How to Stop Acting Read online

  After spending a week or more on your first monologue, move on to a second one. Men should work on Chekhov’s The Seagull, Treplev’s monologue in Act I, starting with the line “She loves me—she loves me not,” and going all the way to “I could guess their thoughts and I suffered from humiliation.” (Cut Sorin’s line, “We can’t do without the theater.”)

  Women should work on Elena’s soliloquy in Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Act III, starting with the line, “There is nothing worse than knowing someone’s secret and not being able to help.”

  These monologues are more difficult and more complicated, but work on them the same way, taking the lines off the page in pieces, allowing yourself to breathe and say what you mean and feel without caring where you are going or whether you are right or wrong. Let each moment take you rather than you taking it.

  After working a day or two on your monologue, start to read the entire play, slowly. Keep working on the monologue several times a day for a week or two until the lines are coming to you without reading. Do not memorize!

  You may notice that I begin with plays by Chekhov that many think too difficult for young actors. I disagree. I believe this material is excellent for young actors because Chekhov’s characters go all over the place. They are full of emotion and passion. They can be trivial, silly, and foolish one moment and poetic or profound the next. And his characters are always verbal. This is a good introduction to the real art of acting, I believe. I find that actors work better and faster with truly thought-provoking material—it gives them a stimulating environment. The actor will absorb whatever he can take in. No matter how little it may be, it will still be more useful to his development than working on lesser material. And once the actor is free with complex material, everything else is easy.

  After a week or two, go on to a third monologue: for the men, in Sam Shepard’s The Tooth of Crime, Hoss’s monologue in Act I, starting with the line, “Once I knew this cat in High School who was a Creole”; for the women, in John Guare’s play Marco Polo Sings a Solo. Diane’s monologue beginning with the line. “I really started cookin’ when I was eight.”

  These are very different kinds of characters and monologues. They are quite fun and complicated, and rich in images to stimulate the actor’s imagination. You will find them invaluable for opening yourself to physicalizing, exploring the outrageous, and connecting you to your instinct, imagination, and emotions. After a day or so, read the play.

  While working in depth on the monologues I have suggested, add a new monologue each day for practice. Repeat the new monologue twice. The next day, go on to another monologue. Add a new monologue each day for six weeks, but continue working in depth on the original monologues, reading the plays, and allowing yourself to grow with the character.

  You will find that the process gets easier and faster each day, leaving you feeling more natural and free each time you begin your work on a new text or prepare for an audition.

  Following is a list of monologues that have been valuable for many of the young actors I have taught. The order I have put them in suggests a rough path, but feel free to vary the order or add different monologues that interest you.

  MEN WOMEN

  Chekhov, The Three Sisters Chekhov, The Three Sisters

  Tuzenbach in Act I Irina in Act I

  “The longing for work …” “Tell me, why am I so happy?”

  Chekhov, The Seagull Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

  Treplev in Act I Elena in Act III

  “She loves me …” “There’s nothing worse …”

  Sam Shepard, The Tooth of Crime John Guare, Marco Polo Sings a Solo

  Hoss in Act I “I really started cooking when I was eight …”

  “Once I knew this cat in High School …”

  Michael Weller, Loose Ends Sam Shepard, Cowboy Mouth

  Paul in scene I Cavale

  “It was great at the beginning …” “I know the rhythm of it …”

  Chekhov, The Seagull Chekhov, The Three Sisters

  Treplev in Act II Irina in Act II

  “This began the evening my play failed …” “Here I am, home at last …” Cut Masha and Tuzenbach’s lines.

  Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman Michael Weller, Loose Ends

  Happy in Act I Janice in scene 7

  From “That’s what I long for …” to “ … I take it and—I love it.” “Like with Russel …”

  Shakespeare, As You Like It

  Shakespeare, King Lear Phebe in Act III, scene 5

  Edgar in Act II, scene 3 “Think not I love him …”

  “I heard myself proclaimed …”

  Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

  Eugene O’Neil, Long Day’s Journey into Sonya in Act II “He didn’t say” anything …”

  Night Attach Act III,”When a woman is not

  Edmund in Act IV beautiful …”

  ”Don’t lie about it!”

  Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

  Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Juliet in Act II, scene 2

  Romeo in Act II, scene 2 ”Thou knowest the mask of night …”

  ”He jests at scars …”

  Other Recommended Monologues

  MEN WOMEN

  Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman Michael Weller, Loose Ends

  Biff in Act I Susan in scene 1

  “I spent six or seven years …” to “ … all I’ve done is to waste my life …” Cut Hap’s line. “You got another cigarette?” and “OK, when I was ten …”

  Sam Shepard, Cowboy Mouth

  Sam Shepard, Buried Child Cavale

  Vince in Act III “You’re so neat.”

  “I was gonna run last night …”

  Eugene O’Neill, Long Days Journey into Chekhov, The Seagull

  Night Masha in Act III

  Edmund in Act I, scene 2 “I’m telling you all this because you’re a writer …” Cut Trigorin’s lines and make a monologue out of her lines in the scene.

  “Yes, she moves above and beyond us …”

  Chekhov, The Three Sisters

  Irina in Act III

  “Yes, how shallow our Andrei has become” to “I’m not crying anymore. Enough.” Cut all other’s lines.

  Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

  Olivia in Act I, scene 5

  “What is your parentage?” to end of Act I.

  Cut Malvolio’s lines.

  After a few weeks, you may want to start working on a scene with a partner. You will also find in chapter 3 a way to prepare scenes on your own.

  When working with a partner, do your own work—taking the lines off the page and looking up while listening to the other actor. It is best not to impose your way of working on the other actor. Simply do your work, and let the other actor do his. Don’t talk too much about the scene and how it should go. It’s not necessary to discuss it if you have felt it. Just keep reading the scene back and forth, exploring freely. Let the scene take you to lots of places. Get up from the table when you feel ready. Be free with your movement—be arbitrary. Don’t memorize. If you let the lines come to you, it will happen on its own.

  Following is a list of scenes that you might find useful in starting your work with a partner.

  Man / Woman Arthur Miller, A View From the Bridge

  Catherine and Rodolpho in Act II

  Man / Man Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

  Biff and Happy in Act I

  Woman / Woman Anton Chekhov, Uncle Vanya

  Elena and Sonya in Act II

  Start “The storm is over …”

  Man / Woman Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

  Medvedenko and Masha in Act I

  Opening scene

  Man / Woman Michael Weller, Loose Ends

  Paul and Susan in scene

  Start “Want some more?”

  Woman / Woman Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

  Viola and Olivia in Act I, scene 5

  Man / Woman Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

  Isabella and Angelo in
Act II, scene 4

  2

  EXPLORING THE ROLE TO UNCOVER THE CHARACTER

  “Acting is finding the truth. Some truths are more important than other truths. Some truths resonate and some are just intellectual notions. Good acting is when it is a truth that is intellectually and absolutely inspired—something personal and transcendent that moves you. That’s what we are talking about. It is the truth that is important to you—the truth that is personal in a profound way.”

  —Kevin Kline

  Some actors like to start from the outside of the character. What does the character look like—is he thin or fat, light or dark, physically fit or unfit? How does the character dress—formal or informal, neat or sloppy? Is the character rich, middle-class, poor? Is he educated? How does he speak? Walk? Eat? This is important stuff to know, and I deal with all these aspects of character eventually when I’m coaching an actor. But I don’t start there.

  American actors are usually taught to start with the inside of the character, as Stanislavski did. The “art” that teaches us to “create consciously and rightly” is supposed to begin with the conscious analysis of the character’s motivations. Analysis of the script entails defining the character’s objective—what the character wants—in each scene. This motivates the character’s action. There may also be several smaller objectives within the scene that the actor must define in active terms to take him toward his larger objective. Stanislavski stressed above all the need to know the character’s super-objective—the character’s “larger, vital purpose” in life or throughout the play. He believed that “the whole stream of individual minor objectives, all the imaginative thoughts, feelings, and actions of an actor, should converge to carry out the super-objective of the plot.” This analysis of the play for the character’s objectives and super-objective is the actor’s “conscious” work.

  As I have pointed out, however, all this analytical work interferes with the actor’s access to his unconscious instinct and feeling. He knows too much about the character in advance, and his thinking interferes with inspiration. Even Stanislavski observes, “When the subconscious, when intuition, enters into our work we must know how not to interfere.” But rather than abandon the analytic approach, he developed a “special technique” to re-create in the actor the emotions he had worked out for his character.

  The “special technique,” known as emotional recall or sense memory, goes something like this: the actor searches his memory for experiences in his past that evoked responses in him that are akin to the responses he has settled upon for his character. Then he goes through the experiences, detail by detail, to rekindle the attendant reactions, feelings, and senses. He plugs these into his performance at the appropriate moments in the text and practices accessing the responses so that they will appear in performance when they are needed.

  The idea is to be able to evoke these responses consistently, at the same points in every performance. Stanislavski quotes the great actor of his time, Salvini, as saying, “The great actor … must feel an emotion not only once or twice while he is studying his part, but to a greater or lesser degree every time he plays it, no matter whether it is the first or the thousandth time.” Then Stanislavski writes, “Unfortunately this is not within our control. Our subconscious is inaccessible to our consciousness. We cannot enter into that realm. If for any reason we do penetrate into it, then the subconscious becomes conscious and dies.” He believed, however, that he could “rouse the subconscious to creative work” through his “special technique,” training the actor to produce consistent, authentic responses.

  This is what is generally defined as the Method, and today there are many expert teachers of it, each with variations of his own. Most American actors started out acting in this way, including me. But I have long since abandoned starting there in my own acting or when I coach other actors, despite my great love for Stanislavski’s work. I appreciate how radical and forward-thinking he was for his time. He formulated his ideas about acting in the late nineteenth century, when Chekhov, Dostoyevski, and Strindberg were writing and Freud was on the verge of making his theories known. He developed his “special technique” in reaction to the general acting style of his day which was all elegant movement, elocution, and overly dramatic displays of characters’ emotions that bore not a touch of truthfulness.

  But we are not the children of Stanislavski’s theatre, and as contemporary actors and audiences, we take it for granted that acting should be real and natural. The best acting in theater should be no different from the best acting in film. And to my mind, the best is no acting at all, just real characters full of the variety and complexity of life.

  Stanislavski says, “One cannot always create subconsciously and with inspiration. No such genius exists in the world. Therefore our art teaches us first of all to create consciously and rightly, because that will best prepare the way for the blossoming of the subconscious, which is inspiration. The more you have of conscious creative moments in your role, the more chance you will have of a flow of inspiration.”

  As I acted in production after production, I came to believe that this was not true for me. Rather than freeing my inspiration, the conscious intellectual choices I made about my characters obligated me, closing down my instinct as well as my feelings. I worked hard at Stanislavski’s technique to find the emotions I needed to fill the character, but it didn’t truly work for me. It pulled me away from my true, free response to the script and the moment. By forcing me to favor memory over imagination, it shut down my connection to my unconscious thoughts, images, and fantasies. Using the technique always left me outside the intimate connection to the moment on stage or film. It took me out of the scene. I could always feel the gears turning. I felt as if I was in my own separate world, apart from the play going on around me. And the emotion never felt free. I was Acting.

  But when I rejected analysis and technique, I found that my imagination was free, full, and available to me again, and surprisingly, so were my emotions—without prolonged work on emotional recall. They were inspired by my moment by moment improvisation on the line, using nothing but my intuition and the script. And best of all, my connection to the words I spoke was natural, easy, and stimulating.

  I have no quarrel with actors who use the Method—or any other technique—if it works for them. I never try to change them. Every actor must find what works for him. I deal with the problems actors present to me, not what is working well. But many actors have come to me with a sense of being cut off from their instinct and imagination, just as I was. Or they come with a vague sense that something isn’t working, believing that the inadequacy lies with them, not the technique. And over the years I have watched many actors struggling to push their emotions, not trusting the text in the moment.

  I also believe that many actors who work well don’t really work in the prescribed way. They may not tell you that. They may not even know how they work—which can be a very good thing, because they are not bogged down with an Approach. But they don’t work in the prescribed way, because they need a freer access to instinct and themselves. They need to trust themselves more than their technique.

  To the extent that I believe in an Approach, I think that for many—perhaps most—actors the process works in a way opposite to the Method: if the actor accesses the subconscious first, through his uncensored response to the character’s words, he is inspired to explore the character in a creative and surprising way. I have found that it is next to impossible for the actor to “first create consciously.” In fact, the more conscious moments the actor has, I believe, the less chance he has of experiencing a flow of inspiration. Any time our thinking is too neat, it flattens our instinct. We have no true feelings because we have to fit our feelings into the way we see the character.

  So how do I think about character?

  In An Actor Prepares, Stanislavski writes, “Acting with your subconscious, intuitively … [is] very good, if your intuition carries you along the right p
ath, and very bad if it makes a mistake.”

  The caveat makes us panic at the possibility of making a mistake. It stresses the right path. But what is the right path? Is it the decision we make while analyzing the script? This is an intellectual decision based on a technique more appropriate to the classroom. This has nothing to do with art. The writer, if good, is writing from an instinctive, creative place. We, as actors, have to deal with his writing in an instinctive and creative way. And who is to decide what is the right path?

  I have come to believe that the “consistency” Stanislavski valued so highly is not necessary, or even desirable. It is certainly not worth the loss of spontaneity, if that is what it costs the actor.

  And I don’t see the conception of character as a finite thing. The character is not some painted-on picture of what we have decided in rehearsal, then presented as a finished product to the audience. The character is simply the actor’s continual responses to the author’s lines, an ongoing exploration that remains completely personal for him, from first reading through final performance.

  The character has to be in us if the audience is ever to believe us, and if we want to be free and alive in each moment. After all, the lines are coming out of our mouths anyway. We want the audience to be lost in what we say and do, not standing back, judging whether we are acting the character well or badly. So the lines must be ours, or the audience will see us acting a character. And every moment must be us—really us, what we are personally thinking, seeing, feeling, and saying. That is why the audience believes it and feels it. That’s what I mean when I say we must take responsibility for the line.

  But the actor doesn’t have to take responsibility for the character in the same way. The way the action and lines go from one line to the next, and one action to the next, creates the character. The actor’s responses remain in pieces, changing moment by moment, and with each repetition. They come together as the character only for the audience, as the lines, action, and story unfold before them in performance. That is not the actor. The moments are the actor. The character is the text. Because the script, the action, and the story are complete—finite—the actor does not have to be. In fact, I believe he must not be, in order for the character and script to be alive. The actor must be continually exploring the role by freely responding to the dialogue before rehearsal, in rehearsal, and-I know this a controversial notion—throughout his performance on stage or in filming.