This is a useful article written by Paul Barry, an L.A.-based Australian acting teacher, that I read on Backstage.com. Reproduced here with permission.
As a director, my job
is to collaborate with actors in guiding the audiences’ attention to
what’s important, and away from distractions that may obscure the story.
It is not to teach them to act.
As a teacher, my job is to create
self-sufficient performers, capable of working with directors who may
not know how to adhere to my first point. It is not to direct them.
The two jobs
are quite different, but the common denominator of all great teachers
and directors is their ability to use an acting vocabulary that is doable.
Aphorisms such as “less is more,” “just feel it,” “sit back into it,” and “really connect” do nothing to help you become self-sufficient. Less what is more what?
At best, such generalities foster dependence on the apparently
omniscient instruction-giver, and at worst cause distrust in all future
instructors’ advice, because such suggestions—without the fortification
of reliable technique—are ultimately indefinable and therefore unplayable.
Good acting teachers will help you
understand the mechanics of translating generalized direction into
specific, doable action, and good directors will speak only in such
terms. Anything else, though often well intentioned, perpetuates the
myth that acting is probably an unlearnable art;
that it is mystical, ephemeral, and can only be mastered through
closing one’s eyes, rolling the dice, and praying not to land snake
eyes.
Aside from being a fundamentally flawed strategy, this line of thinking disempowers all who see it as normal.
Unproven dicta, such as “just listen,”
“build the chemistry” and “it’s all in the eyes” are additional clichés
eroding actors’ common sense understanding that acting is not a guessing
game, that it should be doable, and that doing is everything. None of
the above suggestions can be done, and certainly not to a point
where everyone would agree on the actual result. Even listening has
sub-considerations, such as “What do you want?” “What is your opinion of
what you just heard in that moment?” and “Are you getting closer
to/further away from your objective as a result?” Reactions and feelings
in the moment are the reflexive result of things being done by us, and done to us.
Doing is everything.
It is very easy to hear sounds and make
facial expressions indicating that you have been affected, but knowing
what you want, and having opinions of everything you hear makes listening more real for your scene partner, more engaging to the audience, and of paramount importance, more doable by you.
A great director may inadvertently teach
you a tremendous amount about acting. A great teacher may inadvertently
give you a stellar direction in a scene. But it is incumbent upon
neither to do the other person’s job whilst attempting to do their own.
The fact that many teachers and directors are confused on this point is
evident in much of the advice offered to actors these days, from both
fields.
The terrific advice of Sanford Meisner,
that acting is “living truthfully in imaginary circumstances” is useless
without the specific exercises he taught to ensure that such a
generalization could actually produce the “truth” he so passionately
advocated. Stanislavsky’s assertion that, “The person you are is a
thousand times more interesting than the best actor you could ever hope
to be,” is icing on the cake of his “system” designed to help you do,
through techniques such as objectives, given circumstances, and sense
memory. David Mamet and William H. Macy’s method of script analysis
though Practical Aesthetics repeatedly emphasizes viewing the work
stoically and finding the achievable action in order to provide a foundation for Mamet’s advice in “True and False” to “invent
nothing, deny nothing, speak up, stand up, stay out of school,” which
would otherwise be a catchy quotable sound bite, but ultimately hollow,
useless advice.
Declan Donnellan in “The Actor and the Target” coined the term “unuseful truths,”
and suggested that when viewed as the garnish rather than the meal,
there is nothing wrong with hearing, or even repeating them. Treating
such truisms as some kind of panacea for what ails your acting though is
incredibly dangerous, since each one seems to promise that its pat and
pithy structure holds a deeper meaning. Yet with no clear instruction on
how to actually enact them, we are left worse off than we were before
they entered our ear. Much like someone advising that, “Happiness is
simply a matter of being true to oneself,” it draws our attention to an
ideal we now have no idea how to personally attain, due to the advice’s
lack of specifics.
The antidote to such deceptive sound
bites in acting is the kind of specific instruction one can easily
understand, successfully interpret, and finally, competently do.
Next time you hear a teacher or director
describe acting in generalized terms, make it easy on yourself and ask
instead: “What am I doing?” If you can’t say it, you’re
certainly not doing it. The problem is not that you haven’t “dropped it
in,” “kicked it up a notch,” or “really opened up.” The problem is that
you don’t know what to do.
Work out what to do, and then do it. Doing is everything.
Paul Barry is an L.A.-based Australian acting teacher and Backstage Expert. For more information, check out Barry’s full bio!
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