If the actor really appears to be feeling the emotions he is presenting, that actor has a high Depth rating. Depth is very important for actors who want leading roles. It is one of the things that makes you remember an actor.

Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard) has a very high depth rating. Brent Spiner (Commander Data) does not. Bogart had depth. Ingrid Bergman had depth. Peter O’Toole used to have depth.

Some actors have Depth only when portraying certain emotional states. For example, Cagney could do despair and happiness very well, but stank when it come to romance. This ties in with “Range.”

Range
Range is measure of the ability of the actor to take on new roles, and present characters other than themselves. An actor with great range can play a gangster or a saint, and the character he is portraying will seem totally different. Actors without range seem to play themselves no matter what role they are in. Range is important for ordinary, working actors, but may be totally unimportant for a leading player because people want to see the actor, not the role.

Patrick Stewart does not have range. He only plays Patrick Stewart, but he does it very well. Brent Spiner does have range. He can play many different characters, each totally different in manner than the other. Alas, he has no depth, so he can’t play them very well.

Cagney had some range, though he was typecast as a gangster because of the aforementioned limits on his depth. Ingrid Bergman and Bogart didn’t have range, but we don’t care. Elisha Cook Jr. had range and depth out the wazoo, but he was unfortunately a scrawny runt and got stuck playing minor roles for 60 years. Peter Lorre had no range. Charles Laughton had no range at all, but more on that later.

The Intangibles – Charisma
This last one makes or breaks a leading actor. Beyond acting skill is the actual personality of the actor, his/her personal appeal and presence.

Patrick Stewart has charisma and depth. Marina Sirtis (Counselor Troi) has neither range nor depth (usually), but she has charisma, so she can overcome that.

Charles Laughton was a terrible actor in most regards. He couldn’t remember his lines, and he usually just read them when he did, but he had an interesting personality and presence that people liked watching.

Peter O’Toole has charisma like no one’s business. Sadly, that’s all he has these days. He’s phoned in every movie since the early 80s, but it’s okay because he’s so damn charming and condescendingly eye-twinkly about it. “Yes, I suck, old darling, but aren’t I a devilish old wag?”

Some actors are lucky enough to combine ALL of the above traits.

I offer the examples of Michael Caine and Elisha Cook Jr. as ideal actors, one a leading man, the other a working actor.

Note also that some actors may suddenly develop or lose these traits over the course of their career. Tom Cruise was great in Jerry Maguire, but not so hot in a lot of other films. A lot of this has to do with DIRECTION. A bad actor with a good director can become good.