Thursday, September 12, 2013
Actors Listen
It was brought to my attention many years ago that listening on stage is very elusive and that actual, real listening where you hear and think and realize is extremely rare. And yet in many cases, it makes all the difference in the world in terms of quality of the scene and the acting. Of course actors know what's coming in terms of the lines and so they are anticipating what will be said. Additionally, they are busy going about their own behaviors, preoccupied with their "acting" so to speak. So typically they are not really hearing what is being said, or what is being communicated. The only cure I've found is a very conscious effort to become interested in what is being said and done, in detail. The actor who can listen with his/her mind and then with the entire being and body, that is an actor.
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I think it also helps to think in terms of attention. Yes, my attention is on myself and what I might be feeling, thinking, doing, etc but...what are you doing over there? Oh, you're smiling tonight. You didn't do that last night. That brings up a new response to me, etc. It seems that what happens to you as an actor doesn't depend on you but on what the other person is doing to you.
ReplyDeleteThe listening and the awareness is part of you. It's your senses and your sense of theatrical truth in action, along with your willingness to allow something to affect you, in this case the action of your fellow actor. But you are absolutely correct in that when someone actually begins to listen, they are suddenly "doing" something - i.e. engaging their senses in the fiction of the play, and so as usually follows, their entire body and mind begins to take interest, their attention increases, and the fiction of the play is suddenly alive for them.
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