Acting without Technique (almost)

Young people and others new to acting are often overly impressed with the magic that applying certain acting techniques are supposed to do for their performance.  It was strongly believed in the mid 20th Century that Method Acting was the approach that actors must use to be true artists.  Even today, there are new acting techniques being created by acting teachers.  I, myself, am guilty of doing that.

 

The problem with most techniques is that they force the aspiring actor to do a long period of exercises (perhaps for years---perhaps for the duration of one's career in acting) in order to prepare an actor to use the technique. Conversely, Tao acting simple asks the actor to just do it, without preparation,  without exercises, and without stressing over how to do it;

 

 Method Acting relies heavily on Stanislavsky's emotional recall (Affective Memory). The problem with using  emotional recall is that the actor has  to do the exercise of remembering before he or she can act the emotion. Tao acting says that if the actor is being the character in the scene and there are things that stimulate a reaction of sadness in the character, for example,  the actor will react with sadness.  Remember one cannot be sad.  The actor has to express sadness as a reaction, a physical response,  to what is going on in the scene. A famous acting teacher said, "Acting is being other people." Thus, instead of being a Method Actor searching his memory for the proper emotion, Tao acting says be the other person, concentrate on the scene, receive the stimuli and react. Just do that which you would do when motivated by that stimuli,  and you will be an effective actor.

 

The actor doesn't  worry about whether he or she  would do these things in your everyday life because that clutters your mind and interferes with receiving the stimuli and reacting without inhibitions. And that is what an actor needs to concentrate on: receiving the stimuli from the scene and responding to it emotionally and physically fully and without inhibitions. That creates an effective scene in which the actor is most vulnerable. It is difficult to do these things if you are worried about using some technique or other to do them.  But it is surprisingly easy to do them when you are relaxed and just go ahead and do them.

 

It is fun to openly express our emotions withing the confines of the scene. It is healthy and it is the best an actor can do.  Have fun and start "acting without acting," as Lao-Tse said the Tao requires..

 

 God bless, Doc

Dialog with an acting student.

 

 

What follows is a discussion I recently had with an acting student I am mentoring. We are discussing the training he is getting in a univeristy acting program. His comments are in normal face and mine are in bold face. We start by discussing that acting in doing and not talking, that plays are stories told in action and plays are not conversation.  (See also The Tao of Acting, my ebook that is on line).

 

 

 

They have stressed the importance that plays are not conversation quite heavily--I failed to mention that in the email. 'Glad to hear it.

We have been taught the importance of doing and what is happening in the scene. Exactly, the pantomimic dramatization of the scene is done by converting the dialogue into the action it represents.

According to my professor, the actor's job is to do something, and you want something and you want it badly right now, and what makes the action dynamic is the actor's energetic pursuit of the character's said goal in the scene's circumstances. OK. I won't argue the point. I would substitute that your job is to react physically because you have a strong emotional response to what has just occurred.

An example that my professor used was from Chekhov's Three Sisters show--how one of Masha's lines is, "I'm bored, bored, bored," and Masha saying that is to get un-bored by stimulating something desirable, in other words, to act upon her environment in order to change it. Great example. To act bored, the actor must react energetically to the stimuli that makes her so express herself. I don't agree about acting upon her environment, I would rather say react to her environment as a response to the stimuli. I think wanting to change the environment puts too many 'have to's' in the actor's head which should be clear and open to receiving stimuli so the actor can react.

We were also taught to always play the positive, no matter how bleak its outcome or situation is.Good. The negative goes nowhere and inhibits action. To play the positive is to have a strong emotional response that moves the scene onward, but the business of moving the scene onward is the natural result of the strong response of the actor and the actor does not have to be thinking about moving the scene or making a choice that is positive. If the actor has an uninhibited, strong emotional response the positive will happen.

But yes, in short, we have been taught the importance of action. IT is called ACTing after all.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Whew! These past two months have been a whirlwind of activity. I apologize fro the long break in posts. I hope that these two months have been busy for your career as well,  There is no reason why a good actor is not in a Christmas play of some kind.  Keep building that resume.  And remember that community theatre, even amateur community theatre, is a good source of experience and information.   Networking among cast and crew members of community theatres will send you straight to more auditions and other helpful events like workshops, etc.
Don't neglect them.

Two hints.  1 you have auditioned for a call back and are waiting to hear.   The proper way to handle this is to assume you have not got the part and to audition for something else as soon as possible.  2. "But they really liked me and told be how well I had auditioned and how talented I am."  They tell everyone that;  It is just how the pros operate. They make everyone feel good so there will be nothing but good reports about them.  The old adage is "Never believe your press releases."  Which means that you must take everything in this business with a grain of salt.  People do not lie necessarily, they just try to be encouraging and positive.  But it never means that you have the role

It is important that you keep working as an actor. You must keep acting.  Even though November and December are traditionally slow months for professionals, they are pretty good months for amateurs.  As long as you are not UNION--AEA, you can do amateur plays. And that is so even if your are SAG/AFTRA. At least it was so when I was acting.

Keep acting, keep acting, keep acting.  If you are an actor, that is what you do.  NO EXCUSES, just get out there and find a play or indie to be in.

I wish you the very best for you and your career and I hope Santa brings you your union card, God bless and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Where did they all go?

I have been cleaning out my email caches, deleting most everything prior to this  year in my Old Mail and Replies Sent caches.  One thing leaped off the pages as I deleted them. Among the hundreds of names of people who have contacted me regarding information about becoming an actor only a small handful are still in contact with me.  This is not because they have hit it big and no longer need me.  You would be hard pressed to find any of their names on the Internet Movie Data Base.

No, they have just disappeared into the passing of time.  I suspect that this is because they have found it so very difficult to get anywhere in the profession of Acting that they have given up.  In fact, a few have written me to say that they were giving up.  Acting is a demanding and difficult mistress or master. It is not a career for the mediocre or dabbler.  To succeed, the aspiring actor must be extraordinarily talented, devoted, etc, etc, etc, (listing the many things needed to succeed).

From  preteens to high schoolers, to college students, to young adults to older adults, the hundreds and hundreds of people who write me and say they would like to be an actor, only those few that I mentioned continue to seek a career. Some were very talented, some very striking in appearance, some charming, some hand many good qualities for actors. But the grueling task of becoming an actor is only for a few.

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E Lee's play CAREER is an excellent telling of   what the  task is like. The old film of the play starring Anthony Franciosa, Carolyn Jones, Dean Martin, et al. was very well done. It is a shame it is very difficult to find as I think it should be shown to prospective actors as part of their training and instruction on the industry.

My friends.  Acting is the most fun, teh most rewarding, the most glorious of experiences. It is also the most frustrating, the most difficult, and the most depressing of experiences.  Should you enter the field, I wish you well and am here to help you.  If you drop out, I forgive you, and don't blame you.  My prayer is that you will be that extra special person that succeeds all the way to the top.  God bless, Doc

How do they do that?

Thousands of  people every year decide they would like to become an actor.  They see the newest stars of all ages on the screen and dream and ask themselves, "How do they  do that?" Soon after a question appears on Yahoo (for the hundred-thousandth time) "How do I become an actor?"

I have  answered this question over a hundred times, I am sure.  There is one answer for children, pre-teens and teens:  The way you become an actor (given the facts that you have the look, talent, charm and intelligence) is that your parents have to make it happen for you.  Most starry-eyed youngsters cannot believe that is the way.  Why, they have not even told their parents they want to be actors.  They have heard about someone who posted You Tube videos and an agent or producer saw them and signed them up.  There are also the urban legends about a producer seeing a young person in the mall, etc. etc.  These stories are stories. They become legends perhaps because one person was "discovered" in such a manner.    One out of the literally hundreds of thousands world-wide is not even in the realm of possibility as odds go.

I recently did a little research about the background of young people who became well known actors before they were  18.  Their stories are remarkably the same.  Their parents provided every opportunity for them to become prepared and enter the business.  This is what I mean by parental support: one or both parents work like mad promoting the kid and his or her career. And let's not forget that the kid is talented, charming, photogenic and intelligent.  Finally, they get a part that draws attention to them and their talent.  And that's it.  That's how a youngster becomes an actor. Oh, I must also mention that in many cases these youngsters have been acting since they were very small children.

For adults, how to become an actor is a different matter.  Of course the aspiring actor has to have all the required qualities.and then the actor must build their resume and promote themselves in the business. It is a long and difficult road that only a very few have what it takes to travel.  Indeed, most of the aspiring actors that I advise do not become actors.  Some try for a while and give up.  Others devote their lives to the task and meed with some modicum of success.

What about acting school?  Won't I have a better chance of becoming an actor if I go to acting school?  Well, that used to be the case, but now that so many of us have studied the process of becoming an actor, we have learned that only a tiny fraction of acting school graduates ever become actors.  And, at the same time, a great many people become actors without going to acting school.   I'd say that acting school is more important for stage actors than for film actors.  Film actors are helped by the mechanics of film making-carmera lenses and filters and angles, and by editing and special effects, and by music and sound, and on and on and on. Not that film actors don't have to have great talent.  Of course they do. But it is enhanced by film technology more that a stage actor's talent is enhanced by stage technology.  It is much more likely that a film actor has had no formal training than his stage counterpoint.

Well, I don't want to get too far afield from my thesis.  To become a preofessional actor, a minor must have the full support of one or more or her parents if she is going to succeed.  You can't do it by yourself, and anything less than the parent(s) being fulling involoved in their kid's career will not work. 

I wish all of you aspiring actors out there great success. Nothing would make me happier than for you to become rich, famous, and honored.  God bless you, Doc

Remembereing Roy

One of my first acting students and a very fine and devoted actor, Roy Milton Davis,  died last Spring.  It took several months for me to get the news and I was shocked. I did not know that he had been ill.  All I knew was the high--spirited, boundless optimism about his work that he always communicated to me.

Roy was one of just a tiny few of my students who really was an actor.  He lived the actor's Spartan life from the time he left college in 1974 until he died this year. Outside of some off- Broadway plays, he never had a large role. But he was never daunted.  He was an actor and he worked his entire life to be the best actor he could be.  I was pleased to have been able to see a couple of his roles in TV series these past couple of years.

Roy and I wrote often. We discussed the nature of acting and how it should be practiced. We did not always agree, but we always came to an understanding.  He sent me several  short essays he wrote about acting.  The following is one about playing extra roles and how important it was to create a character and give a complete performance:

    "To re-coin an old expression,"There are no small parts,only small actors."When you give your all to a given acting task it is noticed by the production company,no matter how small and insignificant the role may seem to be.People who play extras are often not thought of as legitimate actors.We do sometimes have to tolerate questions by a passerby like,"Are you one of the actors,or are you just an extra?Just an extra.I sometimes want to retort,"What is your position in the relative hierarchy of your own profession?You are a nobody,as well.And if you are working at all,you probably hate your job anyway.""At least I am being paid to do something that I love and I will not be "just an extra"forever."While you will probably be a bitter nobody,forever."When assigned to walk by in the background,I will assign myself a purpose in walking by.Maybe looking for an address.Maybe going back home because I forgot something.Maybe looking for cigarette butts.Maybe rushing to the subway because I am running late for work.Maybe I am vacating the premises because I want to avoid being questioned by the police.Anything.I can easily get away with simply walking by,but I like to go a little more in depth with my characterizations.Just I aim to do with principal work.We are creative artists in our own right and no matter what the size of the role,our efforts at creativity are appreciated,even in instances when we are cast in writing masterpieces."

Roy loved being the creative artist he mentions above. It was his reason for being. He is greatly missed.  Above all, Roy was an ACTOR.

How much should it cost to become an actor?

Sorry for the long lapse in posts.  It is good to be back.  It takes some motivation to add a post to the blog and for some time, as you can see, I have not been properly motivated to do so.  But now I am.

I recently read an article about Senator Marco Rubio (R, FL) in which he was quoted as wanting the government to pay for degree programs for all students.  While I adamantly disagree with him, this would solve the problem of the high cost of education. Well, it would for the student for the moment.  But the high cost would create a new entitlement and add to the national debt and deficit. 

I don't think going to college is a Right anymore than I think becoming an actor if one chooses to is a Right.  What I do think is that colleges under the thumb of the teacher's unions, and  under their own bureaucracies have become preposterously expensive. University professors are far over paid and the cost of operating a college or university has been artificially inflated to astronomical levels.  That being the case, few but the very wealthy can attend college without government help mostly in the form of student loans. 

But the prospective actor who graduates college with a huge debt of student loans is almost certain not to succeed as an actor. The burden of debt most liable will force the student out of acting and into something that has a regular pay check.

Acting schools are as bad as universities when it comes to inflated costs. Why should it cost thirty or forty thousand dollars a year to study to become an actor when it is almost certain that you will not become one?   What is to be done about the cost of acting training when both the colleges and the academies are so expensive?

Indeed, why isn't acting training free?  And I mean without the government paying for it as Senator Rubio desires.

The only answer is GREED.  We find that when a well known, successful actor teaches as a college or academy, he commands a large fee.  I submit that he only needs bare expenses and that he should teach essentially for free.  He doesn't need the money, and his instruction is not guaranteed to have a positive result. So why does he charge at all?  Whatever happened to the traditional and noble idea of serving the art of acting?

At my website, http://tao-of-acting.org, I offer all the instruction in how to become an actor that I can. And I offer it for nothing.  Acting and the theatre have been my life. They provided me with a modest income, and a modest retirement. But, in fact, I do not need any more money. So everything I have to offer is free.  As it should be. 

I remember as a young man meeting Sir Tyrone Guthrie, founder of the Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival and the theatre that bears his name in St. Paul/Minneapolis.  And I remember his writing that his work was to SERVE the theatre and that he believed that as a service to GOD.  On my website I write a little about this in my essay "Theater, Religion, and Football."  Back on the issue, however, when one works as a service, he does not do it for money.  So my info is free and my acting lessons are free.

I believe that Free is the right price given how next to impossible it is to succeed as an actor.  I invite all to visit my web site and to contact me regarding questions about acting and having a career as an actor.