ACTING “TECHNIQUE”

Everybody has a “technique” to their acting.

It is simply the way you carry out your performance of a scene; i.e. your “process”.

However, when I say “technique” in this chapter, I refer to the result-oriented and mechanical way that many actors are taught to create a performance – the systematic procedures that many acting coaches impart to their students.

Sadly, I feel a lot of acting coaches will recommend to their students “techniques” that are controlling and result-oriented.

(I try to never discuss results with the people I coach. It takes them away from the selfish and self-absorbed experience they should be having.)

I am not totally against these “techniques”.

I understand their genesis. I believe they are all part of a desire for better and more thorough scene comprehension. They are a device to help young actors to understand the scene better.

However, I feel “techniques” are something student actors should learn, but should then throw away.

“Techniques” can make you anxious and concerned about things that nature will take care of, if you let it.

“Technique” replaces magic. It is for artists who don’t trust that there is magic in their art.

Let’s discuss what I feel are some unneeded “techniques”:

Somewhere a teacher is making a lot of money instructing actors to cover the text with circles and underlines. Bewildered, I’ll often come across audition sides that are covered with markings.

You may enjoy the illusion of safety and control that this “mapping out” affords, and, in fact, doing so may help you to clarify to yourself what’s happening in the scene, but don’t be duped into thinking you need it.

In my opinion, it should all be thrown away when it’s time to play in the scene. And you can’t let it go if your script is all marked up like a map to some secret treasure.

I don’t even like highlighting my script. I feel that by highlighting only your own character’s words, it sends a subtle signal that the rest of the scene isn’t as important. It’s as if you can just put yourself on hold until your next line comes along.

Real people don’t just tune out and wait for their next turn to speak, but that is what I believe highlighting reinforces subconsciously.

Another “technique” some actors use is “beats” or “actions”.

The way I’ve understood it, you choose an active verb that your character is involved in for a particular segment of a scene.

But, if you do this, you’ll find that your thoughts will be confined to simply repeating the chosen verb to yourself. You will be restricted by this prechosen notion of the scene, and unable to react to any new and exciting stimuli that surprise you in the performance.

On one occasion, I watched an actor do a scene in my workshop and it just didn’t seem real. The scene seemed to have had a false quality placed over it. I asked him if he was playing an “action” or “beat”, and he said that he was. He had been playing “to convince”.

When we act, we want to have only the thoughts that our character is thinking. Anything else is just taking you out of the scene.

Real people don’t think in “actions” or “beats”.

When you’re having an argument with someone, you are far too busy with your own rushing thoughts and emotions to concentrate on a generalized verb. By choosing to overlay a single action onto a portion of a scene, you are laying a general quality over it, which will keep the scene from being specific and real.

It’s simply not how real people think.

Consistently remind yourself how it is you really think and communicate. Your acting should be an exact mirror of that.

Stop believing there is some trick to this.

I received an email from an actor who had been reading my website and I really liked how he described his desire to find a new way to experience the scene:

“I just read some of the things you said about the ‘idea’ of the line. I am going through my sides and I have to admit, I have never done that before. I am really excited about trying this new way. In the past, I had never thought about what the ‘thought’ behind the line was. There was no struggle to come up with the line to communicate what I was feeling or thinking in the scene. It was just so easy to say the line with an action or a beat behind it, so I could accomplish my ‘need’ in the scene.”

Breaking a script down into “beats” and “actions” turns what should be an art into something like science and math, and what’s fun about that?

(…Unless you’re a scientist or mathematician, which I’m guessing you’re not!)

I had a student who was a terrific actress, however, lately she had been feeling weighed down by all the “technique” she was using.

Originally, the idea of marking up a scene with beats and intentions excited her. She thought, “Oh, I can do this. I’m smart and a hard worker.”

For years she worked this way. But once she realized there was another more exciting way to play, she realized that all that busywork was keeping her from really connecting to a scene.

In my workshop, she experimented with throwing away all the work and planning, and found that she was having fun for the first time.

Actors are artists. But it can be difficult to find the strength to be an artist, even in today’s society. There is quite a bit of inner shame in artists. We are so often considered lazy, flakey, silly and immature by the rest of the working world. So often we are alone in our family, surrounded by people who don’t understand art.

When asked, this actress told me that she didn’t consider herself to be an artist. We discussed her childhood, and she admitted that she had felt a lot of pressure to be intelligent and levelheaded. I believe she may have been using all that technique so that her performing wouldn’t feel like art, but like a more intellectual kind of work. The pressure of pleasing her family was still affecting her adult life.

Now she happily embraces her newfound role as an “artist”!

I’m sure that some actors have used these “techniques” with great success, but I just feel it can be so much simpler than all that.

Learn to trust your instincts.

Utilizing result-oriented “techniques” sends a fearful signal that you don’t trust yourself, and that you don’t trust that your higher power will be there to guide you through the scene.

Thinking you need a certain “technique” is like a fish holding onto a life preserver. It can swim just fine without it.

It’s like the bird that thought it needed to build an airplane to fly. Sure, it eventually flew, but it always could.

The following is an excerpt from Gene Wilder’s autobiography, “Kiss Me Like a Stranger”. In this passage he describes his early years of studying under Strasberg:

“During these months in Strasberg’s classes, I used to sneak into the balcony of The Actor’s Studio and watch him give critiques to members. A very talented actor named Gerald Hiken had just done his first scene for Lee Strasberg. After the scene was over, Strasberg said, ‘Tell us what you were working on.’ Gerald said, ‘I just wanted to show you how I normally work – using Actions, Objectives, Conditions, Obstacles… all the things I was taught in classes with Uta Hagen.’

Then Strasberg illuminated the mystery I had been wrestling with for many years. He said, ’You did very well, Gerald, because we got it. We could see everything you worked on – all the Actions and Objectives and all the rest of it. But at the Studio we believe that if you have a relaxed body and a relaxed mind, and if you can believe that the situation the character is in is actually happening to you, then all those other things you were talking about are going to happen by themselves, only not in an intellectual way, but in a more natural, organic way. And if they don’t, then we have certain tools we use that might help you. But they’re not intellectual tools.’

The two most important things I learned at the Actors Studio were: don’t use any technique if the situation and the author’s words are working for you, by themselves; and, try to stay in the moment, which only means that every time you do the same scene, on stage or in front of a camera, if you’re relaxed and you’re reacting to the other actors at that moment – not the way you did it yesterday or fifteen minutes ago – then even though the lines are exactly the same and the staging is exactly the same, the scene will be a little different each time you do it, and it will be alive.”