"Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor, suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone, is from the purpose of playing..." ------ Hamlet III,ii
Yeah, and don't forget, Jean-Paul Sartre is Watching.
So exciting. Such an infernal challenge.
I have been waiting years to have a good excuse to dip full on into this Acting thing. I have to admit though. Some aspect of my character may prohibit me, personally, from being a good actor. I mean, I can read. But. I feel too flushed in the face, cannot be settled or calm onstage...I would be the Kevin Kline, Eric Roberts, Robin Williams school of acting--total nervous energy. Well, if I've actually had enough time to practice and work on cadence, then I feel in control. Like if it's a part I'm so used to, ( say, Lady Bracknell), I could do it without concern. WWSD (What Would Stanislavski Do?) with Lady Bracknell? Find the chink in her armor--which I always thought was that line about mercenary marriages, an allusion to her former poverty. She has much to lose, and she knows it as an outsider--knows she has to play the game, in particular with nephew Algy, whom she secretly has a thing for.
The "right part", I can do. Sarcastic Bitch? Angry Tomboy? Absent -Minded Artista?
Sign me up!!! But I am not a chameleon, like some amazing actors: (damn, now I can't think of any---Brando, maybe? Depp, maybe, but even he plays a type..Benicio Del Toro!? Anthony Hopkins? Gary Oldman!!! Getting warmer...Kate Blanchett , playing Dylan...okay, I'l fuck with this later. My absolute favorite performance of all times is the guy who plays Jesus in Master and Margarita, but I've never seen him in anything else. Also the leads in Stalker and Solaris--plus that woman at the end!).
No, but I think what this means is I can suggest and direct other people into depth of character--if I choose the right ones. Casting is so elemental to the success of a play--I'm good at it, when I have NO interference. (Ahem...AC). I'm notorious for going up to a random kid at school, and saying..."you! You're perfect for this idea I have---come with me..." Ego sets the trap, but they have to have the goods. and the discipline and time.
So.. finally, after all these years, I am finally reading the genuine, Stanislavski. Not an academic analysis, not wikipedia, not Marilyn Monroe's bio on the Lee Strasburg derivation. Not Inside the Actor's Studio. The Real Deal.
Well, a translation. I am so there.
Because my creative impulse is more for the big picture, rather than the small. The story. The intermingling of character, when worlds collide. Kate and Petruccio. Iago and Othello. Mozart and Salieri. Hunter S. Thompson and the fuzz.
I've only read three pages and already the ideas are bubbling up from the LaBreya tar pits. I just recalled an interesting detail from Anthony Hopkins using Stanislavski method---now I gotta say, the animal exercises always struck me as rather silly--couldn't feel the point of it, until I heard how Anthony Hopkin's worked on Silence of the Lamb's Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter's cold character---he said he played him as if he were a reptile. So insightful. He said, a warm-blooded, caring human expresses themselves most frequently with their eyes, eyes move first, signifying interest, blood-response and emotion--whether wide, narrowed, sidewise. Other facial expressions follow. But Hannibal was a id-brained killer, like a reptile, and his head turned simultaneously, with his eyes. Without registering any emotion, like a lizard. And look at the effect. So creepy and spot on.
Two books to consider on the recommendation of Johnny Depp on method acting: On Method Acting by Dwight Edward Easy (sp?) and No Acting, Please by Eric Morris.
I'm now reading the part where the director, Tortsov, is breaking down the narrator's savage rendition of Othello. In the earlier pages, I had to say, his interpretation made me feel unsettled, but I thought--well, this is different: never thought of Othello this way. But after reading the Director's comments, I realized my unsettled feeling should have pushed through. I've read that play many times--Othello is no savage, and that is an awful, modern misreading and stereotypical reaction to the play. If Othello wasn't so noble and civilized at the beginning of the play, the story wouldn't be so tragic--the man who kills what he loves.
Boy, this Stanislavski sure knows how to get to the heart of the matter. Brilliant simplicity.
It just occurred to me that he has influenced my singing voice. I was doing the kind of stupid thing I always do, singing on headphones, one a little loose so I can hear myself, too. Singing along with Amy Winehouse, who I'd say is known for being a pretty emotional vocalist.
Well, I noticed I was doing what all sing-along-karaoke wannabes do---singing at the top of my voice in a burst of adrenaline, out-singing Amy in a horrible, overdone way, because that's what felt good inside my body. And I realized I often do this, even when I'm singing for the band, with some ridiculous power chords, tremolos and vibratos --just because I could--show-offy, stupid, not true emotion.
So, next time through, I pulled back, tried to match her pitch for pitch, note for note, instead of show off experimentation. I was surprised how much she was apparently holding back when I did that---she obviously had a very powerful voice that coulda blown out a room. Every recording I've done, it's those extreme adrenaline notes that bother me on the playback--I wanna take the edges off them and tone them down.
So, In the future, I will. Thanks to Stanislavski.
I'm wondering if I can really use those bare minimal exercises S. used on his beginning students, that are meant to bring out their restless self consciousness on stage. Go up. Open the curtain. Now. Just sit. While we watch.
Or conversely. Play jealousy. Anger. Happiness. Fear.
No context, you say? You win. That's the point. Ask why--why--why? What drives the character. I suppose that's why the cliche movie line for an actress/actor playing an actress/actor is "What's my motivation?" I'm guessing S. would say, "You read the play--what do you think? Don't look at me--it has to come from your life."
So what makes a man, say, Othello, jealous? Need for affirmation from the outside. Although he appears confident, a man's man, but something in him is incomplete. The modern interpretation is--it's because he is a black man, and feels intrinsically inferior.
I'm not entirely sure that's the case in Shakespeare's time. First, there's no heavy backlash in the play to his marriage to Desdemona--no one, not her father, not even Iago--says, OMG, she's marrying a black man? Plus Shakespeare had his "Dark Mistress" which may have been a similar cross-racial love. I can't imagine Shakespeare would ignore a racial gulf if his audience would feel it heavily. He's too much the analyst for that kind of omission. Well, there is that line about "Your old black ram... tupping your white ewe." But Brabantio's reaction doesn't necessarily seem to focus on color, more that they snuck off, that he's a foreigner, maybe scary looking. Cast a spell on her. There may be a little Oedipal clingingness in him, a man unwilling to give up his beautiful daughter--who probably waited on him, replaced her missing mother. And, obviously, Brabantio respected Othello greatly as a man before this.
I'm not sure what the answer is, but perhaps each actor playing him has to look at their own jealous context to get it right. I suspect Iago's lines carry hints, since he's the one who always sets him off. You know why Iago's jealous...displaced by Cassio. Othello's insecurities are more buried.
Perhaps one way to play it is looks and age--Desdemona is pure beauty and younger, maybe Othello doesn't measure up looks-wise, and he's a rough character--had a rough life. Scars, ugly war wounds. Not used to getting something that makes him happy. Expects the worst, stoic, steeling himself always for the worst life has to offer. Don't know why they snuck off though, except for the tension it creates in the play.
I would have Othello played by a burly, super-macho, but not handsome guy--maybe someone like that Black Scot that played MacDuff in Roman Polanski's MacBeth. Then make the fall guy, Cassio, more classically handsome, more delicate and androgynous. None of these Black stud actors the modern world keeps using for Othello.
Another thought is, being long unmarried, long in the company of men,and now ensnared, there may be some of that reluctance to being controlled by an irresistible, an intelligent, woman. Sometimes those kinds of guys really don't understand women as human beings too well. And sympathy, pity, compassion, and loyalty was the glue that bonded them--through Othello's war stories. So there's what can be removed. He idealizes her, and can be made skeptical about the reality of his own ideal.
I need to apply this to my play(s): The Magic of "If". The unbroken line of actor derived context. Probably what modern actors mean when they talk about a character's backstory.
I've been reading the part about spotlights, as methods to keep an inward focus---ignoring audience, concentrating on character and inner life--intriguing idea. Tighter and larger circles. The stuff about relaxing individual muscles interests me, but somewhat less. I can't see spending large amount of prep time on this, but might explain the concept, telling individuals to work on it themselves if they think it would help.
But, what I really, really, really will use is the idea of breaking a play into first major, and then smaller units. Establishing an overall concept that gets at the underlying message and purpose of the play. This is followed with looking, then, at the major components of the play, and thinking of them in terms of smaller and smaller bits, details all concentrating on actions that are motivated by the theme, which will ideally make the actor's portrayal seem real and natural onstage. Each little "unit" must have an objective related to the action of the "actor"--haw--just realized the connection there! I am quite psyched to try this out.
Seems to me my play, based on the original material and how it was structured, has three major components that follow the 3 major Acts. The overall premise is, how does one perpetuate this idle lifestyle that appears to involve no work, but is predicated on being smarter than the system? How to both comply with, and seem to violate the rules simultaneously? And, even harder, without violating one's own concept of the well lived life? Which must include: art, love, intellectual stimulation, and pleasure---all done with the least amount of work to disrupt living well. Denial, I think, is the centerpiece--Freudian consciousness covers the id with beautiful alacrity.
Emotional memory: the one I've heard of. Not the one that resonates the most. It gets parodied a lot in modern movies, T.V. But, the real thing is not as artsy-fartsy as people make it out to be. I had a mistaken notion myself, because I assumed Stanislavski was asking the actor to relive a feeling that comes from the distant past, which seemed somewhat impossible--how would you get back there< and how would it match with what was happening on stage?
The memory--of say, witnessing violence, or an accident or some moment of moving pathos, is merely a jumping off point that needs to blend with the actor's own sense of artistry and the moment onstage. It can be the distillation of several related moments of the actor's life, plus the action of the play. This makes much more sense to me--the end result having the same flavor of a dream where elements of life merge and mutate in an imaginative way. This also makes more practical sense to me. Reminds me--gotta record a dream...
Still don't know if I could be made to cry at will onstage---doubtful, and definitely not a guarantee until the moment occurred. So what? Doesn't have anything to do with great or bad acting.
Here is something I've never considered. The stage, set, lighting, sound, is not just for the audience. It is for the actors to feel natural. Very good thought. Xopowo, Stanislavski. Good reason to have things in place as early as possible.
I am almost finished with An Actor Prepares--something like twenty pages left. So, what is really fascinating me is this concept of the "Super-Objective": I can really handle that idea quite well. The central objective, in general, for actors, is to mainline into your subconscious through "the method". Also, everything must be hung on one central "trunk", I'll call it, (although Stanislavski does not); this involves the message, philosophy, purpose of the combined author/director/actor vision. If it all blends beautifully you have art. You must start with a quality work that is universal and flexible enough in its message to attain this vision; it must speak with truth to everyone involved.
I'm trying to decide if I can clearly explain this to my actors---it involves one part of being relaxed on stage--so much so that you are not "playing" to the audience but remaining true to your inner vision of the play. The second part involves focusing on an object on stage as you might in real life, and reacting by listening to whatever partners you have onstage.
I know this super-objective thing was what we did not completely have in the Agatha Christie play, and I knew it at the time. Several components created this:
1) We had two directors--and although on one level we were in sync on certain things--we had a similar sensibility of what was good--but,our main visions were perhaps slightly bifocular--like you needed to watch our show through 3-D glasses. Rose had an idea based on some West End of London production he saw, probably classic Brit , driven by witty dialogue, whereas I was more interested in creating atmosphere through music, lights, and blocking. We made compromises that might have bifurcated the play a little.
2) The original material was good, but not great. It did not have a clear thread of message--more for pure entertainment, I suppose , unless you did what I wanted to do and make it extremely dark and full of the menace of which humans are capable. I hated the original ending, which completely destroyed the suspicions the married couple had of each other--destroyed without a clear line through-- with a couple of corny jokes and a sit-com resolution about surprise gifts that felt untrue. That's why we changed to the slightly weirder, but incomprehensible mystery ending--I wasn't that satisfied with that either, but a kid added onto what I wrote, and we were running out of time to get something else practiced. By that point I couldn't think, to be honest. It was a runaway horse.
I won't have these excuses for my new OW rewrite. The direction is all mine. The writing is mine. Based on a tight original, much better writing than AC. But. All blame lands on me. I already feel better about it--the ending is --ehh--but a "pat" ending on this play ironically works because of the theme of denial of reality that runs throughout the story. I tried to stay close to the original in messaging as I could. In that, I feel much better this time around. Just hope I have a good group with me, with the time to work on it all properly. And the equipment I've been promised.
Back to Stan:
The audience, everything beyond the 4th wall, cannot exist for you onstage---you must go into a zone where you block it, and concentrate on how the tiny moment before you, the small motion you must make, will get to the line that drives the story forward to -haha-the writer's purpose, the underlying universe, the world you feel being created. What was that poem --about a poem--being like an uncut diamond ( I think that was the metaphor) . The poet (or playwright) makes the rough cut, but the reader, the audience, and, with a play, most importantly, the actor, completes the final cuts so that the brilliance can be seen.
Haha. The equipment I've been promised. I couldn't do hardly any of this, because I even lost the "equipment" I had last year. What a nightmare. Thankfully, no one lays it on me.
October 18, 2014: This year's play will be my modernized version of Taming of the Shrew.
