Thursday 22 January 2015

2 E's & 3I's of Acting

Recently we have addressed several practical and very necessary professional subjects, such as paying to be heard, the use of postcards, memorizing, and scams in all their varieties.
Each of you can determine which article–hopefully at least one, has most helped you personally. But if I were forced to choose, just generally, which was the most important topic for every actor it would be “Energy.” Without energy–especially in the voice (not energy slithering out under the guise of waving arms and wagging heads)–without energy, the very foundation of all acting is missing. You can define every acting term, dissect every text like a master, have every word memorized in its proper place as written by the play/screenwriter, know and embrace every acting “technique,” but without energy the role is a lifeless, boring, passive, instant cure for insomnia.Our voice and eyes and face must have energy or there is only a recitation of memorized words. Add to “Energy,” the other E word: “Ear.” Two vital E’s: Ear and Energy. Add the three I’s after those E’s and you have EEIII. Looks like an  ancient primitive cry of joy! (Or my vocal response to bad acting!)Three I’s? Intelligence, Imagination, Intuition.Ear + Energy + the Three I’s produce great theatre and are essential and basic foundations for good acting.

E1 = EAR
Learn to listen to people speaking, to actors acting, and listen especially to the ends of sentences and to the “music” of the line. The most difficult part of sounding real is the end of a sentence. It cannot be taught in writing. It is something you must train your ear to listen to carefully. But watch out for the dying fall when you hit the end of each sentence.

E2 = ENERGY
Energy: Go back, reread the article on energy and make it part of your credo for acting.Every cell in your body has to be engaged actively while keeping as still as possible (unless movement is called for). All those unconscious wiggly-wags are distracting. Keep the audience riveted with your “still energy.” Yes, yes, yesI know “still” is an odd adjective in front of energy. Think David Caruso in his current show and you see “still energy.”

I1 = INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence, strictly in relation to acting? My advice is to read. Especially poetry. There are several poems that justmight change the way you see the world. Might. But they are guaranteed to change the way you act–“act” as in being an actor, not “act” as in “behavior.”You also must use the intelligence to read the text carefully in order to know the story line, the facts of what happens, the place of your character in relationship to moving the story along, the idea of what the play is revealing about human nature, or just to “get” the humorand wit if it is a comedy. The best use of an actor’s intelligence is to learn to read carefully, analytically, and critically.You have to know what the words mean and what the phrases are saying or you’re merely “mouthing the lines” as Hamlet says. I cannot tell you how many times since I started coaching I have asked a student what a word in a line meant and the response has been an embarrassed, sheepish “I don’t know.” Use your intelligence.A subdivision of Intelligence–and the place where the line blurs between intelligence and imagination–is “curiosity.”  First ask a question and then set out to find the answer because you are “curious” about the play, the playwright, and your role. Google is a good place to start. If you want to know more about a play, look it up on the Internet to see what reviewers have said about it. If new, then Googlethe playwright to see what else he has written.Be curious. Ask questions and then set about to find the answer yourself. Curiosity means to keep asking “why.”

I2 = IMAGINATION
First let’s categorically assert that imagination does not consist of pretending to be a character. Pretending to bea character is just that–pretending. And second let’s categorically assert that imagination is not simply diving into your own psyche.Imagination begins with a pictorial response to a word, that is, allowing that word to draw a mental picture. “Allowing” is the clue. Allow the “what if’s” to occur. Allow the mind to wander. Allow possibilities. Allow the imagination to have freedom to create. Allow words to make, to create, to evoke pictures. If the word evokes memories, SEE the memory as a picture. Do not try to relive the memory. Let the words do the work. Let the words arouse the imagination. Allow yourself to respond tothe pictures that the words elicit.No, of course all words do not draw pictures! What is a picture for “the” or “an”? But if you have a line that goes, “I thought I would die of embarrassment” look at all the possible readings. Who is making the statement? Whatembarrassment is the character referring to? Would the cause of the embarrassment make every human being embarrassed? What does the line reveal about the speaker other than the embarrassment? These questions rightly belong in the arena of the Intelligence. So where does “Imagination” enter?Look at the word “embarrassment” in the sentence quoted above. Allow the imagination to see pictures of embarrassment: your own embarrassment, anyone–strangers, friends–you have seen when they were embarrassed. See what the eyes look like, the mouth, the skin when you see embarrassment. You do NOT have to feel the embarrassment. You have to allow the word to recall pictures of embarrassment. You have to allow the imagination to create a picture of embarrassment.In that line (“I thought I would die of embarrassment”) let the imagination respond to each separate word. Emphasize first the word “I,” Then “thought.” Then “die.” And last “embarrassment.” Listen to how each different emphasis affects the meaning of the sentence. What I have just described in this paragraph is the joining of imagination to verbal technique. If this is strange and newto you — wonderful! You have a whole new world of possibilities in line delivery being opened up.

FINAL TIP ABOUT IMAGINATION
A response to words greatly involves the imagination. Spend time with language. Let the sound of the word, thenumerous meanings of the word, the pictures that the word evokes, the implications, and yes, your memories of the object that the word elicits — let these all come to the surface of your consciousness. This brings emotion intothe word as you, the actor, deliver that word. Thus the imagination–not recalled feelings raised into acting the feelings–the imagination creates the spoken line, along with its companions: ear, energy, intelligence and intuition.

I3: INTUITION
So as usual we leave till last the most difficult to tackle: Intuition.
Maybe it’s because I am not sure intuition, our third “I” word, can be taught. I’m not even sure you can say much about it. I know it exists. I know I trust it completely. I know we all have it by the gallon. I also know we deny it vehemently–consciously or unconsciously it doesn’t matter–we deny it. I know it has to be nurtured. Iknow that if you deny it long enough it will curl up in a corner and refuse to budge!So what is it? I don’t know. It is just another one of those “is-ness” things we have mentioned before. When working with a student on a line reading, he will try out variations and I will say, “There, that’s it. That’s the one to keep.” “How do you know?” questions the actor. Answer “I just know.” That’s intuition.You see it’s not like reading a poem because in that area I’ve had training by the buckets, have learned how to “read.” But how does one learn how to “intuit”? A thought flits past. We dismiss it. That thought may be intuition. It may indeed be a knowing, an inner being response, a message from the universal unconscious. (I think that’s Jung’s phrase.)I keep returning to the notion that intuition is just a knowing. Children have intuition. Cats have intuition. In mycourting days, I trusted my cat’s intuition about my male friends more than my own. When the then current cat met the man who later would be my husband for 37 years,the then current cat walked away from me, tail in air, wound himself around Mr. Kulerman’s legs and said, “Daddy!” He knew. He knew better than his mistress. Intuition.Maybe it works like this: Imagination creates. Intuition knows. Intelligence analyzes. Or maybe none of those.Sorry to be so obscure about “intuition.” You have it. We all have it. And one day, if you allow it, it will help you as an actor–perhaps help more than ear, energy, intelligenceor imagination. Just love it and cherish it and nurture it and never deny it.Remember that “EEIII” can be a cry of joy or a cry of torture. Language and our response to it–ah. It is my deepest conviction that language is our most valuable invention or discovery–far surpassing the wheel–or even the door knob! Language is the very foundation of the dramatic arts. Love it and use it imaginatively. The rewards are greater than you can “imagine”!

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