Even if you’ve never heard the term “indicating” in an acting class, you’ve probably instinctively run into it, whether as an actor or audience member. The general wisdom is “don’t do it,” but the why and the what to do instead are a little more nuanced. Let’s break it down.
Insights: Alternatives for Indicating
- Embody emotions genuinely instead of showing cliché gestures.
- Trust the audience to understand nuanced performances without overt cues.
- Listen actively, use sense memory, and focus on character objectives to enhance authenticity.
What is Indicating?
In broad strokes, an actor is seen as indicating when they overtly describe, by gesture or other expression, what their character is doing or feeling. This may sound confusing, especially to those correctly recalling the adage “show, don’t tell.”
Indicating is marked by a lack of depth, a showing without embodying, leading to a hollow performance. An example might be excessive placement of hand on belly for a pregnant character, or playing common traits of fear (eyes wide, mouth open, hands to face), without living your character’s specific fear.
Why Indicating Doesn’t Work in Acting
There are many reasons indicating is seen as bad acting. First of all, it’s boring. Just as there should always be more than one thing happening in the scene, there should be more than one thing happening with your character.
Think about the actual events of any given scene, vs. why the scene is there. The characters might be washing the dishes and talking about their day, but if the writing is good, the scene will be about something else. What does washing the dishes stand for in their relationship? What are they trying to get from one another?
Now scale this concept back from a scene to a beat. If your face and your gestures are only focused on describing one emotion or state of being, you are telling the audience how they should feel, rather than moving them.
Beyond this, indicating shows a lack of trust in the audience. Audiences are smarter than they are given credit for. They can tell when you’re talking down to them, and when you’re being inauthentic. If you are delivering a genuine, nuanced performance, you have to trust the audience to be able to receive your story on more than a surface level.
What You Can Do Instead of Indicating
Now that we’ve agreed that indicating is no good, what next? First, you have to be able to identify when you’re doing it. This can come with practice.
Cultivate an awareness in your body — you know when it feels fake. If you don’t believe it, your audience certainly won’t. Expand this awareness to others: your connection with your scene partner, your director in rehearsal, your audience in a live performance. When you feel them shut down, or disengage, this could be a sign you’re not offering a genuine performance.
Once you realize you’re indicating, there are many ways to pull out of it. Here are just a few:
- Re-engage in the scene: Start listening to your scene partner with fresh ears. If you’re connecting with them and supporting them, you won’t be watching yourself perform.
- Activate sense memory: If you find yourself indicating that you’re portraying an experience foreign to you, it’s time to build a bridge. Find some stand-in experience you can vividly recall (and perhaps relive without triggering anything mentally unsafe) and explore what it’s like to do the thing. Build your environment sense by sense and reconnect to how it feels to live something instead of performing it.
- Improvise in rehearsal: This might have to be on your own time, but improvising your way through a scene can be a great way to shake yourself out of a rut and get back to the meat of the story.
- Go back to your objective: Focus on what your character wants rather than what they’re doing at the moment. What is driving you, what are your tactics and obstacles? Fight for something in the scene instead of going through the motions of the scene.
There are many more tools to draw from. Once you can build that internal sense of what indicating is, and when you’re falling into that trap, you’ll start to find your way out.
If you’re struggling to pinpoint it in yourself, watch other actors. When do you feel disengaged from them? When do they seem like they’re faking it? Zero in on those moments and see if you can articulate why that is. Indicating may very well be the culprit.
The work of acting is a constant fight for authenticity. In the words of Sanford Meisner, “Acting is the ability to behave truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” Don’t describe the thing. Do it.
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