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Between the Lines: Why memorization matters, plus some tips and tricks.

7/10/2024

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Imagine a baking class where a student says, “This bread would have been better if I had used flour and water.” Or a student in a pottery class saying, “This vase would have been better if I had used some clay.” Yet time and again, in my acting class, students begin their self-evaluation after a scene presentation by telling me that it would have been better if they knew their lines. It happens so frequently that I often address it beforehand by telling the entire class that we don’t need to ever say that. It is a waste of time for the entire class. Trying to perform a scene without knowing your lines stone cold is, as Peter O’Toole said in an interview with Charlie Rose, “. . . like painting without using a brush. How can you?”
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The difficulty that many people experience learning lines stems, I believe, from a problem with approach. So often we get an audition and have just a couple of days to submit it. We look at the sides, and immediately think, “Okay, I have to learn these lines and get this down on tape by the day after tomorrow.” And so we start trying to memorize them, by whatever means necessary. But this skips a fundamental step: Understanding. In class I will stop a student after a particular line and ask, “What does that mean?” or “Why is your character saying that?” Too often, the student doesn’t know. That means they have tried to learn the “what” of the line before understanding the “why.”
To the student asking for advice on how to learn lines, I would say that everyone is going to have to find the method that works best for them, and that there is no magic answer, no one-size-fits-all approach. But underpinning whatever approach you use, there must first be the deepest understanding of what it is that your character wants, and the reasons they have for saying the things they are saying. Without that understanding, the words become just a random assortment of sounds that you’re trying to learn by rote. They might as well be a series of numbers or a random shopping list. But understanding leads to an internal monologue that can fuel an impulse towards the next line.

After you have done the fundamental work of understanding, then the following tips and tricks may ease your path.

Tip #1: Listen. Much of the time, simply focusing on the other character and listening to what they are saying will help to make your response obvious.

Tip #2: Break the script into logical beats. These can be defined either by emotional or topical shifts. Then focus on each of these by themselves. Each one of these that you tackle will signal progress to yourself and boost your confidence.

Tip #3: Use mnemonic devices. These are ways to associate a line with a thought or pattern that is memorable to you, such as using Roy G. Biv to remember the colors of the rainbow. Another is GOYAKOD, which is a term used in law enforcement to describe a crucial investigative technique. It stands for Get Off Your Ass and Knock on Doors. Silly, right? But that’s why it works. If you’re having difficulty remembering a particular line, come up with a silly or interesting association or acronym, and it will be right there in your mind when you need it.

Tip #4: Write them out. Sometimes the simple act of writing the lines activates a different part of your brain that aids in the memorization process. I don’t know anything about the science behind this, but there are some who say it’s very helpful.

Tip #5: Here’s the boring one: Repetition. I know. It’s not interesting. It’s just hard work. But it gets you there. Here’s the boring one: Repetition. I know. It’s not interesting. It’s just hard work. But it gets you there. Here’s the boring one: Repetition. I know. It’s not interesting. It’s just hard work. But it gets you there. Here’s the boring one: Repetition. I know. It’s not interesting. It’s just hard work. But it gets you there. Here’s the boring one: Repetition. I know. It’s not interesting. It’s just hard work. But it gets you there.

One final observation: Memory is a muscle, and acting class is where you train. Whatever shape you’re in for class, that’s the shape you’ll be in when you go to an audition. If you’ve gotten yourself into peak performance condition, it will be that much easier to master your lines when it matters most. Moreover, being completely on top of your lines time and again for class will go a long way towards calming any nerves you may have for your auditions. You’ll discover a little voice in your head saying, louder and louder, “C’mon. You got this.”
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Transference: A Clarification

6/19/2023

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A very talented student once said, after presenting a scene in class, “I’m having a difficult time staying in the moment and I don’t understand why. I worked so hard on the things I’m using for transference. I know what they all are, I know that they all work, but they keep pulling me out of the scene.”

“How are you using them?” I asked.

“Well, whenever I get to the moment in the scene where that particular transference is relevant, I remember to call it up, but then it doesn’t work. It pulls me out of the scene. I stop listening and responding and just get lost.”

Hearing that, I knew what the problem was, and how to address it. But before we discuss the solution, let’s talk a bit about the concept of transference for those unfamiliar with it. Transference is a core concept of Uta Hagen’s technique, described in her book, A Challenge for the Actor. Some may be more familiar with substitution, which is the term that Hagen used in her earlier work, Respect for Acting. There may be subtle differences that arose from her evolving refinement of her technique, but for our purposes, the terms are essentially the same. In Hagen’s words, it is a technique that involves using “transferences from your own life to the very origins of the character, to ensure faith in the reality of your new existence.” For instance, in describing the technique as it might apply to working on the role of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, Hagen uses the following example of a transference, among many, many others:
You have learned that Belle Reve went to seed in spite of “your” vain struggles to maintain it before it was taken from “you” by creditors. You must find a substitute for this loss of roots, for the despair that takes hold when your home is lost or threatened. Moving away—even if it is to a better place—can be a frightening experience, creating a sense of insecurity and panic comparable to Blanche’s feelings. Taking leave of a summer home, or clearing out a place for renters—any event that made you feel displaced can be useful.
The technique of transference can be applied to every aspect of the character’s life, be it environment, inanimate objects, or other characters and relationships. While your examination of the text will lead you to an intellectual understanding of the feelings “you” might have for another character, that is not enough. Transference can help you to have those feelings, in your heart, in your stomach, in your bones—not just in your head. And having the feelings is crucial. Otherwise, you’re just representing them.

It should be made clear that transference is simply one tool in the actor's toolbox. It is a way of sparking and supplementing the imagination, not supplanting it. Of course, we have to create the entire world that the character inhabits. Our imagination, along with research, helps us create this realm, separate and apart from our own life and world. Transference is simply a way of personalizing certain aspects of the imaginary experience and world so that we can feel more connected to it emotionally and identify more closely with the character. Once we identify with the character, we can truly say “I” when we are on stage or before the camera.

Here is an example from my own work where the tool of transference served me well. In the play Sight Unseen, by Donald Margulies, a brilliant painter “borrows” or “steals” a portrait that he had done of his former lover Patricia years ago, when they were in college. He painted it on the day that they had their first kiss and it now represents both a breakthrough for him as well as something that he has lost. There is much discussion of the portrait throughout the play, but it is never seen by the audience. At the end of the play, “I,” the character, am caught trying to run off with the portrait in the middle of the night. But in the production, I, the actor, was simply holding a random framed canvas, wrapped in plain paper and tied with string. In order to give that prop an emotional significance for me, I came up with the following transference.

When I was in junior high and high school, I was quite into photography. While I was never very talented, I took one photograph that resonates with me to this day. It is of a young woman on a merry-go-round, the kind that kids have to push themselves. The background is blurred, and she is leaning back, her hair blowing in the wind, with an expression of such joyful innocence that my heart breaks every time I look at it. I’m not entirely sure why the photo hits me so hard, but I think it is a combination of elements: My luck at capturing that kind of moment but my inability to follow through on the craft, which later in life might be looked on as a road not taken; the fact that the photo that represents that road is of a beautiful girl captured at a brief magical moment in time (much like Patty in the play is captured in the portrait). So the first step of my transference was to touch base, internally, with all of the swirl of feelings brought up for me by that photograph. The second part of my transference was to ask the actor playing Patricia for a photograph of her at the age she would have been when “we” first met. Once she supplied it, my work was done. (I should note that although I am describing a transference relating to a prop, the technique can be used for any aspect of a text, be it a relationship, a person, a place, or an event. The technique should not be slavishly applied, but rather adapted to suit your needs relative to the specific role.)

So what is the problem that the actor was struggling with that day in class? It’s quite simple, and it’s a common one. It stems from a misunderstanding of the part that transference plays in preparation for a role. Note that word: preparation. Transference is a part of the homework of the actor. It is a rehearsal technique. It is not to be used in all of rehearsal (probably not even in most) and it is never to be used in performance. Indeed, if your reading of the script leads you to an immediate and visceral understanding of the core of your character (as sometimes happens), there may be no need to resort to transference at all.
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To return to the example from Sight Unseen, once I had come up with the transference that worked for me in that moment and used it in rehearsal once or twice, the process was complete. There was no possible way for “me” to discuss the painting or pick up that prop without being hit with the entire swirl of emotions created by the amalgamated image of the girl on the merry-go-round morphed into a portrait of “Patty” at college age. And in performance, I was never thinking of the merry-go-round girl, or of the photo given to me by the actor. Instead, I had complete faith in the portrait that “I” had painted and had now seen again after all these years, or was now holding in my hand. This is the goal of transference, simply to help foster the identification with the character, and to aid in the creation of the magical “you.” But because the student was using her ideas of transference during the performance of the scene, while she was working with her partner, her focus was being pulled away from the event and the relationship and into an intellectual exercise.
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LESS IS MORE: A DISCUSSION OF THE ACTOR AND THE KULESHOV EFFECT

5/19/2023

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“Stop acting!” “Stop indicating!” “You don’t have to work so hard!” We’ve all heard acting teachers and directors issue these exhortations, or ones like them. The first is the only thing I remember my father saying to me in my early years, and now I find myself repeating it, and countless variations, to my own students all the time. It is a source of endless frustration to them, and to me . . . until it clicks for them. Getting students to understand and accept that all they have to do is have the experience, that they must forget about the audience or the viewer or the camera, is my primary aim as a teacher. The hurdles that trip students up on their way to this goal are many and varied. And so I poke and prod in order to remove crutches and habits, and to explain in as many different ways that I can. One of the stumbling blocks for many actors is that they don’t believe that the simple experience that they have during a scene will be enough. They worry that the audience might not “get it,” won’t understand what they are thinking and feeling. This comes, in part, from the ego and a misconception of how much responsibility the actor has for the telling of the story. And while I believe that the actor at her best is crucial to effective storytelling, the way that they are crucial is misunderstood by many students. In order to examine one aspect of this misunderstanding, it’s useful to look at something called The Kuleshov Effect.

The Kuleshov Effect was demonstrated in the early part of the 20th century by the Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov. Kuleshov was exploring the relatively new art form of cinema and how meaning could be derived from montage and the juxtaposition of images. To show the effect, Kuleshov edited together a shot of a bowl of soup, followed by a shot of a man looking into the camera. The next shot is of a young girl in a coffin, followed again by a shot of the man looking into the camera. The last shot is of a woman reclining on a chaise, followed by the final image of the man looking into the camera. The story told by each pair of shots is remarkably different, with the man appearing hungry, sad, and enticed as the shots progress. Yet the shots of the man are identical. It is in the juxtaposition of the images that the viewer perceives meaning and actually imputes different emotional states to the actor whose expression never changes. You can watch it for yourself below.

This is useful for the acting student to consider. As actors, we are only a part of the process by which meaning and story are conveyed. We are a cog in the machine, and we must remember that we are not responsible for telling every aspect of the story. That weight is carried by the production as a whole, by the sum of the parts and all of the artists involved — the writer, the director, the other actors, the costume, set and sound designers, the editor, the entire production team, be it a staged or filmed production. So we must engage in the experience and play our role, but throw off the weight of carrying the production and telling the story. The team tells the story, and by playing our part in that telling, with simplicity, honesty, and authenticity, we allow the audience to witness it.
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EDIT “ING” FOR ACTIVE PROSE

7/30/2019

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How to Bring Pace and Immediacy to Your Narrative.

“You sure do use a lot of gerunds.” This from my best college buddy after he read the second draft of my novel. (I didn’t share the first with anyone.) Bruce had spent several years as an editor at St. Martin’s Press, and I trusted him to return my manuscript along with many helpful and insightful comments. He did. But this one comment rose above the rest and continues to guide me in my work with clients, as well as in my own writing. At the time, however, I didn’t even know what gerunds were. It turns out they are complicated little grammatical units, and I’m not going to go into all of the ins-and-outs of them here. You can Google yourself down that particular rabbit hole on your own time.

Suffice it to say that if in constructing a sentence you use a verb in the form ending in “ing” . . . wait a minute . . . Telling you to look for gerunds is my way of trying to . . . no, that’s not it . . . Here you go: Look for the times when you use the form of a verb that ends in “ing” and you’re probably using a gerund. And making your writing weaker by . . . no, darn it, there it is again . . . It makes your written work weaker and less active.

Let me give an example from work with a recent client, Alastair Duncan, on his wonderful upcoming novel, The Last Leprechaun. A particular paragraph in its original form read like this:

Jeff laughed and pushed Art hard. He fell sideways, grabbing onto the desk beneath him, which tipped over, smashing into the desks around it, then crashing down on top of him as he fell to the floor. He lay there, breathing hard, blood running down his face from a cut on his forehead, staring up at Jeff, wondering what he was going to do next and powerless to stop him whatever it was.

Notice all of the gerunds: grabbing, smashing, crashing, breathing, running, wondering. Seems like a lot of action, doesn’t it? So what’s the problem? The issue, and it is a subtle one, is that the use of the gerunds gives the feeling that the actions are simply happening, rather than being caused or motivated by the characters and events. It makes them feel passive.

Here is the same paragraph, with all of the same events and information, but with the gerunds reworked:

He fell sideways and grabbed onto the desk beneath him. It tipped over and smashed into the desks around it. He fell to the floor and the desk crashed down on top of him. He lay there out of breath, and blood ran down his face from a cut on his forehead. He wiped the blood from his eyes, stared up at Jeff, and wondered what he was going to do next. Whatever it was, he knew he was powerless to stop him.
 
It’s a lot more active, isn’t it? It gives us the feeling that we are there, thrust into the event, that it is happening now, and that there is direct cause and effect between a character’s action and the consequent reaction.

This isn’t to say that the use of the “ing” form is always bad. Let’s look at another passage from the novel:
Art turned away down a hallway covered with framed photos of him: as a baby in his mother’s arms, in a football uniform, playing baseball, with his parents the Grand Canyon behind them, at Yosemite in front of El Capitan.  In all of them he was smiling, his parents smiling with him. He swung past without seeing them, heading toward his bedroom at the end of the hall.

In this instance the passive feels okay. The photos are in the past, a memory, and the point seems to be that Art passes them every day without even noticing them. It’s not an active choice on his part to ignore them. If it were an active choice, if there was some reason we wanted to make the point that he does know that they are there, and that they bother him, we might say, “He didn’t look at them.” That would make a different statement.

Going through your writing when you’re editing and looking for these “ing” endings is a good idea. Or rather, as I should say: Edit your work, and when you do, keep an eye out for those tricky “ing” endings. You’ll be glad you did.
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WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU THINKING?

6/25/2019

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On Adding Depth and Specificity to Your Performance.
It’s always daunting to introduce a new romantic interest to one’s parents. When your father is a well-respected actor and the new girlfriend is an aspiring actron (as this particular young lady used to call herself) the tension during the first dinner can reach comical heights. During dinner on the evening in question my father, not versed in the techniques of Sanford Meisner, asked my date to explain the purpose of the repetition exercise she was studying. I pushed my chair a fraction of an inch further away from the table and focused on my breathing. The new girlfriend proceeded to tell my dad that the goal of the exercise was to get the student to a place where they were able to receive exactly what their partner was giving them and to respond with complete honesty in the moment to whatever that was, which would then be reflected back with authenticity, again, in the moment.

My father thought for a moment. “So they are teaching you to behave on stage in a way that no one ever behaves in real life?”

“What do you mean?” asked the young woman, nonplussed.

“Nobody ever listens to a word anyone else ever says,” said my father, “and no one ever responds with complete honesty.”

The Inner Monologue

My father’s point is well taken. The point of the repetition exercise seems to me to be the stripping away of the layers of self-consciousness and social conditioning that get in the way of the actor’s awareness of his immediate and honest impulses. And of course self-awareness and the ability to feel honest responses to circumstances and stimuli are crucial skills for the actor, a step towards a truthful performance and the creation of a three-dimensional character. But they are only a step. The problem is: What do we do with that awareness and those responses? Do we act on them, spontaneously, all the time and in every scene? I don’t think so. In life, even if we are aware of our immediate response and impulse (which I believe is seldom the case), we don’t always (I might argue almost never) act upon it. Of course there are moments when what you hear or see is so triggering that you do respond immediately, in the moment, without a filter. That will be true as well for the characters you portray. But those moments are for the most part few and far between in drama, as they are in life. Yet I have watched far too many performances by actors relying to a fault on their access to that immediate impulse. They are often lauded for being inventive and spontaneous, but in general these performances are of no interest to me. They may be flamboyant and fascinating displays of a particular skill, but they don’t often resemble most human behavior or create a nuanced, complicated, layered character.

Two questions arise: First, why do we develop the skill of bringing those impulses to the fore if we’re not going to act upon them? Then, what do we do instead?

In answer to the first question, we need to know what is going on inside of our characters so that we know what is driving them. The receiving of the stimulus from the other character is what drives our own reaction. A character is rude to me or loving to me. I need to be able to feel my honest response to those behaviors. But whether I act openly and honestly in the moment depends upon a number of other factors. In response to the rude behavior my honest impulse might be to yell or to strike. But what if I am a respected member of the community and we are in a public place? Alternatively, my reaction to the loving gesture might be to hug or to kiss. But my character may have been a victim of abuse, or might recently have been rejected by another. My impulses need to be tempered. I need to feel them, and then I likely need to mask them. My reaction, the characters reaction, must be filtered through the personality of the character and the circumstances in which he finds himself. This is a topic I covered in more depth in the article Coffee Grounds, Kaleidoscopes, and Character.

Take some time to examine your own behavior. The next time you’re in a conversation, notice how many things you’re thinking that you are not saying. Observe that while you’re speaking, you’re thinking at the very least one other thing that you’re keeping to yourself. When you’re listening, thoughts and images are being triggered by what you’re hearing, and you are for the most part actively deciding to which of those triggers you will respond. Some things you hear might make you want to keep your mouth shut. Then something you hear makes you decide to speak. This is why it is so important to know your lines absolutely cold. (For an interesting discussion of this necessity and the depths to which you must go, take a look at this clip of Peter O’Toole in an interview with Charlie Rose.) If you don’t, the only thought in your head is “What’s my next line?” But what your head should be filled with is all of the thoughts that your character might be thinking as he filters through the decision process of what to say next. These thoughts are the internal monologue, and finding it is the beginning of being truly in the moment.

Turning Out and Turning In

There is an interesting exercise through which we can begin to examine the interplay between the honest response that might be expressed, and the inner response that, although felt, might be masked. I call it The Turning Exercise. It is quite simple. Once you and your scene partner are thoroughly off-book, try running through the scene once without the blocking. Instead, stand facing each other at a comfortable distance. Take a few moments to simply look at each other. Make contact and become present, but don’t start saying your lines yet. First, examine your own inner emotional stance at the beginning of the scene. Is your character open to receiving from the other character, or trying to get something from them, or ready to giving them what they want? If so, face your partner. If not, if your character’s emotional stance at the beginning of the scene is more inner-directed, caught up in their own struggle, or hiding from the other character in some way, then turn around and face away from your partner. The scene might start with you both facing each other, with one of you facing away, or with each of you with your back to the other.

The only two positions allowed to you in the exercise are facing directly towards your partner or directly away, and once you have determined your starting position through your examination of your character’s internal stance, the scene begins. As it progresses you and your partner choose to turn towards each other or away from each other, based only upon your assessment of your internal stance: Are you at that moment, either saying your line or listening to your partner, open and receiving, engaged with them? Face them. Are you instead caught up in your own internal struggle, hiding, searching for words,  or engaged in an internal struggle. Turn away. None of your choices should be tied to any blocking that you may have had for the scene up until this point in your explorations. The exercise is meant only as a technique to help you ascertain your internal emotional stance vis à vis your partner. Once the exercise is completed, you return to the scene as originally blocked, although the exercise itself may lead to the discovery of some needed adjustments. It will also guide you as you explore areas for a more thoroughly imagined internal monologue, which in turn will bring to a deeper, more richly layered performance.
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​Behind the Scenes: The Storyteller’s Eye

6/12/2019

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It is one thing for an editor to tell you to show, rather than tell. It is quite another to figure out how to do it. We work every day with authors, some of whose first foray into the literary world is writing a full-length novel. They have an idea—quite often a wonderful idea—and a toolbox stocked with words and the notion that the work should be set down in paragraphs and broken up into chapters. Sometimes they’ve never taken a writing course. Some have written a novel from beginning to end and sent it to us for critique without ever having read the manuscript all the way through. These authors are often dismayed to discover that their first draft is just that, a first draft, and that much more work is required; sometimes more work than it took to put the first pass down on the page to begin with. Overwhelmed, some simply give up.

I believe this is a mistake. Writing is a craft, difficult and painstaking. It requires talent, of course, but also skill, dedication, and practice, to at least the same degree required of other artists—painters, sculptors, dancers, woodworkers. To think otherwise is folly. But there is hope. There are many excellent books and courses that can help you improve your writing. You can learn how to conjure evocative details, catch yourself when you’re telling, figure out how to show, and ultimately bring your fictive dream to life on the page.

I’d like to share an example of the progress one of my students made recently. The following passage was written by Stephanie McIntyre, who has graciously given permission to share her work with you.
In the first draft of Stephanie’s fantasy adventure novel, a character named Viktor arrives for a meeting at a pub called The Sleeping Dragon.The passage is on page 10 of the novel, and we do not know much about the fantastical story world. As Viktor enters the pub, he is confronted by a bouncer, and we read the following:
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      “You are welcome to drink, but take heed. There will be no violence in this establishment.”
Viktor nodded and walked to the back of the room, where an elf sat impatiently waiting.
      “It’s about time. I got word two days ago.”
 
Although this meeting is crucial to the plot, the reader is unceremoniously thrust into it. We are new to the world, and we have no idea what it looks and feels like. We don’t really know where we are. I wrote in the margin of this early draft, “Do you perhaps want to give us more detail here, and some of the dialogue? His interaction with the barkeep and what he sees as he scans the pub while he waits for his drink are opportunities to tell us a lot about this world and the characters in it.” I also sent her an example of a bar scene. (It happened to be from my own novel, but any one good one would have done the trick.)
I pointed out that pubs are rich ground to till; they can tell us so much about a world or a society. Think about the Star Wars Cantina, Rick’s Café Americain, Cheers, Callahan’s Place, the Gold Room at the Overlook Hotel, the Korova Milk Bar. Restaurants, bars, and pubs are an intersection of all walks of life, and the interactions there can show us so much information, saving the author the labor of telling and reader the tedium of being told.

After our conversations, here is what the author returned:

      “There won’t be any trouble in my pub. Understand me?” the bouncer continued. Viktor ignored the doorman as he scanned the patrons of the bar. The bouncer reached out to touch Viktor’s arm. “I said—”
      “Don’t.” Viktor turned to look the bouncer in the eye. He watched the doorman pause, give him a weary look, and then slowly withdraw his hand. “I won’t be here long.” 
      Viktor walked to the bar. He ran his hand along the edge of he oak countertop. His fingers trailed along the dents and dings from years of abuse. The bartender stopped shining the surface and looked at him, then laid a coaster printed with a dragon in front of him. Viktor watched as the dragon on the coaster turned around in circles, lay down, and fell asleep.
      “Until noon, get two Disgruntled Elves for a copper,” said the bartender. Pointing to the whiskey barrel marked in green gothic letters, he said, “We’re out of Hag. Everything else we’ve got.”
      “I’ll take the Disgruntled Elf,” said Viktor. He tossed a copper in the direction of the bartender, who caught it and tucked it in the pack at his waist. With his two remaining hands he picked up two pint glasses and began to fill them from a wooden tap marked Old Marge— D. ELF. “Slow day?”
      “Usual crowd.” The bartender tilted his head towards a table surrounded by an orc, gremlin, troll, halfling, and lizard. Each had a small pile of coins in front of them and cards in their hand. “They will be out of money or too drunk soon enough.”
      Viktor watched the couple at the table behind the gamblers. He had trouble figuring out where one individual started from the next. The bartender followed his gaze. “They just had the passion punch.” 
The wench walked over to the bar, turned towards the couple, and then leaned against the bar.  She began to count. “Three . . . two . . . one.”
      The couple got up, bumped into several tables, and finally ran out the door the bouncer had already swung open for them. She turned back to the bartender. “You owe me two coppers. Told you they wouldn’t make it ten minutes.”
      The bartender reached in his bag and passed her the coins. “You have to admit she seemed frigid when they walked in. I was sure it would take ten.” 
      The bar wench laughed, then glanced to Viktor, frowned, and headed towards the gamblers. Viktor grabbed the two pints and made his way to the empty table in the back corner. As he passed the bar wench on the way, he told her not to bother servicing his table. He took the chair in the corner and sat with his back against the wall. With a view of the entire pub, he took a drink and waited, sizing up newcomers as they entered. His mug was half gone when the pub door opened and in strolled a tall, slender elf.

The difference between these two passages is astounding. By making the simple change of having Viktor arrive before the elf, we have a character in the bar, forced to interact with others, then to observe as he sits and waits. In that interaction and observation, the world of the novel springs to life. We are not simply being fed the facts of plot. Rather, we are invited into the author’s dream, where we become immersed and are able to lose ourselves as the story unfolds around us.
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BEING SEEN

4/9/2019

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​The Gift of Presence.

I sit, upright and relaxed. A student, Melissa, sits facing me. I ask her if the distance between our chairs, perhaps 3 feet, is okay, or would she prefer they be closer or further apart. She says they’re fine. Her heels are back and up against the legs of the chair, her hands clasped in her lap. I ask her to put her feet flat on the floor and to place her hands palm down on her thighs, relaxed. She does so. I look into her eyes and she returns my gaze. I see that she is squinting in concentration, ever so slightly. I reach up and gently massage the corners of my own eyes. She realizes I am pointing something out to her, and mirrors my movements. When her hands come down, the slight squint is gone, replaced by a furrow between her eyebrows. I rub between my own eyebrows with my first and middle fingers and she smiles, doing the same. We continue on like this for a couple of minutes, chasing the tension around her body. When it is in her jaw, I massage my own. When I see it creep into the back of her shoulders I ask if I can have permission to touch her in a non-intimate way. She gives her assent. I lean forward, gently grasping her upper arms, pushing them up and dropping them. She repeats the motion herself a few times, releasing the stress in her shoulders. Finally we are both still, and after a few moments I see her. I see her. And I can see that she is seeing me. After a brief interval, perhaps thirty seconds, she starts to cry. I nod. She nods back.

“Good job,” I say. She smiles. I turn to the class, and the discussion begins.

One might think that Melissa’s reaction during this exercise is a result of being put on the spot, a side effect of being in a new and perhaps uncomfortable setting or situation. But I had known her for some months. She studied with me in two 4-week on-camera audition workshops, and was in the second month of the ongoing scene study class. She is very talented, has a BFA in acting from a very fine university, and projects an air of confidence. That last was precise reason I asked her to join me in the exercise. So to what do we attribute her reactions, first the tension, and then the tears upon the release? And for what purpose do we even engage in this exercise in class?

We all wear masks. We learn how to put them on as children, and we’re taught to refine them throughout our lives. We put them on and take them off during the course of the day depending upon circumstance and relationship: “This mask will make Mommy happy.” “This mask will keep the bully away from me during recess.” “This mask will make Betsy want to sleep with me.” “This mask will . . . .” Fill in the blank.  Sometimes we wear a mask to get what we want. These are the easiest to put on and take off. At other times, we wear them to get what we need. These are a little stickier, and we are less conscious of them. Some masks we wear to survive. These we often don’t even know we are wearing.

Although the unconscious use of our own masks may help us in our day-to-day interactions, they can only interfere with the creative process of performance. That’s why these personal masks pose a problem for the actor at any stage of the study of craft, but in particular for the newcomer. Indeed this is why the masks that we wear ourselves form the very basis of the character work encouraged by Uta Hagen in her masterful exercise Changes of Self, described in A Challenge for the Actor.  Through this exercise we begin to explore our own masks, so that we can use them in the roles that we play. Through the process of self-exploration we tap into facets of our own being, and create a living, breathing, authentic character.

As actors, then, we need as much as possible to come from a place of self-knowing and self-acceptance.  If we are welded to our own mask, we cannot share honestly with the viewer. This has led me to the use of this exercise as a first step, as a way of aiming for a neutral ground zero as we move into our creative practice. In doing so we create a safe space where we can simply sit and be together, where we look at each other with as little of a mask as we can manage. We allow ourselves to be seen. Doing nothing. Gazing at each other without fear or judgment. For some, a few, it is easy. For most, it is difficult, perhaps even terrifying. For many it is at first a release, and frequently brings tears. After all, how often do we simply gaze into someone’s eyes and allow them to gaze into our own? Many don’t do so even with their closest intimates.

The dramatic arts achieve their most transformative effect when a viewer feels that their secret soul is seen, understood, and accepted. It is through that level of connection that change can occur. Ideas and values can be communicated and expanded. When we get in touch with all of the facets own authentic selves and share them with the audience, they feel understood and know that they are seen. That is the greatest gift we can give them. It can help to heal primal wounds, both in the individual and society. When we as actors can learn to accept our own weakness, fallibility, and shame, and also at the same time to claim our strength, courage, and heroism, we can engender that same acceptance and claim in the viewer. For them, that becomes a step toward recognizing those qualities in others. That in turn opens the door for greater compassion and healing. And what greater aim can there be for the artist?
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Breathing Life

3/10/2019

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​Traversing the distance from page to stage.

The other day I chanced upon a clip of a scene from William Inge’s Picnic that appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show with the original Broadway cast. It got me thinking about how difficult it is for those who have never been part of the process to imagine the incredible distance between the very first reading of an early draft of new play and the full realization of that same play on opening night. That is why I wish that every acting student could sit in on a first reading and then attend the subsequent opening. It would be perhaps the best way to awaken them to the possibilities to which they must open themselves as they explore a text. But this clip might well bean opportunity for the next best thing. Give it a try. Read the scene, and try to imagine how it might be realized. Remember that before this play was ever produced, many of the stage directions in the published script might not have been there. Then watch the clip. The layers that this director and cast have brought to the text are truly astounding.
​Actors new to stagecraft are often unprepared for the close reading of text that is required and surprised at the amount of interpretation and imagination they must bring to the rehearsal process. They approach a play as if it were a novel, with the assumption that the page will contain every detail needed to arrive at a fully realized performance. They look to the surface information on the page, the dialogue and often spare stage directions, and assume that this bare minimum is all that is required of them; that all they have to do is say those words, enter, sit, stand, and exit when they are supposed to. Nothing could be further from the truth.
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The text of a play is a skeleton. It is up to the actor to grow the muscle and tendon over those bones so they can become animate, then to cover the resulting creature with skin and give breath to the new body so that it comes to life. Certainly the playwright supplies all of the information needed for this task. But not the minute, exacting detail. The script may say, “She sets the table.” But how does she set the table? It may say, “He makes the bed?” But how does he make the bed? The text may be silent on these matters. It is up to the actor to discover the minutiae through the rehearsal process, after mining the script for details of the character’s relationships and circumstances. Did she grow up in a slovenly home, with no care for an elegant table? Or did she grow up in a house where her knuckles were rapped if the table wasn’t set just so? Did he grow up in a house where no one cared what his room looked like, or was he in the navy, where his bed had to be shipshape every day? When we ask the right questions of the script, and allow ourselves to play in rehearsal, all of these questions are answered, and the play will spring into unforgettable being.
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IMPULSE SCHMIMPULSE . . . OR MAYBE NOT.

2/12/2019

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​The Paradox of Being In the Moment.

Some years ago in class I watched a young actor make a strong dramatic cross away from his scene partner. It came at a point in the scene when his character was in desperate need of an answer from the object of his desire. During the critique I asked him why he crossed away from her and he told me, “I had an impulse.”

“I don’t care about your impulses,” I said. “They’re worthless. Don’t listen to impulses.”

Later in that same class I watched another young man in another scene. He was standing by his seated partner, and I could tell that he wanted badly to sit next to her on the settee. Indeed, he almost did. But then he didn’t. During the critique I asked him about that moment and he said, “Well, I had an impulse to sit down, but I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do. So I didn’t.”

“You should always follow your impulses!” I exclaimed.

This was followed, and rightly so, by many moments of silence. I looked at the class. They looked at me. Finally . . .

“Okay. Clearly, I am entirely full of crap, and don’t know what I’m talking about, and you should all get your money back. Or perhaps there is something else going on that I have not yet articulated clearly, for myself and for you, and all of this makes sense. Somehow. I’ll think about it and get back to you next week.”

And I did. I pondered: Why, when we are digging for that cache of gold that is character, does the impulse sometimes lead us to the mother lode, and sometimes cause the mine to collapse on top us? Here is what came to me.

The “impulse” is rightly treasured and revered by actors and students of the craft. It’s not planned. It’s honest, spontaneous. It is actually happening. And isn’t that the aim of performance? To be alive and authentic, now? But in our daily lives, our own impulses become shaped, or worse, buried, by social conditioning. Family, religion, school, the workplace — all conspire against us, teach us which impulses are acceptable and which are not. Our range of emotional response becomes limited and stunted. To counter these effects theatrical training often begins with theater games and with improv.

In our early training as actors we play at exercises designed to bring us back to the childlike state where our impulses are free, where we can again access our spontaneity and authenticity. We begin to experience flashes of time where we are truly . . . oh, that state of being that is the Holy Grail of all performers . . . IN THE MOMENT! How great it feels after our emotions have been caged to find a safe space in the acting studio or on stage, to finally give ourselves free range. We shatter the carapace that has been imposed on us and begin to let our impulses reign. This is our first breakthrough. It is also a trap. It’s a trap because it feels so good.

Here’s the problem: The impulse is not an absolute, not a truth unto itself. In response to a stimulus, I might have one honest response, and you might have another. Likewise the characters that we portray. For most part, they are not actors. They don’t play theater games. They are not usually “in the moment,” other than perhaps at a true crisis point in the story. They are not “free.” They have their own conditioning forces and hard shells, their own families and histories that have told them how it is “okay” to behave, and these differ, sometimes a skosh, sometimes radically, from our own. We need to understand the history of the character, the relationships and events that shaped them, to know them from the inside out. Once we do that, we can arrive at an identification with that character, and that will influence and shape our impulses so that they are no longer ours, but theirs.
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How do we go about this? Through homework and technique. By homework, I mean the kind you did in high school English class. Or should have done. A deep dive into the text, into the circumstances, the history, the culture in which your character lives. This will give you an understanding of the character and an intimate knowledge of his life that will be the tinder for your impulses. By technique I mean . . . but that’s another article, or book. There are plenty out there. Stanislavsky, Michael Chekhov, Sanford Meisner, to name a few. I lean towards Uta Hagen. Suffice it for now to say that the study of technique, whichever path we choose, teaches us how to spark the understanding we have gleaned from our homework into the flame of impulse. Technique allows us to take the freedom of expression we have learned in the early stages of our training, add to it our own self-awareness and knowledge of human nature, and channel all of that into the behaviors, habits, and foibles of another unique character, a creation entirely new, and entirely our own.
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To Speak or To Be Heard

1/21/2019

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Why Storytellers Study Craft and Technique.

I teach and mentor people in the two arts at which many think they can be wildly successful with little or no training. A novice does not gaze at a painting by Rembrandt or Picasso, look upon a sculpture by Michelangelo or Rodin, hear a composition by Mozart or John Adams, listen to the voice of Jussi Bjorling or Sarah McLachlan, watch the dance of Misty Copeland or The Paul Taylor Dance Company and say “I can do that.” Perhaps “I could do that,” but not “I can do that.” The craft and technique involved in each are so readily apparent, the gulf between the artistry and one’s own abilities so patently clear, that no one would make such a ridiculous statement. Yet time and again I work with writers on their first works (full-length novels, at that) who want immediately to find a publisher (or self-publish, as is, with only proofreading as a last step). I teach would-be actors who want to get an agent when they have never performed in a school or community theater play or a student film, never been to an audition. They want success, that elusive, wily prey, and they want it now.

I believe this springs from a desire for success as an end in itself, not as the byproduct of a calling. There is a desire to have written a book, but not to write one; to be a movie or television star, but not to learn lines, research a role, rehearse. The difference between these desires, the one for the result, the other for the work, springs from two opposed impulses, one of them directed towards the self, the other directed towards the other. One impulse says, “Look at me! Look at me and I will have value, just because you are looking at me!” The other impulse says “I have something of value, and I want to share it with you.” These two impulses lead aspirants to different approaches to craft. One approach is self-centered. The author asks the reader to notice the big word that was used when a small one would do, the amazing and flowery way that something was said. The actor wants the audience to see him cry, rather than make them cry; to see him express rage or loneliness, rather than awaken them to their own. In these circumstances it is the writer or actor who is seeking understanding and release, giving the audience nothing of value other than, perhaps and at best, momentary entertainment and distraction.

I deal with writing clients who have forgotten, or perhaps never knew, that a fiction writer’s job, in the words of master editor Sol Stein, is “creating an emotional experience for the reader.” They write what they want to write and justify it with “That’s how it happened,” or “That’s how it came to me,” or “I like that word or phrase.” In acting class, I watch students with pent-up anger or hidden sadness express those emotions in every scene, regardless of the requirements of the script. They then tell me that they “had an impulse.” But the impulse itself is not enough. Of course the writer or the actor must tell the stories he wants to tell. But of what use is that story if it is told in a way that the audience does not want to hear? Even if mere self-expression is the goal of the artist, he fails to meet it if he cannot get the audience to give his story enough attention to carry it through to the end.

I am not saying that it is not important for us as artists to express ourselves. Of course it is. What can we bring to our art other than our own experience, our own point of view, our own desire? Yes, we have important things to convey, and if we are honest in our self-examination and our examination of the world around us, we can heal ourselves and others by communicating our own ideas and truths. But there is a synergy here. Effective art is not merely self-expression, it is communication. We cannot heal if we are not heard. We will be only a tree falling in a lonely forest, or a toddler screaming, “Look at me! Look at my scrawl.” We will not be heard, we will not be effective, if we do not express ourselves in ways that can be not only heard but also taken in and understood by the listener. And so there is another way of working, focused on the experience of the audience, on the effect that is being had on the perceiver. When we work in this way we can create catharsis, the gift that the artist should give to the audience.

It is at this point that the teacher of craft steps in. The role of the teacher of craft is to guide you towards the techniques and modes of expression that connect you to your audience, to bring the benefit of experience in what works and doesn’t work to your first wobbling steps. Your inward journey towards your truth, that is your own. But as you discover what you have to share, the teacher can give you the language and technique that will turn your individual experience into a universal story, finding the threads of commonality that will transmit a deeper meaning.
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To be clear, I firmly believe that with determination and a relentless will to pursue the craft, a commitment to examine both the outer world and one’s own inner landscape with a ruthless honesty and a chilling eye for detail, anyone can mine talent from within their own depths, no matter how deeply it may be buried. I would never tell someone to give up on their dream. But the work involved . . . oh, the work. If you shy away from it you may produce something that will curry favor with the current gods of style and commerce, but in the end that brand of success will be short-lived and leave you feeling empty. If on the other hand you learn to love the process, you will find a success more lasting than commercial in the discoveries you will make, day-by-day, painful and joyous, large and small, and you will learn to craft stories that speak to the hearts of others.
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