Energy

I was thinking about something else yesterday before class that I want to write down so I don't forget it. I feel, though, that it is important to note that I was thinking about this before class because if any of my classmates are reading this, I don't want you to think that something you did inspired this post. This post is not at all a commentary on last night's class, just sort of a general reminder to myself.

And I am, admittedly, a little nervous to post this here because I know I sound really pretentious, but I'm trying to keep track of my learning process as a performer and this, for me, is a big one. Please know I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all. These are just my thoughts at the moment.

There seems to be this trend in Hollywood right now where blase is cool. The slacker is cool. The disconnected, apathetic character is cool. I don't mean to name names, but Ellen Page strikes me as one of these sorts of actors. Maybe this is why I don't really want to see "Juno" - in the previews I saw for it, it looked like she just really didn't care. I think this is also my issue with Matt Smith as the Doctor - he spends lots of time running around being weird, but I don't really see things affecting him as strongly as they have affected other Doctors. You can stand there and look at Daleks, or you can STAND AND LOOK AT DALEKS. He chooses the former. I would prefer to watch the latter.

For those of you who watch "America's Next Top Model," I'm talking about what Ms. Tyra Banks refers to as "being fierce."

Now, I'm not saying that every character out there has to be some cracked out whackadoo hopped up on speed in order to be interesting. But I think there is a difference between the actor being apathetic and blase and the character being apathetic and blase. If the actor is blase, I don't want to watch that. If the character is blase, but the actor is fully invested in being blase, that can be interesting.

I know I'm not making a lot of sense, so I'll try a couple of stories.

These two swing dance teachers came to Chicago many years ago and held workshops and many many dancers all around the world consider these two to be just about the best there are. After all, he's one of the people who sort of resurrected lindy in the 1980's or 1990's. And she is...well, she's adorable. There are no two ways about it. Anyway, in their workshops, they were stressing the fact that a dance is a conversation and that the follow has just as much right to speak as the lead and that the lead needs to know how to listen, too. Which is a lovely concept for people who have been dancing for a while and are comfortable with the basics and are looking to push their dancing to the next level. It becomes confusing, though, when you're still counting out the beats in your head and trying to remember if you start with your left foot or your right and suddenly, you are being told that when he's leading you through a six-count turn, it's okay to tell him to stop and wait while you make it an eight-count turn so you can be wiggly for two counts and show off. Suddenly, you're just focused on showing off. You forget that you're supposed to be connected to your partner and inspired by the music; you just want to get in that little two-count wiggle so you can say you know how to dance like the super adorable internationally beloved teacher with the cute accent. And your partner, your poor lead, who is still struggling with the concept of leading from his center instead of jerking your arm out of the socket is focusing so hard on trying to keep the beat that he jerks you through your little two-count wiggle and then remembers he was supposed to just let you do that, so he stops dancing completely because he's lost and frustrated and needs to find the one again, so you wiggle some more to fill the empty beats and he thinks he's just supposed to let you, so he does and you find yourself wiggling for thirty-two counts before you've run out of appropriate wiggle and you both look at each other with an awkward grin that says, "There's a downbeat coming up soon. How about we hit that?" and then you get back into the dance, completely self-conscious and afraid to try that again. At which point, inevitably, the teacher walks by in the workshop and encourages you to wiggle and you're back where you started.

All of this could have been fixed if the dancers knew what they were doing in the first place, and then tried to expand on that knowledge.

I think the same applies to theater.

In one of the first classes I took at the theater where I am now taking classes, we would have to come up with some activity that was difficult to do (but not impossible) and of the utmost importance. One woman decided her activity would be writing a suicide note. Which could be a great exercise, or it could blow up in your face, as the teacher pointed out. If you choose to be a character who really wants to die, then there is nothing to prevent you from just offing yourself at the top of the scene and bam! You're done. Scene over. If, however, you happen to want something from the other person in the scene, no matter how minor that thing may seem, but you really really want it, then you have a scene. If you want to die, but you need to have one last cheese sammich first and your scene partner makes the best cheese sammiches in the world. Or you don't really want to die and the whole thing is really just a cry for attention - the attention of the person in the scene with you. You can still be the super depressed character who sees no other way out of this situation, but there is something more to that character. There is something that makes us, as the audience, want to watch. We want to know if he'll make you the cheese sammich, knowing that as soon as you eat it, you'll die. Or we want to know if she'll confess her undying love for you, thus preventing you from kicking the chair away. That one little glimmer keeps you alive on stage as an actor. As opposed to the actor who just doesn't care about anything. What is the point in that scene?

But I think the problem starts in our very first acting classes. We are told to relax and get comfortable on the stage. This often leads to slouched posture and aimless meandering around the environment. When you think of relaxing, that's what you think of, yes? Sitting comfortably on the couch, maybe kicking off your shoes, getting to a place where you could easily fall asleep. What I think the teachers mean (I could be wrong, this is just a theory) is that we should not be nervous or self-conscious about being on stage, not that we should lull ourselves to sleep. It is possible to be comfortable and still alert. It is possible to be comfortable and still engaged. I think the direction to "relax" is a suggestion that we not judge ourselves, that we just let the moment-to-moment of the scene happen. I don't think it is a direction to check out. But I see that happening all of the time. People on stage just being, for lack of a better word, floopy. In an empassioned scene, they stand with one hip cocked lazily out, doing the head bobble, and when they can't take the emotion of the scene anymore, they turn slowly and take a couple of steps, dragging their feet a few inches to the left of where they had been previously. The passion is indicated by the loudness of their voice, not by their actions or behaviors. Is that how you fight with a loved one? Is that how you seduce a potential lover?

(The teacher called me out for hiding my face when the emotions got too intense in a scene I was working on. I know I do it, too. I know I go for the comfortable instead of the risky, so I'm not trying to point fingers here while I paint myself as perfect. I have found myself bending at the waist to scream at someone instead of walking toward that person, which is one of my biggest actor pet peeves and I yell at myself in my head for it afterward. This is a reminder to me as much as to anyone else that energy is a good thing and it can take many forms. But you gotta have it.)

I think I'm mostly saying that I see a lot of actors who need to get their bodies involved in what they are doing. If you keep your center and keep your core, you can still be relaxed and comfortable on stage, but you will be engaged in what is going on. You will have life and energy and be compelling to watch. Even if your character is apathetic and blase about the world around him, most apathetic people secretly really want something. To be loved, or to be noticed, or to get out of this stupid po-dunk town. And it is the want for those things and the frustration of not getting to have them that leads to apathetic behavior. But as an actor, you need to have that desire and that frustration living in you before you can be properly apathetic on stage. If you just aim for the blase, your audience is going to tune out before you say your first line.

It's like trying to put the wiggle in the dance before you know the steps.

I don't know. I could be talking out of my ass. Or this could be lesson #7 in my self-taught class on how to be more like David Tennant (who is not a perfect performer, but almost every time I watch him, I'm inspired to go out and live and perform and feel and love and let myself be ripped open with heartache, so at the moment, he's who I'm looking to for inspiration as a performer). Hamlet's soliloquy, for example. He's contemplating suicide. But he's hurt and confused and feels betrayed and honestly doesn't know if he is more afraid of continuing in his current state or of the unknown thing that happens (or doesn't happen) when you die. It's a speech about suicide, but it's a speech about so much more than that, and that is why it has stood the test of time. Can you imagine Hamlet going out and delivering this speech as blase dude? There'd be no point for the rest of the play. He is despondent, but that doesn't mean he doesn't care. It is because he cares so much that he has become despondent.

Wow, I'm sounding like a pretentious windbag now. Sorry about that. I did have a moment in class last night where I was feeling pretty good about myself (as I have been for a couple of days) and then it all kind of caved in and my humility kicked in and said, "You don't have all of the answers. You've only been studying this for fifteen years - what could you possibly know about acting?" and the little self-doubt demons came creeping back up my spine. I would like to say that I think I know something. And I think that thing that I know is that acting is living truthfully under imaginary circumstances. And in order to do that, one has to live truthfully on stage. It's not about being cool and blase - it is about being truthful. And there is so much more to being cool and blase and apathetic that you as an actor need to know before you can get up there and be those things as a character, none of which are really cool or apathetic or blase.

I guess I wish I saw more people being passionate about what they do instead of flippant about it.

I'll stop being whiny.