Acting Exercise - Non-Word Communication Using Gibberish

Typically, as an actor you will be working a set script complete with dialogue and action instructions; however, in order to enhance your ability to community non-verbally with your fellow actors you must engage in exercises designed to strengthen non-verbal communication.

The "Non-Word Gibberish Communication" exercise is designed to allow actors the ability to communicate with each other; however, this communication is through a made-up language. Much like cave-men or babies, the actors must convey their emotions, establish obstacles, engage in objectives, establish relationships and solve their problems; however, this must be done through non-verbal language. This allows the actors to rely solely on raw emotions and physical body language.

Actor Purpose/Rules

The purpose for the actors engaging in this form of exercise is to accomplish the overall objective through gestures, facial expressions and vocalized sounds, but not actual words. The actions must be logical and appropriate within the given scene, and the scene should never become chaotic.

The purpose of this scene is to help guide the actors into placing true purpose behind their actions in order to tell a story without actually using words.

Scene/Objective

When determining the scene and objective of this exercise, utilize one that can be accomplished without the use of words, but also one that offers several primary obstacles in order to reach the primary objective.

For example: The actors are inmates at a prison; however, this prison is one for those who have gone against the government, not actual criminals. Because of the severe nature of this "government" the guards have removed the actors vocal chords, only allowing them to grunt and make slight noises. The primary objective within this scene is to escape without being caught. One actor will be caught by a guard, which you should assign; however the actor must make a decision to continue even knowing their comrade has been captured and likely killed.

Other scene examples include:

• · Actors are trying to remove a heavy box from a room; however, it seems that it is made out of stone. Their objective is to remove the box; however, the obstacles include its weight, the steepness of the hill and a lack of modern tools.
• · Two rival gangs meet on the street, they taunt each other, challenging to a fight - but one goes too far, and the entire group erupts into a violent and deadly fight.