The Sheila Variations

Assignment: Run Naked Through a Public Place

Fascinating post over on Critical Mass about a professor [Correction: he is not a professor] at the University of Oregon who appears to have confused the concept of "teaching" with "group therapy". Really interesting points brought up.

It's a bad idea to mix consciousness-raising and classroom teaching. It's a particularly bad idea for a teacher to tell students that they have to expose themselves emotionally in order to earn a good grade. Wieden may have had the best of intentions, but he crossed the line between teacher and therapist with this one, and the fallout was predictably ugly.

For example: they were supposed to confront their fears. One student was told to object at a wedding. (Or, there is some confusion as to whether or not she was actually told to do so - but that was the message she got, and she was agonized about it.)

Anyway - it's a very interesting post, so go check it out.

Long sort-of-relevant personal monologue below

There's a group-think aspect to all of this which is very familiar to me. People who put limits on themselves, or people who are hesitant to behave like a total raving bonehead are somehow seen as "repressed", and the "therapy" needs to get them to bring their fears out into the light.

But ... some things you SHOULD be afraid of!! Fear is sometimes a sign of rationality.

I had an acting teacher who compared acting to skydiving. "If you're not scared when you're on stage, you're an asshole. And if you're not terrified before you leap out of an airplane, you're a fool."

Another thing this University of Oregon brou-haha reminded me of is a certain vibe in acting classes which I have found to be almost universally ... universal.

At least in my brand of training, which is Method acting.

Method acting is based primarily on relaxation and concentration. 85% of the attention of the Method is devoted to relaxation - and rightly so. A tense throat can't produce sound, a tense body can't express itself. If you're all tensed up, your hand gestures will suck - you will do what Hamlet warned against, you will "saw the air" ... Your voice will be hard and flat, you will, in effect, be a terrible actor.

Of course, actors have ALWAYS known this, and it didn't take the very recent Method-training to create good actors. It's just a method - a training tool to help actors do what great actors have done naturally for centuries.

It is assumed that an actor will inevitably tense up, once an audience is present - and so relaxation can never be assumed. Amateur actors never get this. They want to immediately play King Lear. They don't realize that relaxation exercises are the same thing as doing scales for a concert pianist, or doing barre work for a ballet dancer. A concert pianist NEVER stops doing scales. You never get a point where you can say: "Okay. Never have to do THAT again." Actors have to WORK at relaxation, consciously, because once you're live, once you have 800 eyeballs on you ... tension and fear is inevitable. But if relaxation is a practice, you can work to combat that tension, you can give yourself reminders: "Okay ... relax the throat ... that's it ... that's it ... breathe ... breathe ... remember to breathe ..." But that takes practice. Especially when you're under the gun, and you're live, and an audience is there. It may sound simple, but trust me. Trust me. It isn't.

Anyway - most acting classes begin with a period of relaxation. Every teacher works differently, and every actor is different.

But here's an example of the acting-class vibe I am talking about - which I kind of despise:

There was one teacher I had whose method of relaxation was to have us all lie down on the floor on yoga mats - turn the lights down - turn on Pachelbel's Canon in D - and have us MENTALLY relax. You go through your entire body, mentally, giving commands. "Foot. Relax. Jaw. Relax." But you don't move anything. You don't flex your foot, you don't massage your jaw - it all has to be done mentally. It's amazing how effective this can be- actors need, at times, to be able to relax INVISIBLY. Let's say you're in the middle of a scene, and an audience is there, and you suddenly realize that you are totally tense in your shoulders ... You can't turn to the audience and say, "Hey there ... hang on a sec ... Let me do a little bit of stretching ... my shoulders are killing me! I'll be right with you." Mental commands, once you practice them, are enough.

Shoulders. Relax. Boom.

So I found that very effective.

Some people found it had a very soporific effect and you could hear snores begin to emanate from all corners of the room.

Like I said: every actor is different.

Now another effect of these relaxation exercises - which I have felt, and which most actors feel - is that once you begin to truly relax - once you begin to truly let go - emotions start popping up.

I mean - that's not just true for actors, obviously. I've seen people start to weep silently in yoga classes, for example. The mind-body connection. All that tension that you hold in your shoulders, or in your jaw - is actually EMOTION. Once the area is relaxed, a flood of stuff can come out.

Not always sadness. I have erupted into laughter during these relaxation exercises. It's just the sensation of letting go, of releasing - laughing, crying, some people go into rages - it's very intense. Love it.

However: actors do place a high (way too high) premium on tears.

I have fallen into the trap myself. I think that if I have a damn tear rolling down my cheek, then I am doing some good acting.

I've been an actress long enough now to know that that is BULL MALARKEY.

Tears have nothing to do with anything. Gena Rowlands, my favorite actress ever, says bluntly, "I don't cry. I just don't." She doesn't fucking need to.

This one acting class I was in (the one where we lay on yoga mats interminably) was filled with actors who were extremely competitive about tears. I would find myself getting sucked into that mentality and then have to FORCE myself out of it.

The problem, too, was that if you cried - you got attention from the teacher.

Your tears, however false, however phonily gotten, got you attention.

"Good work, good work."

I now believe that this teacher was a charlatan. I want to give credit where credit is due - and say that I do like a lot of her relaxation techniques - and I still use them - but there were times, in her class, when it felt like a lunatic asylum. Where the craziest of us, the LOUDest of us - got all of her attention.

Everyone weeping and wailing and carrying on. There was one chick in the class who was always the first to start crying. She would begin to SOB - from the first second of relaxation. Oh GOD, it was annoying.

I lay there, grimly concentrating on RELAXING - not CRYING - ignoring the Elektra moans from over in the corner.

Thinking to myself, "Is the purpose of this exercise - to bring forth tears? Or is to learn how to relax? This is bull shit." This crying actress chick, too, was not overwhelmingly talented and actually had some huge problems with relaxation. But she got all the attention, because every single day in class she had a nervous breakdown.

Perhaps it was her way of diverting the class' attention from her lack of talent. I've seen it happen before. Like I said: actors place too high a premium on tears. If I can cry - I'm good. So THERE.

But the teacher was an emotion addict. She LOVED crying. She thought that tears were the ultimate truth. The ultimate expression. This is only one of the reasons why I think she's a charlatan - but it's a good one. I saw pretty good actors RUINED by her teaching. They too became obsessed with tears - and their acting went down the toilet.

This woman directed The Glass Menagerie at the Actors Studio and I went to see it and I thought it was the biggest piece of lachrymose shit I had ever seen in my life. Every actor was filled with tears. But they weren't crying because of the PLOT, or because of the CIRCUMSTANCES ... They just thought that crying well was what actors were supposed to do. (This is just my interpretation, obviously. I didn't go up and interview any of them afterwards.)

These were all professional actors too ... some of whom I admire.

But they were all about the tears. It was the weepiest damn Glass Menagerie I had ever seen.

If there's ANYTHING Tennessee Williams does NOT write - it's self-pitying characters. I don't think he has ever written a self-pitying character. He has written tragic characters - but they are tragic because they strive to rise above, and they fail in that pursuit. Like Blanche DuBois. Like Miss Alma. They do not sit around and moan: "Oh woe is me..."

We may find Laura in Glass Menagerie as tragic - but the actress playing her must NEVER think to herself, "Oh my goodness, Laura is so tragic, her life is so sad". Acting 101, folks. Laura knows who she is. She tries to explain herself to her mother. She knows she can't go to typing school, she knows she probably won't ever get married - she knows herself WAY better than her mother does. It is her mother's imposition of her own dreams onto her daughter which brings Laura to tragedy. But Laura is the opposite of self-pitying. She actually could be heroic if her meddling mother would stop trying to turn her into something she is not!

However: in this charlatan teacher's version, EVERYONE sat around pitying themselves. Ick. Tom wept openly during his last "blow out the candles, Laura" monologue which I thought was comPLETEly inappropriate.

He was crying so much that he left ME out of it.

That's another Acting 101 rule:

If YOU cry, the audience won't. But if you FEEL like crying and you try to SUPRESS it (like you would in real life) - then the audience will weep.

The audience will experience that necessary catharsis - that community-building catharsis - which is the point of theatre.

But if an actor is so busy crying for HIMSELF, and so busy crying about how tragic the play is ... the audience will be distinctly un-moved.

Think about any of the scenes in films or plays which have moved you - and half the time it is because the character is holding back his emotions.

Think of Ben Kingsley saying to Liam Neeson in Schindler's List, with utter simplicity, and with this ... grin on his face ... and one solitary tear rolling down his cheek: "I think I'd better have that drink now."

Jesus - I just typed those words and felt my eyes fill with tears at the memory of the scene. Now THAT is some good acting.

Underplayed. His character is feeling SO MUCH - but he is holding it back ... and so we the audience get the gift of feeling it all. I've seen that movie probably 10 times - and it catches me at my throat every single time. It is not just the topic. It is the power and subtlety of the acting. It just works.

I have pretty much conquered the "oh my God, I don't cry easily" mindset. My great acting teacher (Sam - the one I've studied with for years) said to me pointedly:

"The job is called ACTor. Not FEELer."

Love that.

Posted by sheila