The Subject Came Up Last Night

Sometimes when I am working with actors I will set up improvisations, little etudes for them to do. Its a common thing of course. If I set up some basic circumstances for everyone just right, and if I then give the actors some individual guidelines or additional circumstances, the result of what is seen and heard on stage is good, interesting and often surprising, and more often than not entertaining. The actors are usually excited afterwards, invigorated by the work they have just done. "David" the new actor working with me exclaims, "you are such a good instructor! Genius! I am learning so much! I was so involved in what was happening and oh the things I was feeling and thinking on stage when everything was happening the way it did! It was great!" "Oh really?" I say, "I'm a genius? And your learning so much?" "Yes," They say. (My friends from Actor's Gymnasium know what is coming next). "In that case," I say, "do it again." "Do it again?" they ask. "Yes, it was great. You are right. So lets see it again. Do just as you did before." Afterall, one of the characteristics, one of the peculiarities of acting on the stage is that it has to be repeated, rehearsal by rehearsal and then performance by performance. So the actors take to the stage again to repeat the improvisation. Inevitably what happens next is not anywhere near as exciting and alive as that first time they did it. It falls flat. Gone is the literal thinking and problem solving and attention and awareness that they had going the first time. In its place is anticipation and waiting. Gone is the spontaneity of behavior from the first time, replaced by a kind of cliche copy of what happened before. Gone too is my genius, apparently, and everything they thought they had learned. Repitition kills.

Or does it? More likely it reveals. More than likely what the actor was feeling the first time was a generalized excitement, that thrill of something new happening, and not the flesh and bone sensation of genuine experience based on the set-up, the circumstances and situation as given. The second time around more than likely revealed the actors inability to really make the fictional circumstances meaningful to themselves - meaningful as in making themselves respond and do things behaviorally because of them.

Now student-teacher and teacher-student are at a crossroads. The teacher (me in this example) should be able, as the observer, to identify and articulate specifically how and why this phenomenon of change happened between the first and second times and then be able to give specific and practical suggestions to the actor(s) as to how to proceed in learning how to make those fictional (made-up, pretend) circumstances meaningful to themselves. That is, if the actor has not already sensed it all on their own. In either case, both are hopefully willingly and wanting to succeed in the next steps. There is a profound difference between an actor who has really learned to work actively with his/her living mind-body in relationship to the fictional world of a play, and the actor who hasn't.

In a workshop or classroom setting, we wouldn't expect actors to be exceptional in the results each new time they are taking something on, but we would expect to see, or begin to see, a technique, a craft and purpose developing that takes into consideration the peculiarities and factors of acting for the stage - i.e. the fact thats its based on fiction and the fact that the behavior has to be repeated. Proposing anything short of a concious attempt at that would be making playground activity in the name of acting. And the two do not equate.