UNDERSTUDIES: Understudy should do part exactly like the original actor?

[planetmike]

In a community theater show, one part has an understudy. The part is fairly small, with only 2 or 3 scenes. The director is telling the understudy that she should do everything exactly like the main actor. Mannerisms, movement, body placement, etc... The issue I see is that the two actors are quite different physically. One is much taller and heavier than the other. So when the understudy runs a scene as the main actor, the effect is a bit comical. Not having worked with an understudy before, is that the normal way of doing things? I totally get that blocking and such should be the same, but some of the sight gags I don't think are working when the understudy performs. Not that I would say anything to the director, but I'd be interested in hearing some ideas about how to best help the understudy "get" the part being asked of them to do.

Change to subject line tag-Rebbe

[Rebbe]

Yes, I’d say that normally the understudy is supposed to play the part as closely to the original actor’s performance as possible.  It sounds like the director is still present, and has seen the U/S perform.  If that’s the case, and it’s not bothering the director, I wouldn’t worry about it.  You may just be used to seeing the original actor, whereas an audience seeing just the U/S without a point of comparison would buy their performance.  The U/S might also improve with more rehearsal, naturally making the nuances their own without changing the intentions.   Is this understudy definitely scheduled to perform, and how many times?  If the actors the U/S is playing with are bothered by the differences, perhaps they could work together to make a small adjustments.  But if the gag is carefully choreographed, you may need to change more than a few things for the overall effect to be the same, and that process can be tricky without the director. 

[loebtmc]

a vastly oversimplified definition of the difference between an understudy and a replacement - an u/s stays as close as possible to the original performer's work (why the u/s needs to be a better actor, since he/she is figuring out the first team member's intention/objectives to play those along w blocking and patterns) - while a replacement starts w same blocking and basics but can make it his/her own, even (in some shows) including revisiting some blocking as long as none of the technical elements needs to change.

[planetmike]

Thanks everyone for the comments. For the role I was asking about, we ended up losing the original actor who was cast, the understudy was not able to commit to performing the entire run, so we ended up during tech week casting a new actor. And that actor was not forced to learn the character per the director's vision. I think by that point we were all just happy to have somebody in the part that no one cared if they were doing it the "correct" way or not.