The Craft of Acting
I was first on stage when I was
in fifth grade. I played a “very lively orphan” named Harriet in our elementary
school operetta
Sunny of Sunnyside in
Clark, South Dakota. If I remember correctly, I had one line. Possibly two. I
do remember I wore a blue jumper, and underneath a polyester white and blue
shirt with a collar. I guess that was my first costume. I would later – at age
40 – come on stage in a purple cat suit with gold buckles and transparent
sleeves, a curly red wig, and chunky gold high-heeled sandals to play a Texan
ex-Yam Queen.
I sang and played instruments
(piano, clarinet, bells in marching band) all through school and was in more
plays, musicals and singing groups than I can list here without boring you to
the point of drizzling drool. Which about sums up the level of my acting
ability at that time.
After one show in college, I
didn’t get onstage again until I was living in Salem, Oregon and newly married.
As an adult, I have studied with two wonderful teachers (three if you count private
coaching for a monologue), most recently completing Nancy McDonald’s (
www.jugglingfeathers.com) wonderful Professional
Actor’s Class at Lakewood Theatre in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
I honestly don’t remember what
drove me to Jo Dodge’s acting class at the Pentacle Theatre; I think we
received Chemeketa Community College’s class schedule in the mail, I read
through it, and thought an acting class looked interesting. And it was
affordable.
I felt completely at home in that
first class, much like I did in my first voice class with Linda Brice (but
that’s another story for another time.) Ultimately, I took something like 12
terms of acting classes from Jo…mainly because it was like cheap therapy and I
enjoyed it so much, difficult and challenging though it was…and somewhere along
the way I learned how to act.
Let me make a distinct
distinction. By “how to act” I don’t mean “this is how you should act!” a term
many of us heard way too often growing up. I mean I learned how to become
emotionally open and vulnerable in front of a whole bunch of people I don’t
know.
Even if you have no desire to act
or be on stage, I’ll bet you have certain movies, plays or performances you
enjoy watching, possibly over and over again. I certainly do. Those favorites
touch you emotionally…through laughter, tears, a facepalm moment of OMG—we all
do this stupid shit, feeling at one with the music, completely identifying with
a character or scenario, feeling like someone punched you in the gut because
it’s so real…because the people who were “performing” felt emotions you
identify with. I believe I can say unequivocally if the actor doesn’t feel
something, the audience won’t either.
If you think this is easy (as in,
I could make 10 or 20 million dollars a movie, too – if I looked like Charlize
Theron or James Franco)…think again! Try it! Go to an acting class or workshop,
find a script at the library, and be presented with the task of slipping into
another character and feeling what that person feels with all their history,
their relationships, their hopes, fears and dreams.
Consider, for example, becoming a
plumber who made a good living until his wife of 45 years died of cancer and he
was left with an empty bed and a mountain of bills. What about a pianist who
lived with fear of rejection and desire for perfection all her life until she
had a wrist injury which kept her away from her instrument? Perhaps an 11 year
old heterosexual boy who watched his older sister coming out as a lesbian, and
how his parents reacted? The crazy aunt whose mission in life seemed to be to
make everybody around her laugh?
I find the process humbling,
creative, expansive, healing and uplifting. And…the skills can be translated to
“real life.”
First of all, many of us worry
too much about things that will never even happen or plan for things we really
can’t control. We’d be better off getting into our hearts and bodies—experiencing
what we’re feeling before responding, than spending so much time in our heads trying
to figure out what to do, how to react, or mentally creating worrisome
scenarios that don’t exist.
Here are the five “ingredients” –
the primary tools in an actor’s toolkit – as taught to me by Jo Dodge.
-Who am I?
-Where am I?
-What do I want (and why do I
want it?)
-What is the relationship?
-The conflict?
The WHO is pretty obvious. You’re
that plumber, the pianist, the boy, the crazy aunt, with all of the rich
history of that character.
*The more you can identify with
the inner workings and motivations of a character, the better actor you will
be. The more you can do the same in interacting with another person in your
life – ie, walk a mile in their moccasins – the more effective you will be in
communication.
The WHERE is important because
you are going to behave much differently in a crowded restaurant than you are
in your bedroom by yourself, on a plane going down with an engine on fire than
on the swing on your sister’s front porch.
*If you always behave exactly the
same way whether in a restaurant, your bedroom, a crashing plane, or your
sister’s porch…well…there is reason for concern. J
What do I WANT (and why do I want
it?) can be more challenging. This is the motivating force that drives what you
say and do, in character, on stage. Jo always said you need a strong want; if
it’s not strong enough, find another right away.
And it can’t be a “don’t want.” (I don’t want
to go to work today. I don’t want you to get your driver’s license yet.) And
for purposes of improv, on stage, it should be what do you want in the next
five minutes, not a month or a year from now.
*If you don’t want to go to work
today, what do you want to do today? Seriously? In an ideal version of the
highest and grandest vision of yourself, how would you spend today? And the
next day, and the next? And why?
RELATIONSHIP. A man
walks onstage. He picks up an envelope on the table, opens it, and pulls out a
piece of paper with a lot of numbers in a column and a total below a bold line.
Also on the table is a framed photograph of a lovely, smiling woman who appears
to be in her late 60’s. The man sits down at the table and puts down the paper,
upside down, with shaking hands. He picks up the framed photo, looks at it, and
begins to cry.
We have a relationship here with
noone else on stage but the man, and not a word spoken. You can see this is the
plumber mentioned above.
*It is easy for any of us to get
so caught up in what we want that we forget what is important to the other
person in the relationship, be it our partner, parent, child, sibling,
co-worker or client.
CONFLICT.
There is no interesting book,
play or movie without conflict. Being born means we will experience conflict,
which probably started—if not in the womb—when our parents had differing ideas
on how to approach our crying in the middle of the might when our diapers were
wet. Fred wants to go to the 3D horror movie at the new cinemaplex while his
girlfriend Paula wants to stay home, make beer cheese soup and watch GHOST on
DVD. Again. Your aunt wants to plant marigolds; your uncle is all for ghost
peppers. You want to take a weekend for gallery hopping; your partner wants to
plan a trip for nearby B & B’s that boast haunting (while I’m on the ghost
kick.)
*Yep, it’s inevitable. Conflict.
How do you deal with it? Do you listen and feel before responding (rather than
reacting?) Do you know what you want? Do you know what the other party wants?
It sure helps if you both do, and you can communicate clearly without belittling
or badgering each other.
Cheers to knowing who you are,
where you are, what you want, how to develop the relationship despite conflict,
and the same of the people with whom you choose to interact! And please enjoy
the next movie or play you go to – applaud the actors madly and passionately.
Authentically Yours,
Laura
