I teach adult, professional-level classes, but I made an exception this summer for a 15-year old Palo Alto High School student, accepting her into one of my scene study workshops. Last week, she put up her first monologue -- Bananas from "The House of Blue Leaves" -- and her energetic performance was a total delight to me. Maybe she wasn't long on craft but she definitely was very long on enthusiasm. Her presentation was informed by the bedrock joy of simply being on stage, getting up in front of the folks. When she finished, and the class responded with applause, her beaming grin could not have been more alive if she had just taken her first Broadway bow.
Professional actors get so serious about themselves at times! As soon as a person decides to get paid to act, a whole new set of standards kick into gear. A profession -- whether it be acting or brick laying or designing microchips -- is work, not play, right? That's the American ethic. Work hard, apply yourself, and success will follow. Isn't that what your mama taught you?
But acting is a process of "allowing", not of "causing". You can't become a better actor by beating on the craft with a sledge hammer, by burning the midnight oil. You "release" a performance from your heart, like releasing a wild bird into the sky. Learning to act is not like learning how to build a water tower or an airplane engine. You can't go back and double-check your mathematical equations the way you can if the tower is tilting off to one side or the engine has a timing-chain problem. Acting begins with the impulse to communicate, to connect with other people, to -- as the AT&T commercial used to repeat incessantly -- "reach out and touch someone." Acting is profoundly about sharing the experience of living fully -- me to you, and you to me. There is a special pleasure an actor takes in the immediate feedback of an audience, a pleasure that is unlike any other that you will ever experience, unless it is perhaps the immediate feedback of a lover.
My new student reminds me of my first time on stage. I was 13-years old, an 8th grader in Atlanta, Georgia. "Fiesta at a Dude Ranch" was the name of the totally improvised production, and I was cast as a Dude Ranch recreational director. For some reason, I decided that a recreational director was a light-weight twit, and so I flitted and strutted across the stage, and the audience broke into spontaneous laughter and applause. Joy! I was in heaven! The jolt of adrenaline to my heart and brain said, "Do this forever!" And so a career was born. Can you remember your first time?
Beginner actors don't know anything about emotional memory, objectives, staying in the moment, scene analysis, substitution, endowment, the theatrical contract with the audience, power centers, or any of the rest of it. But, if they are like my new student -- they crave being on the stage, love the idea of pretending to be somebody else. The challenge in theatrical training is to hang on to that carefree thrill of performing while developing concrete acting techniques. The professional actor does his thing when someone calls "Action!" or "Curtain!", not simply when he is in the mood -- but it should still be fun.
My new student will be putting up her first scene in a couple of weeks, and I'll begin teaching her all about those acting techniques. But I'm going to make a special effort not to disturb or diminish her joy of performing. In that regard, she already has it right. Acting is fun! That's why they call them plays.
