I’m not a good actor, but I am, I think, an actor by nature. as a friend once correctly posited, “you’re an introvert posing as an extrovert. doesn’t that wear on you?” as such, self-reflection and -improvement is key for me whenever I do some acting work, or else I slip back into bad habits. tumblr’s format also makes it very easy to talk in dialogue about issues like this in an extended network, so, uh, yeah, that’s another great reason to go over a few things that hung me up the last time I acted in order to make the next time a little better.
when I was younger, I doubted the veracity of the phrase “if you feel 10, give 7.” to put it another way, restraint’s never been one of my strong suits, and I fooled myself into thinking it was “sincerity” that would power me through. in growing to appreciate the way restraint and thought allow for nuance and control, I became a better actor, writer, and person, but that ugly lack of restraint remains a “wearing” problem.
it’s compounded for me primarily because my biggest problem at this point is that a lack of caution will result in the note “you’re playing yourself,” particularly because I draw on some of the same tricks I use in acting (making eye contact, pacing movement) in daily life. my characters are invariably weaker when I don’t make the constant effort to divorce myself from them.
I had the chance to act at a friend’s reading series (which you should be attending like the dickens if you live in/around new york, by the way) last month, playing a small role that’s easily made bombastic, but the director and writer wanted a real sense of detachment, emotional otherworldliness, to penetrate the work. this wasn’t the first time I’d played the character, but this time, I botched it simply by not checking myself. my motions were pedestrian, awkward. about the only thing I got right was the pacing of the lines, and that’s beause I’m such a sucker for beckett.
sure enough, afterwards, someone who watched it came up to me and said “that casting was so inspired - I’m never sure how much of that nervous energy you display up there is you and how much is your interpretation of the character.” as beckett would say, “not good. I switch off.”
luckily, I’ve gotten the chance to play a part in a light opera this month, which requires singing & dancing & so forth. because it’s light opera, I can also get away with playing a fairly outrageous interpretation of the role without over-hamming it or having it fully degenerate into caricature. I tend to view it as a bit of a triumph when the directors etc. stop calling me by my own name and go with the character’s, and that’s not yet happening reliably.
this evening I found myself “off” in running through the first act and “on” in the second, largely due to that ability to control the situation. that’s not to say that I did it “by the book” - I take a lot of joy in experimenting and coming up with new ideas to try out on the fly, especially in rehearsal, and I let my own emotional range color what I do and how I respond to imposed situations. but later in the evening I thought through my actions better, letting my “sincerity” power experimentation and my rationality make it look workable and “natural” on stage.
hopefully it’ll be towards or above that level come next wednesday, which’s opening night.
April 10, 2009, 1:15am Comments
