True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor (10 page)

Cultivate the habit of mutuality. Create with your peers, and you are building a true theatre. When you desire and strive to rise
from
the ranks rather than
with
the ranks, you are creating divisiveness and loneliness in yourself, in the theatre, and in the world. All things come in their time.

Cultivate the habit of truth in yourself.

In choosing the stage, you offer yourself constantly to the opinion of others. Mediocre minds must, of necessity, have mediocre ideas of what constitutes greatness. Consider the source.

Be your own best friend and the ally of your peers, and you may, in fact,
become
that person, that friend, that
preceptor, that benefactor you have always wished to encounter.

That is not a
character
onstage. It is
you
onstage. Everything you are. Nothing can be hidden. Finally, nothing can be hidden in
any
aspect of your life. When we say Lincoln had character, we do not mean the way he held a cigarette. When you say your grandmother had character, we do not mean the way she used a hanky. If you have character, your work will have character. It will have
your
character. The character to do your exercises every day over the years creates the strength of character to form your own theatre rather than go to Hollywood; to act the truth of the moment when the audience would rather not hear it; to stand up for the play, the theatre, the life you would like to lead. There is nothing more pragmatic than idealism.

D
isneyland is a rather restrictive work environment. The behavior of its employees is strictly prescribed and monitored. Individuality and improvisation are not, in the main, encouraged. But there is a counterexample.

I visited Disneyland in 1955, and again in 1995, and on both visits witnessed this deviation: the men who “ran” the boats on the Jungle ride delivered a patter, which, while mild in the extreme, contained a touch of welcome institutional self-mockery. Further, the boat drivers were the wee-est bit free to improvise—to depart from the prepared script in a vein mildly mocking of the institution. It was there at the park’s opening in 1995, and use and forty years’ custom had ingrained it—a
droit de fou
, or fool’s license, to mock the dictatorial stolidity of the Establishment.

Similarly, the concierge at many London hotels enjoys a position to some degree licensed to banter, to gossip,
perhaps to camp—in short, to familiarize with the patrons, and so mitigate an unpleasant aspect of all that institutional propriety. And there are other examples of a position part of the duties of which are to mock, or at least mitigate, the dignity of the institution: the high school shop teacher and the television weather man are two. The hospital nurse, her visit coming on the heels of that of the hospital doctor, is another. And it’s noteworthy, I think, that the
quality
of their performance in these socially designated roles, is unimportant. It is the existence of the roles which delights us—that and the willingness of the actors to fulfill them. We do not require brilliance in the performance, merely willingness.

Similarly, there is a spontaneously occurring position in the acting profession. It is that of the Great Actor. This is, in effect, an honorary position, awarded from a cultural need for the place to be filled, and not according to the merit of the individual. Indeed there is little or no merit required from the person so designated, save the willingness (whether in awe or vanity) to go along with the gag.

Truly great performances cause us to question, to pause, to ponder, to reexamine. They do not conduce to the immediate ejaculation “bravo”; and so the Great Actor is, of necessity, seldom a very good actor. We praise his or her performances as we would praise our own possessions if we could do so with impunity. That is the gift of the Great Actor, and the reason he is so well rewarded—he allows us to act vainly and call it
gracious appreciation. It is an example of our cultural insecurity. The praise means “Yes, and by God, he’s
mine. I’ve
got one, too.”

We delight to slather appreciation on this placeholder for the minor inconvenience it causes us. It allows us to feel we have paid for the right to consider ourselves aesthetic. Our praises are as the sneezes of the fellow with a summer cold who enjoys informing us that it was caused by the air conditioner in his new car. We praise the Great Actor for all the world as if we were lauding the fiscal brilliance of the treasurer of the United States. And, like that honorary post, that of the Great Actor seems perpetually filled—one dies and another appears as if by parthenogenesis. We must require him. And we do. His presence reassures us that we need not be moved by art.

Victorian physicians cautioned women to avoid at all cost that phenomenon they called “spasmodic transports” (orgasm), as nothing could be worse for the health. In our rote adulation of the Great Actor we instruct and remind ourselves to shun the spontaneous, the antisocial, the innovative, the organic. It is an inversion of the
droit de fou
.

Well, propriety is fine in its place. But its place is not in the theatre. The theatre belongs not to the great but to the brash. And it is our job as theatre people to point out—both in comedy and in tragedy—the folly of the whole thing. We are not there to celebrate the status quo, or our capacity to celebrate—that is the job of the
cocktail party, the banquet, and the political convention. Our job is and should be that of professional detractor.

The profession of the Great Actor, on the other hand, is that of Dig-No-Ty. The Great Actor is the human equivalent of the Cow Pageant at some worthy livestock fair—his job is to attempt to add the imprimatur of artistic immediacy to the essentially self-serving. The position might seem to be a bargain, but nobody ever enjoyed that pageant; they only pretended to because of its cost.

T
he preoccupation of today’s actor with character is simply a modern rendition of an age-old preoccupation with
performance
, which is to say, with oneself. It is, in every age, the old lookout of the ham actor.

To ask constantly of oneself “How’m I doing?” is no more laudable or productive than to ask it of the audience. When we do so, we pander to a supposed magical, mythical “perfection” and, in so doing, abdicate our responsibility to tell the story simply. Such is not acting. It is, again, self-advertisement and posturing, and is best left to those who think that an imaginary future good justifies lying.

Whether or not lying in general is a justifiable offense is a question for moral philosophers. Onstage it is
never
justified. Better to miss a laugh, an “emotional oasis,” a moment, a beat, than to add an iota to the “performance” in order to make sure the audience “understands.”
They came to see a play, not your reasoned “emotional” schematic of what your idea of a character might feel like in circumstances outlined by the play.

Finally, a concern with the “arc of the play” or the “unity of the character” is only a concern with performance. It is the desire to act perfectly, and so escape censure. But such escape is not to be found onstage. You are as apt to be censured for brilliance as for incompetence. And the notion that more emotional and sensory preparation is going to win over those in authority is as bootless as the idea that if you get better grades Daddy will stop drinking.

If you decide to be an actor, stick to your decision. The folks you meet in supposed positions of authority—critics, teachers, casting directors—will, in the main, be your intellectual and moral inferiors. They will lack your imagination, which is why they became bureaucrats rather than artists; and they will lack your fortitude, having elected institutional support over a life of self-reliance. They spend their lives learning lessons very different from the ones you learn, and many or most of them will envy you and this envy will express itself as contempt. It’s a cheap trick of unhappy people, and if you understand it for what it is, you need not adopt or be overly saddened by their view of you. It is the view of the folks on the verandah talking about the lazy slaves.

There is nothing contemptible in the effort to learn and to practice the art of the actor—irrespective of the
success of such efforts—and anyone who suggests there is, who tries to control through scorn, contempt, condescension, and supposed (though undemonstrated) superior knowledge is a shameful exploiter.

A preoccupation with emotion memory, sense memory, the character, is only an attempt to placate this generic person, to identify with her, accept her prejudices as one’s own.

The academic-bureaucratic model of the theatre—that put forward by the school and by the critics—presents itself as intellectual, but it has nothing to do with intelligence or culture; it is antiart; and in rejecting the innovative, the personal, the simple, and the unresearched, it rejects all but mob-acceptable pablum.

It has been written that it is easy to get the mob to agree with you—all you have to do is agree with the mob. An apprenticeship spent looking inward for supposed “emotion,” while perhaps spent with honest motives, trains one only to be a gull. An actor should never be looking inward. He or she must keep the eyes open to see what the other actor is doing moment to moment, and to call it by its name and act accordingly. If one cannot do that onstage, it is unlikely one will be able to do it in the school, casting office, and so on.

To face the world is brave. To turn outward rather than inward and face the world which you would have to face in any case—such may not always win the day, but it will always allow you to live the day as an adult.
A word about teachers. Most of them are charlatans. Few of the exercises I have seen, in what were advertised as acting schools, teach anything other than gullibility. Don’t leave your common sense at the door of an acting school. If you don’t understand the teacher, make the teacher explain. If they are incapable of either explaining or demonstrating to your satisfaction the worth of their insights, they do not know what they’re doing.

You can’t live your life believing every ten-penny self-proclaimed teacher, critic, agent, etc., and then walk out onstage and be that model of probity and wisdom and strength you admire and wish to be. If you want that strength, you’re going to have to work for it, and your first and most important tool is common sense.

A
ll of us have had the experience of watching television and hearing the announcer say: “The assailant, twice convicted of aggravated assault, was serving a life sentence for manslaughter at the time of his escape. When the police engaged him in the gun battle, he turned his weapon on his hostages and opened fire.” And as the announcer speaks, we see on the screen a photo of an intense, bearded man, and we say to ourselves, “Well of
course
that man is a criminal. How could anyone fail to notice it! Every line in his face proclaims him a depraved villain.”

And, as we so muse, the announcer continues: “The photo you see depicts the heroic clergyman who dashed from the crowd, subdued the gunman, and saved the lives of all the hostages.” And then: “Oh,” you say to yourself. “Oh. I see it now. Of course. Look at that determination.
Look at that simple, steady resolve—obviously the face of a hero. Anyone could see it.”

You’ve done it, I’ve done it, we’ve all done it. It is not that we are stupid but that we are suggestible. Let’s learn the lesson: it is not the actor’s job to portray.

The audience will accept anything they are not given a reason to disbelieve. Here is what I mean: a young woman across the room at a party is pointed out to us as being worth $500 million. We now begin to look at her a little differently. “Oh,” we think, “
this
is how the Rich act. This is how they drink their tea or light their cigarettes. Aha. How
odd
. In many ways, just like you and me.…”

Just like the villain/clergyman in the news report, the young woman has done
nothing
. A characteristic was ascribed to her, and we accepted it. Why should we not?

We will continue to accept it until we are given a reason to disbelieve. What would be such a reason? If she, for example, produced a vast roll of bills and began distributing them.

But yet
, such pointless clownishness is exactly that in which we indulge when we add “characterizations” to our performance.

The work of characterization has or has not been done by the author. It’s not your job, and it’s not your look-out.

You don’t have to portray the hero or the villain. That’s been done for you by the script.

H
ere’s a phrase which appears in several languages, the French say
L’esprit de l’escalier
, in Yiddish it’s
Trepverter
, both of which mean “What I
should
have said.” We leave the room, and only then does the beautiful, effective, moving speech occur to us. And the speech
always
has an object: to bring the tyrant-employer low; to correct the vicious stepparent; to instruct the deficient; to eulogize the personal hero.

We act out these dramas not only in regard to actual personal events but also in regard to fantastical ones—that is, to those events we can participate in only through fantasy: we make the summation in the O. J. Simpson trial; we convince FDR to bomb the railroad tracks leading to Auschwitz; we defend Dreyfus or the Scottsboro boys, we personally congratulate Charles Lindbergh, or Neil Armstrong, or Nelson Mandela.

We perform these personal dramas for our audience of one all day long. They take no preparation; they need only description—you see the difference? As soon as we have named these dramas, we can play them. These lovely dreams do not require “preparation”—we do not “believe” we are meeting Mandela; we only act “as if” we were. It’s like playing lacrosse. In order to play lacrosse you have to know the rules. The purpose of the rules is to make the game more enjoyable—you don’t have to prepare or put yourself into a lacrosse state of mind.