Life in Acting - Acting in Life

If someone asked you to break down acting to the simplest process possible, what would you say? I know Anthony Hopkins would pretty much say "just do it" (Nike style). An esteemed friend of mine would add something like: " yeah and work for about 30 years in the theatre, learn from the masters and then we'll talk" Some would recommend Acting School with a good teacher and others would say acting can't be taught.

What ever your view: let me try this simple four step process on you and see how you like it.

OK something like this: It comes in four stages, I'll call them: Sense. Choice. Other. Fight.

Let me explain:
Sense: this means "get a sense of it". Whatever it is and however many times you do it, you get a sense of the piece, the character, the situation. You don't need to spend hours and hours thinking and discussing about all the permutations and combinations - although I know that some discussion is often helpful. What I mean by get a sense is 'trust your sense' and 'trust your senses' - you're human. You're a sensitive, connected to the world person. When you read a piece for the first time you have a sense of it. When you rehearse a piece 20 times, each time you get a sense of it. And the 'sense' evolves and refines, if you let it. It's a kind of let it go - let it come, process. Getting a sense also means that your mind is open. You never fix on anything so that it can't evolve. Getting a sense also implies that you're using your limbic system and not just your neocortex; which indicates that you're open to your intuition and impulse as well as being able to rationalise. Getting a sense of something is also a way of keeping it available, just there in your attention without forcing answers and outcomes. It’s a flow state, it’s a touch not a grab. Staying in a state of "sensing" will mean that you are continually exploring material and possibilities which will naturally deliver a fair share of discoveries. All the more to get a sense of as you go along.

Next is Choice: Choice is a thing you make. You choose this or that. You choose to start behind the door - in front of the door, whatever. Choice is a starting point. Choice can be a chosen tactic or action - whatever your school. It can be a sense memory to get you in 'being state' of emotion. Choice can be action based. Emotion based. Choice can be psychological, methodological, practical, emotional, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that you make them and then you let them go. The thing to remember about a choice in Acting is that it does one thing and one thing only. It sets your direction. Think of it as a spring board as if you were a diver. You run along and bounce and up you go. You do your stuff in the air. As a diver if you were to hang on to the springboard things would get pretty messy. Same deal as an actor - if you hang on to your choice/s you get slapped. You get stuck. You certainly don't get to do any wonderful stuff in the air, which is of course where you want to be.

OK, next thing: Other. Other is any thing and any one outside of you. Most often it’s the other actor/s, and it can be a set of images and/or it can be the set, the view, the environment, the memory, the sound, the dagger you see before you. The other is what you're connected to, the other is your target. The other is what you want to get away from, or understand, or possess, or capture, or impress. It is the thing you have to let in. The thing or things you have to be involved in. The other gets you out and away from yourself, if you're with the other in terms of attention and focus, and in terms of involvement then you have no time to be self conscious or result conscious or controlling or worried about your performance. You are with 'the other'. And as it happens it makes you the best story teller because you're engaging and watchable.

Now the last of the four: Fight. What ever it is that you have a sense of, and whatever choice/s you make and whatever the other/s is/are that you're involved with - you have to make the next bit personal. By this I mean you have to 'feel' it to want it. You have to want it to need it, you have to need it to fight for it. Now I don't mean this completely literally. Because you can always fake it to feel it. Or if it’s something that really bites in the sensing, choosing and involving that you're doing you won't have to fake anything. Fighting for something refers to "personalising the need" (see: personalising the need).
It also takes care of what is often referred to as action and tactics - getting what you want. The point is of the character your playing doesn't want anything then they are either dead or shouldn't be in the play. If you're not fighting for something as the actor then you are probably not making very strong choices. Fighting is doing, is getting, is pursuing, is tactics, is struggling, is patience with attention, is action with consequence. Is all this and more

Applying these elements can happen each time we read a piece, rehearse a part, audition for a role or perform for an audience. In fact if these elements are not being applied either consciously or instinctively I'd be very surprised.

The final thing to say about these four elements is that they are just 'my way' of answering the question. What's yours?

Gifford asked the question in response to my last entry: "So how do you relate this to creating an "inner Space" for yourself and your character and then extending it to a "world space" for the audience? It appears counter-productive."

It may appear counter-productive but it is not. It should be taken in the context of an organic and holistic approach. It is a beautiful question to ask. I feel it is the essential question in any true organic process. The short answer is probably - time. But it is more than that of course. Time, attention, a balance of direct and indirect action and possibly most importantly intuition. In essence the quality that Gifford is referring to is Presence. Being present with yourself, your attention and your process is the quality that facilitates the awareness, development and appreciation for this space.

More than that it is the understanding that relationships cannot exist without space. The space between things is as important as things themselves as it is the space between them that enables them. Objects, thoughts, images, people, planets, molecules are all non identifiable without the space that surrounds them. Space is a connecting tissue. It can be quiet and still or vast or brief or rushing through. And it is always connecting to an infinite. In our world, space is infinite and in itself a metaphor for eternalness as much as eternalness is a metaphor for space.

Creating and maintaining an inner space is a means of attending to the process at hand (in this case developing a character) and allowing this process to deepen, refine and attune us to the matter at hand. It is essentially a matter of allowing rather than making. Creating the inner space opens us to a collective unconscious space where we implicitly connect to that which is, and that which is more than we are. This is reflected in us as much as we are reflected in it.

From the inner space as it connects to the world space we witness and enjoy the creative process of that which was not made manifest become that which is. Hence the process of creativity. Hence the enjoyment of the creative space.