How to be a good stage partner?

Partnership is such an important part of the process that special attention is paid to it during acting training: separate classes are organized that teach you to “feel” your partner, to catch the slightest nuances of his game, to be able to react to unplanned situations. For example, this is taught by one of the basic theatrical exercises practiced in institutes and acting courses, which is called “Mirror". Its essence is as follows: partners face each other. In this pair, one is the master and the other is the slave. The “leader" with the help of mimic techniques shows the usual routine actions that he performs daily: washes, brushes his teeth, shaves, puts on makeup, lights a cigarette, etc. The second partner tries to repeat the movements of the “leader” as accurately as possible, acting in unison with him - as much as possible. If the actions cannot be reproduced at normal speed, the “leader” can show them as if in slow motion. Then, after a while, you can return to normal mode again. After the interaction is achieved, the partners can switch roles and repeat the whole process again. This wonderful exercise helps to develop a general rhythm, improves the ability to improvise, develops reaction and attention.

A variation of the “Mirror” — perhaps even more effective — is the exercise “Siamese twins". The partners depict Siamese twins who are “connected” to each other. A close physical connection presupposes the presence of both internal and spiritual, the ability to feel each other, understand all the nuances of the mental mood and anticipate its further actions.

It should be remembered that being a good stage partner means being caring and attentive, as well as being able to trust. The latter is especially important. Whatever relationships the actors have in reality, they do a single thing on stage and therefore all possible misunderstandings should remain outside the process. There are cases when actors who forgot the text of the role or simply lost their heads due to lack of experience or a sudden change in circumstances received support from their partners. The latter managed to improvise successfully and thereby “save” the comrade and the whole scene. There is nothing worse than to “substitute” your partner, specifically complicate his stage task and disrupt the action. Such cases are not too frequent, but it happens that due to fatigue, poor health, or some other circumstances, one of the actors does not behave at all as his partner expects from him. In such cases, it is extremely important to develop intuition, a good reaction and the ability to improvise, which will help to get out of a difficult situation with honor. Experienced actors, if you may have noticed, are almost always excellent improvisers.

If you are just about to embark on a thorny, but such an exciting path of stage activity, be attentive to the people around you, your colleagues and partners. Develop empathy and understanding, master the basics of psychology. All this will certainly be useful to you in your future career as an actor.