How good it feels to get out of my head and just play. Meisner was very much on to something when saying the greatest threat to actors was their self-consciousness. That if actors could just get out of their heads and stop their self-judgments they all could be great.
This week started off with me very much in my head. I was very critical, judgmental, demanding, and conscious of myself. Through all that it was impossible for me to just play on the stage. I was stuck serving myself and my own ideas rather than stepping into the life and skin of another human being to serve the play. As actors our job is to first and foremost serve the play.
And in serving the play I must realize that there is no direct way into the life of a character I am playing. There is a “method,” yes, but it’s riddled with twists and turns. There are many facets to a character and play and those are discovered, often times through many failures. My coach has always described it as a sandbox and that I need to get in there and just play as I once did when I was a kid. As someone has told me, it isn’t called a play for no reason
I forget to play too often. Monday was the come down of that. However, Tuesday led to improv which is my favorite class. I always feel free to play in improv. One cannot put any forward thinking of ideas or contrivances into play with improv because it’s all made up. I never feel pressure to judge or critique myself because I have to be present in the moment with my scene partner(s) as we figure out this journey one line at a time.
In reflecting on that and my Monday struggle with method class I realized that I had stopped playing. And an actor that has stopped playing has stopped creating; I had killed my craft. Wednesday I had another scene and I decided to just play. I threw off all the work I had done on the scene and trusted it to be there for me and show up in the work and instead to focus mainly on playing. To focus on my scene partner, the given circumstances, and to play the life outside the lines.
The scene came alive. As I came alive my partner came alive, and as she grew more alive I in turn grew more playful. It was a chain reaction of play that created a beautiful scene. Which was still in service of the play through our prior work and study that came through. Thursday was the same in playing Petruchio—a character who can only be portrayed with playful attitude—I came alive once again. It was exhilarating, enlightening, fun, and most importantly my play allowed me to truly breathe life into this character beyond written words on a page.
Acting is behavior. That has been grilled into me constantly. It’s not about the lines, yet it is all about the lines. As actors our job is to serve the play and the lines by breathing the life of the character into them. We bring the life outside the lines, outside the given circumstances. We bring the behavior, and without playing there is no behavior. There is just a wooden actor on stage.
I must always remember to play. Even when life makes it hard. Even when it hits close to home. Acting is brave work and it is playful work. May we always be kids in a sandbox.