Notes on Acting

Let’s say it’s well into rehearsal (months, not weeks) or perhaps even along into performance now with spectators present, meaning that I have actively explored and assessed all the facts and circumstances of the play fully and am acutely aware of relationships, intentions, actions, etc. Long ago I asked myself, what would I do if I were in that situation and/or what would make me do (behave) as the character seems to be behaving in this situation. Now I am supposed to be “acting.” So the question is what is it that I actually do during this time? What do I think, what commands do I give my body, etc? How do I create this behavior that is supposed to happen as “the play?” My answers here are based on my actual work. This is the stuff I do for better or for worse. I keep tabs on it. I notice it. I compare it. So to write about it is simple in some ways. But let me start with some things I don’t do. I don’t think much about the circumstances or the situation of the play in a pretending sort of way while I am on stage. I might say I never do that - but never say never you know. I don’t remember doing it recently. I don’t try to pretend or imagine that this person is my brother or I am in the forest or it’s time sing, or whatever the particular circumstance of the play is asking for. My mind is doing many things but it’s not pretending at all. Mostly I think of personal situations or issues or experiences that have happened to me during my life. Occasionally I give those thoughts a small imaginative twist - such as might happen in a dream, like putting two things in one place that in actuality never would be together. But these things are real to me never-the-less. Sometimes my mind is giving commands to my body, such as relax, or breathe deep and slowly, or move with this quality of energy, etc. Those type commands are things that have been noticed and needed over the process of rehearsal and have been integrated by me at particular times to create specific effects. Other times my mind is being aware of or creating the awareness for me that I am on stage, present in front of the audience. I make this fact a conscious part of my work, but I do it as sense of “sharing” or “giving.” If I have a main point to this post, it is simply that I do not make myself aware of or consciously work with the circumstances of the play while I am actually onstage acting. That integration has already happened - but what is needed to inspire that integration of imaginative fictional circumstance to real and actual behavior and life, is the very real part of me that thinks and feels and knows and understands. And that happens via the memories of my own life which I literally carry out on stage with thoughts, sensations, and sometimes physical actions. That’s how I act!