10.1: Your Focus

Overview

This section emphasizes the critical role of body language in oral interpretation, highlighting how a performer’s physical presence shapes audience perception even before speaking. Central to this is the use of eye contact and focal points, which guide the audience’s attention and clarify relationships between personas. Performers are encouraged to direct their gaze intentionally based on the context and perspective of each character. Mastery of these techniques, combined with familiarity with the text, allows performers to maintain engagement, convey meaning, and create an immersive, dynamic performance without requiring full memorization of the script.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify and apply the four types of focal points (audience, off-stage, on-stage, and inward) based on character perspective and context within a literary performance.
2. Demonstrate purposeful eye direction to enhance audience engagement, convey character relationships, and maintain immersion without relying on full memorization of the text.
3. Display eye contact and familiarity with the literature to create dynamic, clear, and ethically grounded performances that communicate both textual meaning and emotional nuance.

Eye Contact and Focal Points 

You've probably heard the expression that "the eyes are the windows to the soul." This sentence definitely rings true in an interpretation course. Your ability to connect to both the material and the audience with your eyes is likely the most valuable physical resource you can use in a performance.

In most communication courses that involve presentations, instructors emphasize the importance of eye contact, encouraging speakers to engage directly with the audience while referring to notes only occasionally. Similarly, in the interpretation of literature, audiences do not want to see a performer reading a text continuously, as this prevents full immersion in the performance. Unlike traditional public speaking, interpretation performers are not expected to memorize the entire script; the text remains accessible during the performance. However, the performer’s goal is not simply to look at the audience throughout but to direct their gaze purposefully according to the context of the piece. Effective eye direction relies on careful analysis of the text: for each section and for each persona, the performer must determine to whom the character is speaking. These intentional eye directions, known as focal points, can be categorized into four primary types: audience, inward, off-stage, and on-stage.

Focus on Audience

The performer may choose to direct their gaze directly to audience members, bringing them directly into the performance.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Performer gaze is directly upon audience members’ faces during performance. (CC-BY-NC-SA; Martinez - Oral Interpretation)

Performers usually use this form of focal points during introductions (when the performer is speaking as themselves, introducing the piece and establishing its significance), but they also use it frequently when performing a prose story during narration lines. Performers may also choose to use this sort of focal point in expository sorts of literature, for example, when performing a section of an informative essay they wrote in college. Or, if a character in a story is addressing a large crowd, the performer can make the actual audience become the crowd in the story by looking directly at everyone present. Essentially, anytime you feel as though the persona speaking in a moment of your performance might be addressing the crowd as a whole, consider looking at your audience directly as you perform that portion.

Focus Off-Stage 

Some literature typically chosen for oral interpretation performances include dialogue or moments where a person (or people) is (are) speaking to one other specific character or characters. In these moments, it might be confusing if the performer gazes at audience members while performing these lines. For example, if you are performing a bit of dialogue from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it might be awkward and confusing to audience members if you look at them during these lines. You can still immerse them in the literature and bring it to life, however, by establishing off-stage focal points for these characters. Whenever you say a line as Juliet, you might angle your eye gaze toward the back wall behind the audience, aimed slightly right. For Romeo, your eye gaze might also look at the back wall but aimed slightly left. Then, the audience sort of sits in the middle of this "conversation" you are having between the two characters.

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Performer gaze is over the top of audience members’ heads at a more distant target during performance. (CC-BY-NC-SA; Martinez - Oral Interpretation)

When these focal points pair with effective body language and vocal techniques, it will always be clear to your audience which character is speaking. You can also use off-stage focus when performing a monologue where someone is speaking to one specific person, for example, a letter from a daughter to a mother.

Essentially, any time a person within a piece of literature is speaking to a specific other or others, consider using off-stage focus.

Focus On-Stage

Oral interpretation performers do not commonly engage in focus on-stage, but it warrants mentioning as it is used (but sparingly) in group interpretation performances. This focus involves directing one's eye gaze to another persona on the same stage.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Performer gaze is at other performers during performance. (CC-BY-NC-SA; Martinez - Oral Interpretation)

This focus is often problematic in solo interpretation performances because if a performer is playing two or more characters, they must turn their body too far to the left or right to make it appear as though they are addressing a person next to them. Therefore, solo performers are best advised to use a focus off-stage when establishing focal points for different characters.

In group interpretation performances, however, this sort of focus is more tempting and often feels more natural for performers. But while looking at their fellow group mates might feel more natural, group interpretation performers should use caution in choosing this sort of focus in any part of the performance as off-stage focus is considered by many oral interpretation enthusiasts to be a major differentiation between oral interpretation vs. plays/theatre/acting. Group performers will often look at one another in an introduction to their performance, but once the literature begins, you will mostly see them maintain an off-stage focus, even when the people they are portraying are speaking to someone portrayed by another group mate.

Focus Inward

Sometimes, a person is not speaking to any particular group of people or to any other individual present in the person's same physical space. Examples might include one speaking in a diary entry or a character leaving a message on a voicemail. In these cases, a performer's gaze might not be on the audience or any particular point off-stage but rather everywhere and nowhere at once. Consider how one looks when talking to someone else on the phone. That person's eyes might gaze up or down or all around during the conversation. Or, think about where a character might look when talking to themselves or, perhaps, to their god. Again, it might be confusing to aim eye gazes at audience members during these lines, so directing a gaze at no particular spot (or all spots) while performing the literature might be best.

Summary

To establish effective focal points, you need to become familiar with the literature you are choosing to perform. This "familiarity" will allow you to take advantage of these focal point techniques to connect more to your audience and immerse them in your performance. While memorizing your script is fine, do not feel as though you must. You should aim to look up from your script somewhere around 75% of the time. No audience member wants to watch an interpretation performer stare at the text/script for the entire performance, and it will be much harder for the audience to see your great facial expressions and hear your voice in full if you stare down at a script the entire time. Become familiar with your text to allow you to break from staring at it, and use focal points effectively for a more immersive experience for your audience.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Activity 1: Focal Point Exploration

Objective: Practice directing eye gaze purposefully to enhance audience engagement and clarify character relationships.

Materials: Short excerpts from dialogue-heavy or narrative literature, scripts/printed copies.

Instructions:

1. Select an excerpt: Each student chooses a short passage (1–2 paragraphs) that includes dialogue or narration with multiple people.

2. Identify people and targets: For each line, determine:

   • Who the persona is addressing (audience, another character, self/inward).

   • Which type of focal point is most appropriate (audience, off-stage, on-stage, inward).

3. Rehearse with eye focus: Students rehearse reading their excerpt aloud, consciously directing their gaze according to their chosen focal points.

   • For audience focal points, look directly at the listeners.

   • For off-stage, aim at an imaginary character location beyond the audience.

   • For inward, gaze unfocused or “to nowhere” as if talking to self or a distant entity.

4. Peer feedback: Perform for a small group. Peers note if focal points were clear and if gaze helped clarify character relationships or narrative context.

5. Reflection: Students discuss how shifting eye focus impacted clarity, audience engagement, and emotional resonance.