How to Stop Acting Read online

  Let’s look at the process of taking it off the page with a scene. How does it work?

  Suppose an actress, we’ll call her Sophie, comes to me for help with the role of Masha in Chekhov’s The Seagull. She has read the script. We begin our exploration together with the first scene of the play, which is between Masha and Medvedenko, the schoolteacher. (See box on opposite page.)

  Typically, when actors are preparing for a first reading of a scene in a play or screenplay, they read the script for themselves many times. During this period on their own they make lots of decisions about the character. When they read out loud together for the first time, they invariably keep their noses in the text while they say their lines back and forth, each of them approximating “expressive” line readings. It is impossible for them to have actual responses because they are reading and are not available to one another, themselves, or the script.

  I want the actor to come to a first reading with no decisions about the character. I want the first reading to be an open, no-holds-barred exploration that will allow the actor to start the process of discovering his character and himself within the script. I want him to simply take the lines off the page, connecting personally with his lines and listening to the other characters’ lines without reading them as the other actors speak. In order to listen, the actor must not be looking at another actor’s lines. His head cannot be in the page.

  From The Seagull by Anton Chekhov. (Chekhov: The Major Plays. Translation by Ann Dunnigan. New York: Signet Classics, 1964.)

  MEDVEDENKO. Why do you always wear black?

  MASHA. I am in mourning for my life. I am unhappy.

  MEDVEDENKO. Why? I don’t understand … You are in good health, and your father, though not rich, is well off. My life is much harder than yours. I get only twenty-three rubles a month, and out of that they take something for the pension fund, but I don’t wear mourning.

  MASHA. It isn’t a question of money. Even a beggar can be happy.

  MEDVEDENKO. Yes, in theory, but in practice it’s like this. There’s me, my mother, my two sisters, and a little brother—on a salary of only twenty-three rubles. People have to eat and drink, don’t they? And they need tea and sugar? And tobacco? It’s not easy to make ends meet.

  Since I’m reading Medvedenko, I have the first line. “Why do you always wear black?” Breathing in and out, I look up and ask the question simply.

  Sophie can look at me or not, but she should not be reading my line as I say it or as I read it for myself. Nor should she be reading ahead to see what her own next line is. If Sophie is reading, she can’t really be listening, and if she isn’t listening, she can’t really respond. Without her response, her line will mean nothing. Listening is crucial to having a real response.

  Maybe as Sophie listens, she’s thinking, It’s none of his business, or Who knows why I always wear black? Then, looking down at Masha’s first line, “I’m in mourning for my life,” she breathes in and out, thinking, I know the feeling, especially at auditions when I feel there’s not a prayer of getting the job. Looking up, she says the line. Then she looks down for her next line—“I’m unhappy”—and thinks, This is me today because I hate what I’m doing. Or maybe she’s not unhappy. That is also usable, as long as she says the line of the script. After all, Masha may be reluctant to say this. She may be irritated by the question. Who knows? The important thing is to see where the line and her feelings at the moment take Sophie. They are all that she has.

  I listen to what she says. I think it’s kind of theatrical, using words like “mourning,” “wearing black.” Then, breathing in and out, I look down at my line, “Why?” I’m curious. I’ve forgotten where I’m going even though I know this play very well. So I look down at my next line. “I don’t understand …” Making sure I don’t rush, I take a breath and look for the rest of the line, “You are in good health.” I breathe out, look up, and say the line. It feels foolish to me. I look down, breathe in and out—letting the next line into myself—look up and say, “And your father, though not rich, is well off.” I know this may seem absurd, but I feel like one of my uncles when I say this—like an old man. The next line is “My life is much harder than yours.” Breathing, feeling like a complete fool, I look up and say it. I’m embarrassed by my line. But I say what I feel. I have no idea how it’s coming out of my mouth. I only know what’s playing on me. I don’t care if it makes sense. This is just an exploration. There will be many more. I’m only concerned with this moment.

  “I get only twenty-three rubles a month.” I find myself getting angry with the self-pity in the line. “And out of that they take something for the pension fund.” I want to shout this, I feel so stupid and angry. I look up and let it out, almost shouting. I look down. “But I don’t wear mourning.” I spit this out!

  The actress is shocked. Looking down, she reads, “It’s not a question of money.” Breathing out, she says this to me as if I’m an idiot. “Even a beggar can be happy,” she says dismissively.

  As she is talking, I’m thinking, Beggar?! I get my line: “Yes, in theory.” She is ridiculous, not me, I think. “But in practice it’s like this.” I get the line out quickly, brutally. “There’s my mother, my two sisters, and a little brother.” My eye picks this up all at once, because my mind is moving very fast. It’s hard to slow down. “On a salary of only twenty-three rubles.” It comes popping out of me, full of frustration and anger. “People have to eat and drink, don’t they?” Getting louder. “And they need tea and sugar? And tobacco?” Finally I let the anger leave me. I make sure to breathe in and out so I can take my time and let the next line in simply. “It’s not easy to make ends meet.” I feel humiliated, apologetic.

  And so on.

  It may seem to beginning actors that I and other experienced actors must have unrestricted access to our feelings and fantasies. But sometimes even seasoned performers have difficulty exploring the lines freely because their physical self-consciousness is keeping them from feeling connected to what they are saying.

  Actors are physical creatures, and it is necessary for them to feel physically free in order for their instinct and imagination to surface on a given line. Yet most physical training in acting has to do with the nonverbal—mime, clown technique, dance. A great deal of actor training in avant-garde theater, games theater, and methods of study like that of the French teacher LeCoq emphasizes physical improvisation. All of this is valuable. But for most actors, the simple relationship between physical ease and ease in speaking lines is more immediately important. If the actor feels a separation between his physical and verbal expression, he will be blocked emotionally as well as creatively. All he will feel is self-conscious and awkward about moving and talking on stage or before the camera. The lack of connection will make everything he says or every move he makes feel unnatural to him.

  Film actors in particular tend to suffer from this disconnect. As Ally Sheedy told me, “I had this fear of using my body. Most of the time you don’t use it in film. Nobody said to move your body. They usually said, ‘Stand on your mark’ or ‘Just walk from there to there and say the line.’ I would disconnect from my body and just use my head.”

  You may recall that in Paul’s monologue from Loose Ends, when I read the line “Teach us songs,” I had an impulse to physicalize the image: I danced and sang, and felt that I could touch the words and image. As I physicalized the image, it became easier to say the phrase, because I already felt connected to it, and my body felt comfortable. In fact, I was not aware of any tension in my body because I was consumed by the image itself. I did this not with the intention of physicalizing the image or line in performance, but in order to explore the text and character without being self-conscious. I often have to physicalize an image for myself before I can freely say it while taking the lines off the page. I’m very tactile and need to touch the image to make it real for me.

  I ask an actor who is having difficulty taking it off the page because he is physically se
lf-conscious to do the same thing. First he looks down and lets the line into himself while breathing in and out. Then I have him physicalize the image for himself in such a way that he feels he can almost touch it. Then, after he has physicalized the image, he says the line. As with the actor’s reactions when speaking, it doesn’t matter how foolish or stupid the physicalizing is. It’s not for performance. And after the actor has done it once, he may not need to do it again. As a matter of fact, in performance the actor may not move at all. This physicalizing is for the actor, so that he can feel the image in his body and then say the line or phrase with the writer’s words. Once he’s gotten it out of his body, he is free to repeat it or not, whatever interests him.

  Ally remembers it this way: “Before I said a word, I had to physicalize it through my body. I had to say it physically before I could verbalize the word, the image.” She adds, “It was the hardest thing for me to do at that point. It was just so foreign to use my body while acting. I was at loose ends. I had been a dancer, and it was like stretching this muscle I hadn’t used for so long. But it all came back.”

  Remember earlier in the chapter when I described to Ellen my response to her line, “He died from champagne”? I mimed for myself sniffing the bubbles in a champagne glass that I imagined holding. This kind of physicalization can help us to respond and feel what we say.

  Once the actor connects the physical to the specific image and thought in a way that is freeing, his imagination and instinct will take over. His body will again feel natural to him. He will be fully expressive. It is not necessary to do this with every phrase or line, only those that cause him trouble.

  If the actor is having particular difficulty freeing himself physically while he is taking it off the page, I may ask him to move after each phrase—walk to another chair or across the room, lean against the wall or sit on the floor or lie down. Once he comes to rest, he can breathe in and out, let the next line in, physicalize the image (or not), and then say the phrase. After he says it, I ask him to change his position again before he goes to the next line, and so on. The choice of where and how to move each time is arbitrary—the actor must move without thinking. Then he must settle into a quiet place before he picks up the next line. In this way, the stillness becomes physical as well.

  Even Kevin Kline, who is now considered a physical acting genius, had to learn to trust his immediate physical responses, because at first they seemed so outrageous. He thought he would seem foolish if he acted on them. But he gave a memorable demonstration of how physical and verbal impulses interact when he was preparing his first Hamlet at the Public Theater in New York. Sitting on my couch, Kevin was taking “To be or not to be” off the page. He looked down at the page for a long time, took a breath in and out, looked up, and said quietly, “To be,” as if he was trying to figure out what he was saying. Instead of continuing with the rest of the line, which of course he knew, he looked at the line as if he had never seen it before. He took a breath in and out and looked up. He didn’t say anything. He got up, walked toward me, and pointed to a foot-long conductor’s baton sitting on the bookshelf over my desk.

  “May I?” he asked.

  “Sure,” I said.

  He took the baton and sat on the edge of the sofa. Then, with his index finger, he touched the vulnerable flesh on the right side of his neck just under the jawbone. He placed the point of the baton there and balanced the other end precariously on the middle finger of his right hand, pushing the baton’s sharp point gently into the soft skin of his neck. His head tilted back, his neck totally exposed to the point, he breathed in and out and said, “or not to be.” The phrase came out so simply, yet with full consciousness of how easy it would be to push the point through his neck if it were a razor-sharp dagger rather than a plastic baton.

  He continued taking phrase after phrase off the page with the baton against his throat. It was thrilling and terrifying for me and for him.

  Kevin needed something to spark or free his imagination so he could say the lines of this famous soliloquy and take responsibility for them. While taking it off the page, he had given himself the time to let his mind, his instincts—and his eyes—wander. He felt instinctively that he needed a physical component to these thoughts. That’s why and how he spotted the conductor’s baton. In being available to his thoughts, his feelings, his imagination, and his physicality, an actor also becomes available to serendipitous discovery.

  As Prince Hal says in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, “And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.”

  Suggestions for Practice

  Practice taking it off the page with a monologue, not a scene, at first. If you get used to trusting yourself and your responses to your own lines, you will find that scenes are much easier. That is because in a scene the stimulus for the response comes from outside—from the other actor. So you are pushed to respond. But immersing yourself in a monologue, relying only on yourself and the text, will make you much stronger and independent in scenes with other actors. You won’t be at the mercy of the other actor. Although you have no choice over what you hear, see, feel, and think when the other actor is saying his line, you are free after responding to drop that response and go wherever your own line takes you. So, the stronger you are and the more available to yourself, the better for your development in the long run.

  I suggest young men start with Tuzenbach’s Act I monologue in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. It begins: “The longing for work, oh, my God, how well I understand it!”

  I suggest young women start with Irina’s Act I monologue in The Three Sisters. It begins: “Tell me, why am I so happy today?” Cut Ivan Romanych’s line “My little white bird …” and end with the line: “And if I don’t get up early and work, you can give me up as a friend, Ivan Romanych.”

  Both these monologues will be helpful in beginning your work because they are full of interesting language and images for physicalization, and very emotional. Both monologues can also be naive, foolish, idiotic, and fun as well as passionate. If you trust yourself to let the phrases, lines, and images into yourself without acting you will find yourself, step-by-step, slipping into the character’s shoes. Don’t try to speak better than you do. Use your own voice—this will keep you in touch with yourself as you explore the text.

  Work on your first monologue every day for at least a week or until the lines come to you without looking down at the page. Don’t try to memorize. Don’t try to run the lines. Just take it off the page from beginning to end until you feel used up, frustrated, or unable to concentrate. Then stop working on the monologue for the moment. Don’t force it. Do something else for a while—take a walk, have a cup of tea or a snack. Do something that will refresh you, not tire you out. Then, when you’re clear, go back to the monologue. Do this several times a day, even if you can only work for twenty minutes or half an hour without a break. You will find that each time you work you will have real concentration, even if it’s just for a short time. And going back again and again will extend your concentration, until you can work for longer and longer periods. Training your concentration is one of the most important things you can do as an actor.

  After the first day, read the whole play. It’s a long play and you may not be used to reading this kind of writing, so go slowly. Never read for speed; it may be valuable in academic work, but it is useless for actors. While reading, keep going back to the monologue, taking the lines off the page several times each day.

  Obsess over your work—it’s good for you. For instance, Ellen Wolf told me that she leaves her script on the kitchen table. She often works in there, cooking, cleaning, opening the mail, and a lot of varied emotions pop up there—she cuts her finger, reads an annoying letter, receives a rotten or wonderful phone call, creates a fantastic dinner (or blows it). Whatever is happening, she picks up the script and starts on the monologue or the scene. In this way, she starts not from a set place, ready to Act, but from within her life, her everyday experiences. She allows them
to inform the text. This is a very good way to work.

  Remember, don’t make taking it off the page a Technique. Stay loose! Most important, take the time to breathe in and out before you say the line. Then say it before thinking about it. The breathing will give you plenty of time to register the thought or image. Let the line take you as it comes out of your mouth. At first, take the line off the page in pieces. When in doubt, stop and take a breath in and out. Then go on to the next piece.

  Don’t make decisions. Don’t hold on to something just because it worked once. Keep exploring each time you go back to the monologue. Keep letting go—and keep going. Trust that things that are good will come back and things that don’t work will fall away.

  It’s more important to know what feels free than to know what is right. The sense of being arbitrary is what we are after—not caring what works or where we are going but rather feeling free to test our wings and do whatever comes to us from the line.

  If you are feeling “stuck” or if you are thinking too much before saying the line, first try physicalizing the line while taking it off the page. Then, try moving arbitrarily to another place in the room before saying the line. Without reading, move (to another chair, down on the floor, against the wall), come to rest, then look down at the phrase—not the whole line—while breathing, physicalize (or not) and say it. Keep doing this until you are no longer stuck or thinking too much.

  If you are boring yourself with your work on the monologue, try this: do the whole monologue from beginning to end five different ways—first do it for laughs, then for interior values, then for anger, then for tenderness, and then for petty (bratty) values. Finally, after exploring the monologue in each of these ways, do it however it comes out. You may surprise yourself with entirely new responses.