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ACTING
a psychological and technical approach
by
Adam Darius
RELEASING THE EMOTIONS
Progression exercises
The purpose of these exercises
The following progressional exercises are a vital key towards opening the bolted door of emotional release. They are immensely therapeutic as well as explosively theatrical. The inhibitions that greet the first efforts are to be expected, since most of these emotions in extremis have, until now, been taboo if expressed even privately, let alone publicly. For the person who dares to push his way to the forefront of personality expression (such as fury or hysteria), there is often in wait a punishment extracted by conformist society.
Expressing repressed emotions
There are many students who have never even consciously experienced some of these feelings. There are other students who, though they have personally felt these moods, have never aggressively confronted another person with any of them (to be defiant or to revile, for example). Strangers as they are to such excessive expression within themselves and with others, these students believe it is almost impossible to do these exercises in the naked glare of theatrical lighting and, as well, in the presence of a teacher or observers.
But it can be done and once achieved there is no looking back. The results are often extraordinary. Once the lid is off the rubbish bin of private demons, the fresh air of catharsis acts like a tonic.
Doing the exercises first with sound only
Since we are accustomed to camouflaging our feelings with words, the first expression of these progression exercises is made in sound. With words we can be devious. With sound it is harder to manipulate the truth.
Doing the exercises in silence
The second time we do the exercise, we eliminate the sound and convey the thought with a silent urgency. The sound that was formerly concentrated in the vocal cords is at once redistributed throughout the body. The emotion, localized in the voice box, is rerouted until it shoots out of the torso, head, hands and feet.
The thought, formerly expressed in sound, is now disseminated throughout all the body. The monopoly once known by the tongue is now equitably shared by the entire physical instrument.
I will preface these exercises with psychological explanations, for without an understanding of a person's motor and motives, we are left in the darkness of misconception.
The sequential order of the exercises
The order of these progression exercises is deliberate. I begin these progression exercises with the easiest, the ones that are possible with the least sense of restriction.
If I were to ask, at the outset, for one of the later progression exercises, the actor could well suffer from a kind of emotional paralysis, thereby defeating the exercise's very purpose.
Personalizing the image
In each of these progression exercises, a specific image must be nurtured by the mind. Personalize, don't generalize. In other words, don't call upon a general impression. Rather, filter the exercise through your own specific experience.
The time duration of each exercise
Each of the three parts of the following exercises should be done for some 15 seconds or so. And remember, do each progression exercise first with sound, then repeat the exercise in silence.
Exercise
Hungry greedy gluttonous
When doing this exercise, think of food. Though few of us know what it is to starve, all of us know what it is to be hungry. Use that knowledge and magnify it.
To do this and all the other progression exercises, the actor readies himself by sitting cross-legged on the floor. From this position the actor can move about freely within his own area.
Hungry. With sound and movement, the actor begins, having been ignited by his mental picture of hunger.
Greedy. With that directive, the actor accelerates emotionally.
Gluttonous. The actor becomes frantic in his ravenous grabbing for nourishment.
Until this point, the hungry, greedy and gluttonous progression exercise has been done in both sound and movement.
Now, repeat that exercise, as well as those to follow, without sound, in mime. The energy that was pinpointed in the throat is to be immediately diffused through every other part of the body.
This is a key principle in acting without words; namely that the mental image is instantaneously released throughout all of the physical instrument.
Giggles laughter hysterical laughter
Find a mental image of an incident which can precipitate giggles which can, in turn, escalate to laughter, then finally to hysterical laughter. Perhaps the incident called upon is one from school days when, knowing one was not supposed to laugh, the desire to do so got out of hand.
Though seemingly simple, the exercise is more difficult than meets the eye, for we have been indoctrinated to ration all of our emotional reactions, even festive ones of high-spirited response.
Obstinate resistant defiant
In our society, obedience to parents, teachers, bureaucracy, officialdom and the military, is relentlessly instilled into us. In consequence, to overtly express opposition is a task beset with barriers. But persist we must, because these exercises stretch the actor's emotional ligaments.
Select an image of adequate force that will carry you through the final progression. If you think, "No, I will not bring you a cup of coffee," that thought is too tepid to boil to the level of defiance. Find an image that could threateningly overflow.
Pleased enthusiastic enraptured
Here we come across a positive progression exercise which in its own way is as difficult as the anti-social ones. This is due to the fact that even appreciative feelings are bottled in our emotion-fearing society. How often have you ever wanted to tell someone you thought him or her beautiful or wonderful or whatever, and refrained from imparting the compliment? How many compliments have you, yourself, never heard because others have nipped in the bud their own most responsive thoughts?
When doing this particular exercise, see yourself at an athletic event, a rock concert, the ballet or opera, idolizing your favourite star. Let yourselves go and air the cupboard of your inhibitions. You are not committing a crime by giving vent to your profound appreciation. The sin is in keeping it a secret.
Asking begging imploring
What is it you require so urgently? This must be a request of utmost importance. Have your passport and money been stolen? Are you asking or begging the restaurant maître d' to give you temporary credit? Are you imploring some faceless civil servant at the social security offices to make you eligible for funds?
Whatever it is that you are requesting must border on desperation.
Images visions hallucinations
Select a thought that is either very positive or very negative. The in-between image will not lift off the ground. If, after a few seconds, the chosen image escapes you, quickly replace it with another.
The image selected could be one induced by chemicals, medicine, the occult or from orthodox religion. You may be wide awake or, conversely, sound asleep. Just be sure that when you do this exercise, you don't hold back. Let yourself go. Let loose.
Tasty delicious scrumptious
Within this frothy exercise lies a covert symbolism. On the surface, the actor looks only as if he is basking in the pleasure of tasting a slice of strawberry-topped chocolate cake.
But as the actor arrives at the scrumptious section, his pleasure is diminished by the knowledge that the chocolate gateau will soon be finished. This sense of impending loss adds a bittersweet tinge to the otherwise delectable dessert.
One could see this exercise as symbolic; youth's view of life as seemingly endless, with its consequent waste of time (tasty and delicious). As for the scrumptious section, could it not be the view of the elderly, aware more than ever of the finite, relishing the remaining cake, savouring the sliver that is left?
Irritation anger fury
When it comes to releasing anger, we again run into the barrier of social prohibition. As in many of the progression exercises, there are always a number of actors for whom anger and fury are unknown emotions. And even when these emotions are understood, they have, most often, never been released.
Parents and teachers do not take lightly to temper tantrums in childhood, nor does society in maturity. Such long-standing disapproval puts the lid on livid behaviour. For the actor, these restrictive shackles are not easy to remove. When the curtain goes up at 7 o'clock, he knows he should give forth, but our social history of personality repression often interferes.
Inhibitions aside, this exercise should not really present undue problems, for who, in the course of a week, let alone the years, is not familiar with intermittent irritation, occasional anger, and even infrequent fury? Here is your chance to release these strong feelings within an accepted and protected frame.
Silly stupid idiotic
To behave in a silly, stupid or idiotic fashion goes against the grain of upbringing. For to make a fool of oneself in public is an acute embarrassment to be avoided at all costs.
Despite the difficulty of this exercise, the actor must do his best to let his hair down, so to speak. There are definite benefits to be gained from this effort, for the exercise removes restraints and loosens the girdle of inhibition. And what is inhibition, if not the arch enemy of the actor?
Freedom abandon chaos
Everyone wants to be free and why not? We were not born to be cooped up like chickens (and neither were they, but that is another matter.)
Freedom without restraint can become a weapon used against oneself. Freedom without discipline leads to personal anarchy, to utter chaos.
Take Russia, for example. Their freedom, misused, has led to an imitation of the worst aspects of our capitalism. The emergent African nations of the early 1960s were given independence before they understood the machinery of self-autonomy. Now the most savage civil wars are rife and random.
The route from freedom to chaos is a very short one, indeed.
The student will now express his joy of freedom (perhaps after too long a restraint). Then that joy of freedom will gather force as it moves into wild abandon, subsequently amassing cyclonic momentum as it is sucked into the bedlam of chaos.
Sparkle burn blaze
Differing somewhat from the other progression exercises, this one can be expressed literally, that is, as a small particle of flame graduating into a full scale fire. Alternatively, the exercise can be interpreted symbolically, that is, as a person radiating gleams of light (sparkle), then becoming luminous with fierce heat (burn) and, finally, incandescing into a glittering whiteness (blaze).
Meditation prayer mania
Here we run into the problem of many actors who cannot identify with the religiousness of the theme. This is the flimsiest of excuses for being unable to interpret a role. Where would we find actors to breathe life into theatrical literature if only those actors who had experienced murder and incest, for instance, were available for performance? Familiarity with the experience, or its lack, is not the criterion for coming to grips with a role.
If you've never meditated, you have most likely reflected quietly. If you've never prayed, you have, in all probability, fervently hoped for the presence in your life of something then absent. And if mania is a total stranger in your experience, you have, I would venture to say, felt extreme emotion on certain occasions when either at an athletic event or theatrical performance. If not, you may well have endured a runaway and unrequited passion for another person. In all of these situations are to be found the fiery offshoots of menacing mania.
To extract the full value of this exercise, find some seed of identification and quickly water it.
Friendly affectionate loving
This progression exercise, so simple for some, proves to be difficult for others. Why? Because many people find themselves incapable of conveying love. Too often, in life, one's love is declared too late, after death. In the empty echo of the aftermath, the bitter pangs of regret never quite go away.
Though it is part of human nature to love, many people feel unworthy of being its recipient. Guilt has been part of their upbringing. Unable to accept love's bounty, they become incapable of offering it.
For others, the fear of rejection prevents love's declaration. And for countless more, the admission of love is somehow bound up with embarrassment, even between parents and children.
Insofar as acting is concerned, to delve into the difficulty of an exercise is to overcome and surmount it. When doing this exercise, reveal your need for the one you love, or for one you have loved, or for one you could love.
Request insist demand
Place yourself in a situation where you are a customer in a shop requesting a refund for a faulty kettle. Because you do not have the kettle's ten-year guarantee and the receipt with you, the salesgirl is adamant in her refusal to return your money. Following your polite request, you less politely insist. Then, losing your patience, you at once demand.
Warn reprimand punish
In this imperfect world, evil runs amok. Women commit murders as violent and as obscene as men, and small children have joined the ranks of killers. In Holland recently, there was an epidemic of divorced fathers, furious at the alimony laws that favoured ex-wives, murdering their children in order to punish their former spouses. Medea in reverse.
On a personal level, who has not been betrayed, at least once, by an enemy masquerading as a friend?
With a cornucopia of evil pickings, the actor has an abundance of choice. Select your image, someone you knew or know, or someone in the news, and warn.
Then, the warning unheeded, reprimand. Finally, mete out a punishment that fits the crime, a punishment in direct proportion to the depth of the wound. Here is your chance to right the listing ship of justice.
Discomfort pain agony
As I have stated earlier, it is not for the lily-livered to become actors in the time-honoured sense of the word. Who would wish to relive the agony of an excruciating tooth ache or any of the other pains that, without warning, visit us? Only masochists, self-flagellating neurotics and, need it be said, actors digging through emotional debris most other people have long buried. But dig we must if we wish to cross the barbed border from make-believe to belief.
The actor finds an image of discomfort, escalating into pain, then into agony. As the vulnerable body is heir to such a plethora of illnesses, it needs little, if any, prompting to locate the propelling image.
Whimper sob wail
This progression exercise is, perhaps, even more demanding than the previous one in that it activates acute emotional distress. Sometimes mental anguish is harder to bear than its physical counterpart.
Crying in our culture, in public, especially for men, is extremely frowned upon. Too often we read in the newspapers that, at a funeral, such and such a man "broke down", or "unashamedly wept". Why, one wonders, are tears at a graveside cause for shame?
Be that as it may, if crying is looked upon askance, then sobbing is considered the domain of hysteria. As for wailing, that is totally alien to Western tradition. It is regarded as an atavistic custom engaged in by primitive people.
If the actor has, until now in his life, been spared the rupture of grief, he can imagine himself a member of an ancient Greek chorus, bewailing some unexpected and calamitous event.
When doing the final section of this exercise, the actor must magnify his own understanding of sorrow's weight.
At the source of everyone's knowledge is, of course, their own experience. As for my own intimacy with the living and dead, I know that coping with loss is one of life's most difficult trials. So it is in keeping for me here to now point out the following thought.
In bereavement, there comes a day when one ceases to grieve. But never is there a day when one ceases to love.
Conscientious ambitious megalomaniacal
Think of yourself as a politician beginning his career with the scruples and ethics befitting a man aspiring to public office. As he enters the race for high office, he is, at all times, conscientious.
Then, after he is elected, the pungent taste of new-found power worms its way into his blood. Propped up with the aphrodisiac of power, he becomes driven with unquenchable ambition.
In due course, like so many heads of state, he has dropped his mask, revealing the dreaded face of tyranny. The pollution of political life has turned him into that ultimate ego tripper, the megalomaniac.
Apprehensive frightened terrified
This is a deceptively challenging exercise and one laden with a trap, that is, the temptation to indicate, to parrot, to mimic the emotion rather than submit oneself to its actuality.
The situation called upon is one of such mental anguish that the actor tends to hide beneath the safety valve of imitation. But, of course, this is escapism, not a solution. One has to be brave to be an actor, for one must extract the marrow of often uncomfortable experience. So, be stouthearted and don't be afraid to be afraid.
Not everyone, in a real situation of terror, calls upon the cliché of clenched hand to open mouth. For many people, while the brain pounds against the skull, the body freezes.
Now, give in to a situation, real or imagined, and let the chips fall where they may. That is, think only of the situation and the results will be what they will be.
Disturbance neurosis psychosis
Who among us can avoid disturbance? It threads its way through the very fabric of our existence. As for neurosis, this is disturbance unleashed and out of bounds. Many creative artists live with varying degrees of neurosis, but I would hazard a guess that most high achievers do as well. In point of fact, one can derive a lot of mileage out of a little neurosis, in that what aggravates can also motivate. However, to make neurosis work for us, instead of against us, we must harness it and remain in full command.
As for psychosis, a psychiatric term without the legal implications of insanity, this lies within the danger zone of mental derangement.
For those actors who have experienced the damaged minds of mentally ill people, choosing an image will fall easily into place. For those students who have not personally encountered mental illness, be imaginative, calling upon your fertile fantasy in lieu of the reality.
Get-together party bacchanal
The bright young things endlessly fill the style pages of magazines, competing for a moment of fame as brief as a false-eyelashed blink. Consumed by the flashbulbs of paparazzi, today's coke-snorting debs are tomorrow's embittered has-beens.
From the beginning to the end of the 20th century, the play is the same; only the cast list changes.
For this progression exercise, in your mind's eye, meet some friends at a local pub for a get-together. Then, sashaying out of the pub on to the street in your Gucci boots and Versace outfit, hail a taxi to a promotional launch party. From there, drive through the night to a fashionable King's Road address. This party is already in full swing, London's beau monde frolicking, cavorting, imbibing and injecting, desperate silhouettes in a frantic bacchanal.
Attraction desire lust
With this exercise, inhibition, understandably, rears its uninvited head. For, in matters sexual, virtually all religious leaders toe a threatening parallel line, their relentless indoctrination no easy cloak to shed.
This progression exercise could quite easily turn into a comedy of farcical proportions, because though sex may feel right for the participants, it can appear ridiculous to observers. Let us, as a counterbalance, add an element of opposition. That is to say, though the thought is maximum, the movement is minimal.
Badly behaved delinquent criminal
The actor, as a child, vents his angry spleen by deliberately misbehaving. Then, as a teenager, he graduates into destructive activities, his juvenile delinquency alerting the attention of social workers and the police. Finally, the miscreant has escalated into full scale criminal action, a scenario all too common in the screeching glare of the searchlight.
Detest abhor abominate
There is an apocryphal story, second World War vintage, of Hitler having been captured and tied to a stake in a village square, a village in which he had decimated most of the population. The townspeople had lit a fuse running from the opposite end of the square to Hitler's feet, waiting for the bomb at his feet to explode.
As the lit fuse inched its burning path towards Hitler, seconds from the moment of execution, an aged rabbi rushed to the fuse and extinguished it. The mob, in their fury, grabbed the old man of God and, in utter astonishment, demanded to know why he had salvaged Hitler's life.
"For a monster who has caused such incalculable agony, such a death as we have organized is too swift and simple. Now, let us light the fuse and recommence."
The actor may select a tyrant from either the history books or newspapers, or someone he may happen to overwhelmingly loathe. As this exercise calls upon hatred in the extreme, an apt image must be chosen.
Chapter Eight
SCENE STUDY
When opportunity comes too soon and with nary a struggle, it is not seized by grateful hands. Instead, the golden chance is summarily refused. Years later, when such good fortune is but a memory, the fool has, too late, grown wiser.
How can a drama student, worthy of the name, select a scene from a play, never having read the play in its entirety? Surprisingly, many do just that. Even having read the play from beginning to end, you cannot claim to be intimately familiar with every aspect of your chosen character, any more than you can fathom every facet of someone you think you know very well. Ideally, if you're rehearsing, let us say, a Tennessee Williams play, you should also steep yourself in the works of other writers of the Deep South, of that same era and even earlier. Explore. Can you sense the languor of a late afternoon Louisiana sun, or the faded grandeur of a society now and for ever gone with the wind?
Selecting a scene
Having first read the entire play from the cast list to the curtain, select the scene you wish to do.
Summarize the meaning of the play, and then this scene in particular.
What similarities can you find between yourself and the playwright's character? Make every effort to find some common denominator of temperament between yourself and the playwright's creation.
The character's action
The character's action can also be referred to as the character's intention, aim, wish, goal or superobjective. I must stress that when I write about the character's action, or intention, it is just that, not, and I repeat, not, the actor's intention.
What does your character wish, above all, to achieve? For example, your character's action is to persuade a friend to loan him a large sum of money, a request which the friend refuses outright.
To achieve this objective (of obtaining the desired sum of money), the character wishing to borrow can pursue smaller goals in order to fulfil his wish. For instance, the borrowing character could beg, plead poverty or, at his most desperate, threaten, each of his different approaches evoking varying responses from the other character.
Depending on the situation in the play, the character's objectives, or wishes, may even occur and be realized simultaneously. Concurrent actions or intentions, will, obviously, necessitate a more complex interplay between the characters.
So then, what is this character's most insistent need? What does the character want above all? When the actor can accurately answer that question about his character, he is then well on his way to playing his action fully. His character is, in consequence, en route to achieving his goal.
Knowing your character
Are you sufficiently knowledgeable about your character's background? Make the effort to know the character in his totality, not just the surface image apparent at first glance.
Now ask yourself, then answer, the following questions.
1. Who is this character? Are you familiar with his psychological make-up? What are his strongest and weakest points?
2. Where is this scene taking place?
3. When is this scene happening?
4. How strong is the character's need to get exactly what he wants?
5. What must the character overcome in order to achieve his goal?
Further familiarizing yourself with the character
Having answered the basic questions above, the actor could further explore the character's personal history by answering the following more inquisitive queries.
1. Where was the actor prior to the present scene?
2. What, in that previous scene, was he doing?
3. When the play ends, what do you think will be the future, the fate, call it what you will, of that character whose very brain you have begun to enter?
By probing the past and divining the future, by assembling together the jumbled pieces of your character's jigsawed psyche, the character begins to come alive. Resultantly, the character becomes believable to you, the actor, and, therefore, by logical extension, a living entity to the audience.
The character's changing attitude
Observe, in real life, how your manner alters depending on the company you are in. When meeting a small child, or an aged person, or your employer, or last year's girlfriend, you will, if you see yourself objectively, notice that you relate differently to each one of them. In other words, you modify your behaviour according to the person with whom you are in contact.
So must this fluctuation of response be carried into the rehearsal. Each character in the play will produce upon your character, as in life, a slightly altered reaction. And, as often happens when spending many hours in the presence of one person, your manner of relating to that person will change as the hands of the clock move on. This is your character's attitude, and it will shift like a weather vane in the unpredictable climes of human nature.
The character's attitude is always coloured and determined by the degree of fulfilment or frustration, whichever, that he encounters in pursuing his action.
Preparing a scene
Now that you have absorbed the preceding preparations, put into practice these principles in the scene of your own choice.
1. Improvise your scene in a made-up language. The sound, of course, will be meaningless, but the root of the character must be exposed.
2. Following this, improvise the scene with only sounds, either guttural grunts or hissing. Make any sound that instinctively comes to you which conveys the character's state of mind. Fulfil each moment as if you have absolutely no idea what will happen next in the scene. Your activity should lead you to your next response, a completely natural response, and not a predetermined one.
3. Now, improvise the scene with the alphabet exercise as described earlier. Both characters will convey the intention of the scene using disjointed letters of the alphabet. Though the actual sounds will come across as gibberish, the thrust of the actors' intentions must be, nevertheless, unswervingly clear.
4. Having improvised the scene in a made-up language, then with sounds, and then with the alphabet exercise, now improvise the scene in movement, silently.
Do not obscure the character by dancing as such. Move as if the character were unable to speak, movement being his only means of communication. The ever present intention must compensate for the absence of any text or sound.
5. If the room you are in can be completely blacked out, have your partner in the scene direct a flashlight into only your face. Then, with only your face illuminated, express the essence of the scene, wordlessly, using only the mobility of your facial muscles. Now, reverse the procedure with your partner, letting him convey his character through only facial expressions.
6. Turning the lights back on, finally do the scene as written. Do not lean on the text as does an arthritic person on a cane. The text awaits you as a springboard from which to release the intentions of the author.
Pointers to remember
1. If the text is stylized or written in verse, do not play its style. Style is a result, as an echo is to sound.
2. Do not feel hampered by the fact that the text is poetic. Think of a poem, a sonnet, or verse as a dramatic situation to be interpreted, no less than a scene written in everyday colloquial speech.
3. As for comedy, invest the role with the same degree of honesty as you would its dramatic counterpart. Always approach a comic theme no less seriously than you would a tragic one.
4. If the scene you have chosen is a monologue, see and hear the responses of the other person before reacting.
Should a role be approached by instinct or analysis?
When an actor of forty years' experience states that he neither does homework before first rehearsals nor asks himself questions after reading the script, that actor is relying on decades of training, rehearsals, performances and life participation to see him through.
The veteran actor can trust his intuition, for his mind is filled to overflowing with responses, observations and solutions.With him, it is just a question of almost instant and subconscious selection. But when a beginning actor takes on such an intuitive approach, counting only on natural aptitude, he is tempting fate. For his reservoir of knowledge, at this stage, is not yet sufficiently full.
Justifying, if necessary, a director's instructions
Taking a hypothetical case, imagine that the director has asked you to perform some physical activity which, in your view, is artistically wrong. Invariably, it is in the best interests of the play, not to mention your future relationship with this director, if you can justify his instructions. By justifying, I mean finding a logical reason, for yourself, with which you can validate his request.
It must be said that too many actors see only the size and impact of their own role, failing to relate their role to the frame of the play itself. They view their role apart, as exclusively an opportunity for career expansion, refusing to understand, as does the director, its necessary integration within the totality of the production.
Two scenes for solo actor
Now, here are two scenes that I've written for solo actor, both scenes at crisis point, in which you must see the invisible and hear the silent.
In the following scene, the actor was partnered by the voice of a Chinese actor on a specially prepared cassette, preceded and followed by timed silences. This necessitated the actor having to fit in his live text with the recorded voice.
The duet for live and recorded voice required precise synchronization so that the actor could repeat himself to within a second or so.
This scene can also be done as a solo monologue, without tape accompaniment, the actor hearing, in his imagination, the threatening text of the customs official.
If the actor "listens" to the unspoken voice, his responses will be disturbingly authentic.
Nightmare at a Chinese Airport
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: You arrogant and superior capitalist bastard! How dare you think us so stupid that we won't sniff out your filthy heroin?
JOHN: That package doesn't belong to me! It's not mine! I never saw it before in my life! Someone must have planted it in my bag on the plane, probably when I was asleep, or else when I went to the toilet. Now that I think back, the guy sitting next to me on the plane was getting very friendly. Maybe that package was his and he decided to get rid of it. What better place than my open bag? He knew I wouldn't be back in my seat for at least five minutes!
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: Tell us, you snivelling little liar, the truth, the truth!
JOHN: I swear I am telling the truth! Why don't you believe me? I don't take drugs. I don't peddle drugs. Why, I don't even smoke cigarettes! I never committed any crime in my life, ever!
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: Can't you sorry Westerners ever come up with a better alibi? What you need, perhaps, is some time on your own so that you can think up something more original!
JOHN: Believe me, believe me, I'm telling the truth! I swear on my father's grave!
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: Have you no respect for your dead ancestors? Dishonourable liar!
JOHN: I'm not a liar! Let me phone my mother in London! Let me phone our family lawyer! They'll vouchsafe for my good character!
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: We know all about your good character. Now, waste no further time and tell us at once who else has been involved with you here in Shanghai.
JOHN: No one, I swear, I swear! I came to China as a tourist, to see the sights, not to break your laws! I swear to God I'm innocent! What are you going to do to me? Torture me until I confess to a crime I never committed? Put me in prison for thirty years then let me out when I'm an old man? Kill me? Do you hang convicted prisoners in China for drug offenses?
CUSTOMS OFFICIAL: You'll find out soon enough what we do to British drug traffickers like you.
JOHN: No! No! No! Let me go back to England! Let me phone my mother! Let me out, let me out, let me out!
In this second short scene that I've written for solo actor, the emphasis will be on breathing life into the silences to be found between paragraphs. These silences must be filled in with continuous linking thoughts. If the mind cuts off during any of these silences, the scene comes apart at the seams.
I would like you now to do the scene, verbalizing the silences, that is, saying aloud what you would otherwise think internally.
Then, return to the scene as written, but this time continuing to truly think during the silences, that is, conveying wordlessly the thought processes of the isolated and agitated character.
In other words, the actor must maintain his thought process, thereby connecting the silences between spoken passages.
The Answering Service
MARK: You refuse to answer my letters, you keep this bloody answering service on from morning to night, and you won't answer the door when I bang on it. It's like I've committed a crime or something! For Christ's sake, aren't you tired of all these five minute messages? Wouldn't it be easier to meet somewhere and talk?
(Now, fill in this silence with thoughts that lead you into the agitated and pleading text that follows.)
MARK: Please let's give it one more try. I swear things will be different. Please, please, don't treat me as a write-off! All I ask is for the chance to prove that I'm not like I used to be, but from now on, like you want.
(Again, fill in this silence with thoughts that lead you into the protestations of love which follow.)
MARK: Don't think it's easy baring my soul to an answering service, but you haven't left me any choice. You've heard it before, but I'll say it again. I love you! Oh, how I love you! I wish I didn't, but I do!
(This time, fill in the silence with thoughts that lead you into the bitterly sarcastic text that follows.)
MARK: Do these recorded messages turn you on? Do they give you a sense of empowerment? Empowerment. That word's a laugh! I hate that word, that favourite word you feminists hang on to. Well, this is the last phone call I make to you, I swear it, though I know you won't believe it. You can take your stupid answering service and stuff it! As for your empowerment, you can stuff that, too, right down the throats of all your scummy bull dyke friends! Bitch! Butch! Dirty, filthy whore! I hate you!
(Finally, fill in this last silence with thoughts that lead you into the terminal echo of your pain.)
Outstanding artists discard accoutrements, accessories, and clutter of any kind. By virtue of their simplicity and purity, they move beyond the impedimenta of hollow words, meaningless notes and mechanical steps.
Having discovered how to be comfortable with a role, in the next chapter we go even further, following the process of entering into the role's very spirit.
Chapter Fourteen
ONWARD
The child clutches his cluster of balloons, all of them in taut readiness for freedom's flight. If a parent punctures the balloon of aspiration, that child will grow up resentful and repressed, anchored to the terra firma of earthbound dreams.
Every epoch has its evils that beg solution, but today, more than ever, a moral rot hovers over us as some ominous and threatening cloud. Saturated as we are with cruelty and violence on our television and cinema screens, it is our obligation, to ourselves and to the young, to resist this influx of degradation and not, because of its high incidence, to gradually accept it as the norm. It is our duty, I firmly believe, to resist the brutalization and desensitizing of the spirit. If we succeed in keeping at bay this seeping poison, we protect what is finest in our inheritance.
Those who ascend a peak of excellence leave behind them a trail of enemies. But point out a person who has never had an enemy and I will point out a person who has evaded the front line of life's battle. For to adhere to one's principles is to ignite the wrath of those who have none. Even a saint, when proclaiming a vision, will incur hostility. Yes, the person without enemies is one who has never dared to brave the ill winds of errant human nature.
Is it worth wanting to be loved by all if, in the process, we sacrifice the beliefs we hold most dear? Standing tall in the face of opposition, we must be strong and steadfast, keeping the spark of life in steady flame.
Always reach out towards that which is not yet within your grasp. This principle is applicable not only during fleeting youth, but during the decades of maturity as well.
One of the secrets of living fully is for the older person to retain the energy and enthusiasm of the young, and for the younger person to acquire the perception and wisdom of the old.
Youth and old age, contrary to expectations, often blend their voices in harmonious fusion. The young, daring and impulsive, reach fearlessly for the high notes, while the older, cautious and strategic, sing the same melody with the insurance of experience. Youth matures from the survival knowledge of age, while age is replenished by the bubbling rapids of the young.
Throughout the seasons of our lives, though the planet is deluged by floods of hatred, the theatre remains a stable constant. Despite censorship and its threatening grip, despite feast or famine, peace or pestilence, it is the theatre, through the ages, that has helped stabilize our listing vessel. Afloat, aloft, we weep within at tragedy and laugh aloud at comedy, thus sailing from our island of despair towards that further harbour of hope.
Mankind continues, as it always has, to embrace experience, to create order out of chaos, to find haphazard happiness despite unstoppable time, and to seek guidance through the mysterious labyrinth of life.
In this, our earthly journey, at its every stage, we must ready ourselves for experiences both diabolical and divine. From such polarities, the artist must distill his most profound responses. Disencumbering himself from that which mists his vision, he thus safeguards the priceless legacy that is the awesome gift of art, the sublime reflection of precious life itself.
In UK: £12.95
In Finland: 22 euros
Paperback, 208 pages, 74 photographs
ISBN 952-90-9146-X, published 1998
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