Name That Tone

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Allen Barton

When Milton and I reworked the Acting Class book in 2008, we flirted with the idea of moving “Who’s The Author?” to the top of his famous Actors’ Checklist for Takeoff. The reason for this contemplation?  The proper understanding of the traditional first item on the list, the Event – what’s going on here? - is so strongly affected by the author’s sensibility and unique voice. A marital fight in a Sorkin script is a different animal from a marital fight in one by O’Neill, which is different again from that fight written by Tennessee.

Another aspect of my recurring actor-as-plumber metaphor: you’ve got to know whose story you’re in, and how that awareness may help you figure the choices that will help the author out. Picture asking a plumber to fix the leak on your kitchen sink and you return later to find he’s built a small, beautifully artistic waterfall cascading into your sink. I’m sure you’d be, well…. What the hell? Right? It’s not that the guy wasn’t very talented to be able to build a waterfall in your sink, but it just has nothing to do with what you needed or wanted from him, and it really interferes with doing the dishes.

So for those occasions where you’ve watched a comedic treatment of Schindler’s List, or perhaps a version of Marty wherein the actor angrily assaults that girl when they come home from the date, or a plodding, emotional, pause-ridden scene from Sports Night…. These are usually not an issue of the actors’ inability to create a realistic circumstance, or lack of courage in making a choice, but that of their improper analysis of the tone of the script, leading to choices that did not fit the story.

Anyway, having been on the ‘other side of the table’ in plenty of casting sessions, I can say that this is probably the most common feeling I have – not so much whether the choices were well executed or not, or showed talent or not, but are they right for this author and this kind of story? Actors are building waterfalls when I need a drip-free faucet. They’re drip-dripping when I want Niagara in my office. Talent and ability aren’t really the issue – when someone comes in who has no talent or ability, that’s… whatever that is. You roll your eyes and move on quickly because there’s no time to really contemplate it, nor joy in doing so.  I’m not writing on this blog for people of no talent or ability, but rather for those who hopefully possess both, so as to learn something about channeling both in the right directions at the right time for success.

And the proper assessment of the tone of the script is vital. That tone is established through the uniqueness of a specific writer. In TV, the creator and executive producers all establish the tone of the show out of the gate. So TV shows have a tone that is a reflection of the writer who created it in combination with the what the network may want or specialize in – maybe the tone is established by committee on network television, but it’s still identifiable. Sometimes you have a certain writer’s very unique voice –  Sorkin and Milch come to mind, and if you know those writers you can see how the acting can probably be a bit broader in the choices with Milch than with the generally fast-paced intellectual horsepower of Sorkin. And then you’ve got the vast canvas of film, which, as they old saw goes – is written three times: on paper, in camera, and in the editing room. The director has far more power to determine the look and style of the entire film than on television, and far more numerous tools for telling the story. But of course there’s gigantic variety in film, from intense compact visual styles with naturalistic acting to the dry-humor mockumentary (currently in tedious overuse), to the latest Tim Burton film and the wildness and imagination that an actor like Depp brings to that work. And even within a single film – we’ve all observed that the heroic character tends to be more stoic, while the Black Hats get to twirl the moustache – Bale vs. Ledger in Batman – Dark Knight comes to mind as one of many vivid examples of this.

So can the same actor read beautifully for Law and Order: Really Unbelievably Psychopathic Bad Guys Unit, and then book Sorkin’s latest the following week, and next month be in consideration for the latest Burton film? I say yes, absolutely – but he/she has to identify the tone of the script, has to know the voice of that writer and where the acting fits into that voice. You need to know which parts get afforded permission for bigger choices (bad guys generally get to make bigger choices). There isn’t simply one kind of acting that serves all masters, and I believe the contemporary actor in the 2012 marketplace, where there are a zillion distribution channels and voices and concepts and styles all happening at the same time, needs to be savvy about the proper placement of the acting in an overall tone set by the writer. And while this is not meant to diminish actors’ traditional emphasis on an honest and truthful examination of the given circumstance – what the character is going through, physical work, etc – we need to ensure that in addition to that work, there is a proper awareness of the writer’s voice, the tone of the script, and what kind of acting best serves that particular story.

So how does one know when to build waterfalls and when to tighten an unseen bolt under the sink? Experience. Many auditions under your belt. Research – in this case meaning you should watch at least one episode of everything on TV, as well as being well-versed in different storytellers at work – whether that’s in theatre, film or television – and their particular styles. (Youtube can be a useful resource here – just about everything that ever existed in theatre, film or tv has a piece of its existence memorialized on the site….) As Milton used to emphasize, in his own unique vernacular, “You all can’t go get fucked by movies any more.” Meaning: You can’t simply be a civilian, looking to be entertained. You have to look, analyze, you have to see what’s going on, who’s making what choices and why? Sometimes simply removing the civilian uniform can shed a lot of light on these matters.

 

 

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On Technology and Training: A Steinway Metaphor

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Allen Barton

There’s a fabulous documentary on the topic of making Steinway pianos - Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037. It follows the creation of a single nine-foot concert Steinway at the company’s U.S. factory in Queens, New York. To see the breadth of knowledge, passed down through an old-school apprenticeship system, carried out by largely blue-collar New York workers of every imaginable stripe and ethnicity, applied to the assembling of these sophisticated pianos, the selection of which you then see carried out by a diametrically opposite economic/social stratum of world-class musicians – it’s something else. Highly enjoyable, and not just for pianists. And as always with documentaries, great acting.

Anyway – it made me think of what we do at the BHP in training actors. Steinways are made by hand. There have certainly been some technological developments in the last 100 years that may help out, but it’s startling how little of it you see in the documentary. You see a lot of elbow grease, and a lot of guys with tool kits that are decades old, with instruments bizarrely fashioned to some arcane, specific purpose related to piano assembly, but mostly you see raw expertise and exacting standards. Technology has very little to do with it.

Back in 2004, someone recommended that the BHP begin using cameras in its training of actors. The idea was to install cameras in the theatres, record every scene on multi-cam digital video, install an editing bay, and by the end of each critique of the scene, there would be an edited video version we could look at and address as well. Milton and I had the same reaction: Nope. Setting aside the technical logistics of all that, and the myriad ways it would get fucked up every night, and the staffing requirements…. Milton said to me in ironic response, “I think they had cameras back when I started as well… Yeah, there were movies back then. Yeah….” He continued without irony: “But even though it was still largely a movie business, I didn’t see any cameras in Lee’s class, or in Stella’s, or in Uta’s…. I don’t remember anyone talking about cameras or ‘film acting’ or any of that, and if I recall they turned out some pretty good actors.” 

And Milton writes in his book regarding the concept of “film acting”: I don’t see any difference. I don’t buy into this whole film-acting, stage-acting dichotomy. Obviously when you’re in a closeup on film, and the lens is 18 inches off your face, you can’t move a lot, because you’ll slide out of focus. Maybe a choice that works for a thousand-seat theatre won’t work for a closeup, but that doesn’t mean the acting is fundamentally different. The work is the same. The emotions are the same. The story is the same…. Acting is acting… And I think the whole ‘film acting’ thing, when it’s thought of as a completely different way of acting, that can be confusing, in the sense that is can scare the actor, make him possibly refute the basic truths of his work that he knows, and even limit him from making the bold choice. 

Over the last ten years, there has certainly been a revolution in digital video technology and its instantaneous planet-wide mass distribution – I’ve written about this elsewhere on this blog. But, regardless of what many may say, I don’t feel there is any corresponding revolution to be had in the field of acting training. Technology simply has zero to do with artistic training. And if you need any further proof, doesn’t Rocky IV provide it conclusively? I mean, there’s the big Russian dude having his training regimen and the strength of his jab measured by computers, and meanwhile Rocky is hauling tree trunks through the snow. So there you have it. Done.

I think actors are made the old-fashioned way: With in-person communication. It’s hard enough, acting training, without adding the element of video technology – whether that’s to look at yourself on camera, or whether that’s to have a friggin’ Skype acting class, or to let the world in, via a webcam, on what should be a private and safe space for actors to work. I’ve said no to all of it. And I know… I know everyone says it’s valuable to see yourself on screen, to realize you have an eye tick or that you tend to “do too much in closeup,” and all that. Perhaps it’s better to have a Skype acting class than a cancelled one, or one with a substitute teacher – but there’s something about it that just rubs me wrong. With regard to acting well on camera, until the DV revolution, these nuances of film work were learned primarily through professional experience, and I haven’t seen any dramatic increase in acting ability since then – either in classes or in the industry at large.

The bottom line is there is simply ZERO correlation between actors taking all these video workshops and being better actors, ZERO correlation to any higher rate of booking jobs.

If anyone really had this mythic secret that would yield a measurably higher booking percentage – well we’d all be out of business and that teacher could clean up.

No. The best way of getting the job, any job, increasing numbers of jobs, higher quality jobs – hard diligent work on both acting and career over time. And even then, Showbiz, she is a fickle girl. Look at the cover of an entertainment magazine from five years ago and see how fast it can all go – what ever happened to ________? So I prefer consistent communication. The BHP is a scene-study outfit, that’s how Milton set it up, and that’s how we’ll remain. We make Steinways. How you choose to use the instrument we build, whether it collects dust in the corner or is played every day – that’s up to you. Setting up a camera to record it doesn’t change how the instrument plays.

Even in our audition workshops, the big emphasis is on knowing the story, making choices that tell the story well, presenting yourself professionally, etc. We spend 85% of the workshop on those elements, and then at the end – yeah, many auditions now occur on camera, or even via internet, so we include that just to ensure the actors are comfortable with the mechanics of that stuff. But it’s not intended as a means of analyzing or critiquing one’s own work as a whole.

I do think it’s important for actors to be knowledgable about the technical aspects of how a film gets made – going out and making short films, realizing what sucks, what doesn’t, what you care about as a writer, etc – I’ve written about this elsewhere on the blog, and I’m all for it. So workshops about the making of a film – very valuable. But I believe that’s different from the idea of looking at yourself on screen and using video as a heavy part of your acting training. There’s a reason many directors don’t allow their actors to view dailies – it’s because the actor often (always?) has a subjective and often insecure filter through which they look at themselves. That’s why I think it’s best to keep cameras out of it, just do the work in a good class, do it consistently, over time, on a stage, and have a trusted teacher give you input that moves you forward.

 

 

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On Being Personal

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Allen Barton

A little over a year ago, I was asked to write an essay about “Being Personal,” for a book that was to be a collection of essays on the topic from people in all walks of life. The book appears never to have come together, but this topic came up again for me last week, and I thought I’d revisit my essay. Some of it has made its way into other blog entries I’ve written since, including most recently “Feelings Don’t Matter.” But I think there’s still some value here.

I wrote it in form of an acting class critique, as a dedication and paying homage to Milton, who based much of his book Acting Class on actual transcribed conversations with actors. As his editor for over 13 years, I became really good at mimicking in writing his voice and manner in those critiques. Writing this essay was actually an interesting and sometimes frightening exercise in simply believing my own voice, while honoring Milton’s famed format.  Here goes:

On Being Personal

(dedicated to Milton)

A scene in an acting class concludes. The audience applauds, and the two actors sit for their critique:

ALLEN: So, what do you want say?

STUDENT: Well, I guess I wanted to be personal with it, you know…

ALLEN: Oh yeah?

STUDENT: Well, yeah.

ALLEN: Personal with it? What does that mean, exactly?

STUDENT: Well, I mean…. Just to have the specifics, you know? The situation. I really wanted to have her boyfriend.

ALLEN: Have her boyfriend? Interesting.

A touch of class laughter.

STUDENT: Well, not like physically. I mean that she says she has this boyfriend…

ALLEN:  And you wanted to have that specific. You wanted to feel here on the stage the way you might feel in life when the girl you like tells you she has a boyfriend?

STUDENT: Right.

ALLEN: Uh huh. And did you have that feeling?

STUDENT: No.

ALLEN: Nothing?

STUDENT: No.

ALLEN: That hit in the gut? I always felt it in my stomach when someone I liked had a boyfriend.

STUDENT: Me, too. No. I thought about it, but no, I didn’t have any feeling at that moment.

ALLEN: I see. And being personal? What does that mean?

STUDENT: Uh. Hmph. It means being personal, I guess. I don’t know how to put words to it.

ALLEN: I know. Everyone says they want to be personal. In every acting class on the planet, there are actors sitting down and telling the teacher they wanted to be personal. And by just saying it, I guess a lot of them get approving nods from teachers. I mean – how can you quarrel with an actor who says they want to be personal? It would be bad form.

STUDENT: I’m not sure where we’re going.

ALLEN: What does it mean to be personal?

STUDENT: Well, I think it’s about spotting those aspects of the character that you understand, that you can identify with.

ALLEN: Identify with how?

STUDENT: Well, if the character is like, “I grew up in Boston” and I myself grew up in Boston, then you know….

ALLEN: You can identify with that? Boston?

STUDENT: Right.

ALLEN: The smell of autumn – the frustration of the Red Sox, that kind of thing. You’re too young to remember that Red Sox fans were frustrated for decades.

STUDENT: I know. My father told me not to get spoiled – he thought he was going to die without ever seeing them win…

ALLEN: I’m with him. They won in 2004 and I said to myself, “I can get hit by a truck now. Anytime. No problem.”

STUDENT: You’re a Red Sox fan?

ALLEN: I’m from Boston. So – there’s a character biography thing you’re hitting. The character is from Boston, you’re from Boston, so that makes it personal for you?

STUDENT: Yeah. I didn’t know you were from Boston.

ALLEN: Surprises every day. Did you just identify with me a bit more? A little surge in the biochemistry of student-and-teacher, right?

STUDENT: Sure, of course.

ALLEN: Didn’t have to think about it. It was just there. Boston. And the connection sparks. But I could have lied to you, right? I might be from Duluth for all you know. Knowing you’re from Boston, I could have lied so as to create an affinity between us, to facilitate the communication.

STUDENT: You could have.

ALLEN: And acting is a lie, right? We’re making this shit up. Right?

STUDENT: Yeah, I guess.

ALLEN: Damned right. That’s why snuff films are a crime and horror films make billions a year. We’re in the land of make believe. So there’s that. When I said I’m from Boston and you felt your chemistry change just the slightest – that was both personal, and possibly based on a lie. So if the character is from Cleveland and you’re from Boston, what do you do?

STUDENT: Well…

ALLEN: Can’t be personal with it?

STUDENT: Well – I mean, that would be kind of dumb.

ALLEN: Why?

STUDENT: Because that would mean I can only be personal when I’m… When I’m….

ALLEN: When you share biographical information with the character?

STUDENT: Right.

ALLEN: And that’s dumb?

STUDENT: Sounds it.

ALLEN: It is. Biographical similarities have zero to do with being able to act a character “personally.” Or impersonally. They can help. Or not. Zero relationship.

STUDENT: Okay, good. I’m still worried you’re going to kill me.

ALLEN: Kill you?

STUDENT: Well, the scene. I’m worried the scene sucked.

ALLEN: You are?

STUDENT: Of course.

ALLEN: Interesting. Do you think the scene sucked, as you look back on it?

STUDENT: No. Not sucked. Maybe not great. But not sucked.

ALLEN: What could have been better?

STUDENT: Well – the part where she tells me about her boyfriend.

ALLEN: Where you missed that feeling in your gut – the unrequited love thing. The physical manifestation of unrequited love.

STUDENT: Yeah.

ALLEN: And if you got that, you think you’d be further along the way to personal?

STUDENT: Yeah.

ALLEN: But if you said you wanted that, and thought about it, why am I not giving you any points for being personal?

STUDENT: Because… well. The ball didn’t go in the hoop.

ALLEN: Okay. Moving to basketball – Celtics much more used to winning. So no matter what you think about a ball going in the hoop, what you feel about a ball going in the hoop, how much you visualize a ball going in the hoop, how personal or impersonal you think you are – the ball either goes in or not, right?

STUDENT: Yeah.

ALLEN: So in acting, what is it to say the ball went in the hoop?

STUDENT: That’s a really good question.

ALLEN: And a subjective one, much of the time. I would say the ball in the hoop is that the story is told well, and the audience believes in, cares about, and is moved by the story. They don’t care how this is achieved. But they want it achieved. Your job is to do your part in telling that story.

STUDENT: Sounds… I don’t know. Inorganic when you say it like that.

ALLEN: Perhaps. And you want it to be some organic thing, right? You want to commune with the gods of acting, and through some mental/spiritual/transcendent process, accompanied by some really cool scoring, you will not be an actor on the stage in a small theatre, but actually a real person in a park with a flower in your hand and love in your heart, and when this girl says she’s unavailable, that she has a boyfriend, that at that moment the acting gods will have noted your sincere wish to be personal, to be specific, to “have the situation,” and they will reward you with a punch to the gut?

STUDENT: Sounds about right.

ALLEN: It’s almost a religious experience, this acting for you. Let me guess: If you sin against the gods of acting, or if you have an impure thought, or think to yourself, this guy is from Cleveland and I’m from Boston, and this girl I’m playing the scene with has some flaw that has revealed itself in rehearsals and I don’t like her and I’m thinking of quitting this fucking business and why does that untalented loser in the third row get all those auditions so effortlessly and I work and I beat my head against it and can’t get a damned agent and I pray to be personal but in the prayer I also curse those same gods for not giving me, well, “god-given talent” and lots of auditions….

STUDENT: Well – I don’t think all of that…

ALLEN: I’m trying to include other people here in the room. This is an amalgamation.

STUDENT: Right.

ALLEN: If you have an impure thought, then automatically you’re not personal. If you manipulate yourself physically to trigger an emotion that you’re having trouble getting – to you that’s cheating. But that’s the same as saying Michael Jordan only successfully puts the ball in the hoop when he’s being “personal” about it. The two points only count if he’s “personal.”

So with basketball there’s an observable phenomenon that everyone can agree on. How do you take the same idea and apply it to acting, where the actor, the stage manager, and five different audience members can have … seven, right? Seven different opinions about the same performance, and that’s just one night, and you played only your role. Take eight performances a week times, say 100 people in the audience and a four-week run, multiple actors in all those roles. Fucked, right? I don’t even want to do the math there. It’s like playing basketball, full-on, 10 guys on the court, with an imaginary ball. How do you do it?

STUDENT: I don’t know.

ALLEN: Exactly. We don’t know. This personal thing. No one knows. No one has it. It’s not the formula to Coca Cola, locked in a safe somewhere. No one has the first fucking clue.

STUDENT: I’m not sure whether to be happy about that or not.

ALLEN: I’d go with happy. Because I’m trying to free you. The “I want to be personal in my work” thought has to be one of the most introverting things I’ve come up against. There’s no way you can be personal, whatever that ends up meaning, if you’re worried about it. So stop worrying.

STUDENT: I’m getting happier.

ALLEN: Good. Because if you stop worrying about it, there’s exactly the same likelihood that you will be personal. Or not. It simply is not a measurable phenomenon. There’s no ball. There’s no hoop. There’s just a lot of talk about “being personal.” So you might as well stop driving yourself nuts.

STUDENT: So is “being personal” just a bunch of crap?

ALLEN: It’s not crap, not at all. I think any serious person in the arts would advocate for being personal in your work – but the question is what does that really mean? For me, I believe being personal is a sense of your work being honest. That the work originates from within you as an honest effort to tell this particular story well. And maybe I’m splitting hairs, but there’s the literalness of ‘being personal in your work’ and then there’s what’s necessary for storytelling: ‘the apparency of being personal in your work.’ And since we out in the audience haven’t the first fucking clue about whether you’re actually being personal or not, and there’s no test for it, and no one has any time to assess it in the real world of this industry, all we have left is the apparency. So yeah, of course, we’re on a search for the truth in our work. Truth is subjective in art – but if you’re looking for a real experience in some way, telling that story honestly, that’s the closest we can get to our analogous basketball hoop…  The two points counts when the story communicates. BUT. BUT… that communication may or may not be personal for you on any given night. So I guess I’m saying it’s not so much about whether there is personal work going on, but is there the apparency of personal work going on.  I mean, I’ve never met them, I don’t pretend to know the inner workings of their brains – but I’d bet if you ask Meryl Streep or Daniel Day Lewis or whomever you admire to dissect their thoughts at the moment of acting – they can’t tell you. I don’t think they’re analyzing their work in the slightest. Certainly not after someone calls “Action!” And I’d be willing to bet if a director went up to either of those actors after a take and said, “Meryl, Daniel – great – listen, I need it to be more personal…” – that director would have some pissed-off stars on his or her hands.

STUDENT: Because…

ALLEN: Because it’s too fucking general. Can you imagine? “You need to be more personal, Marlon.” Doesn’t help. A conversation about the scene specifically can help. About the story, about how this scene fits in the story. About the behavior of the moment. Yes, absolutely. But not the generality about being personal. And so I think we’re best off concentrating on those specifics we can act, in your case this punch to the gut of her having a boyfriend, on the notion of a search for truth, and let “being personal” be judged by someone not of this Earth.

STUDENT: They’re just letting go.

ALLEN: Streep and Daniel Day Lewis? Right. That’s my bet. They’re prepared, they’re researched, they’ve figured out physically or voice-wise what they want to do, but then they let go. And I would bet a smart director lets them go. The director might say – more here, less here, quieter here, louder, let’s try it such-and-such a way – I don’t know. A discussion, for sure – about the story, about what’s happening in the scene, about behavior. But I don’t think there are on-set conversations about the actors being personal. I think those are conversations that occur only in acting classes. You know I’m a pianist, right?

STUDENT: Yeah.

ALLEN: So Milton, he used to like to have a private runthrough at his house each year before my annual concert. He would never come to the actual concert – he liked private runthroughs. And we’d get in the same fight each year, because he’d ask, “So what’s happening in this piece?” You know – some Rachmaninoff prelude or something. And I never knew. Not in the way he was asking – he wasn’t a musician, he didn’t want the musical analysis – but he wanted a literal translation. He wanted all these literal images and storylines to go with the music. He wanted to know who the piece was dedicated to, and what that person looked like and what the relationship was. I would just shrug, stare into space, not answer, and Milton would get so pissed off. He wanted me to translate a musical process, which is really one of raw technical work that then allows you to release yourself – the music just kind of comes out, right? I don’t think about it. I don’t analyze it. If anything, I try to place my thoughts elsewhere just slightly – just consider what errands I need to do the next day. Or ponder, did I feed the dog? Now keep in mind I have a zillion hours of practice going into each recital, but that practice is primarily physical, not mental – I don’t think I’ve had a thought about ‘being personal’ in 35+ years of playing the piano. But in performance, what’s cool is when I’m in that mode of insanely prepared technical work plus slight mental distraction – that’s when I’m at my best. And people in the audience invariably tell me about how personal it seemed. But if I’m thinking about “Okay, this next section Rachmaninoff moves to the relative minor key and does this section in double-thirds and echoes the melody from the beginning and this symbolizes his longing for Svetlana… ” I’m screwed. I’m just fucked. And I think actors to do that in scenes – This is the part where the breakup happens, I’ll get emotional on this line and it needs to be personal – get personal, man, you’re so fucking impersonal right now, you suck so fucking bad…

Class laughs.

ALLEN: It’s like that Garfield cartoon I remember once: Jon asks Garfield if when he walks he alternates legs or moves the left legs together and then the right legs together. There’s a box where Garfield just looks down at his legs and then in the last box he thinks, “I’ll never walk again.”

Class laughs.

ALLEN: Okay – so what does this digression mean for being personal?

STUDENT: Honestly, I don’t know.

ALLEN: You can’t think your way into personal, my friend. You can’t analyze your way into it. You want that hit in the gut? You’re wrapping your brain in knots trying to imagine the hit, trying to do substitution exercises for the hit, trying to think of times you’ve been hit in your life… None of it seems to be working. Not tonight. Right? So C’mon! Have her literally punch you in the stomach when she tells you about the boyfriend in rehearsal – then you’ll have it. Physically actualize the damned moment, and note your response. Now subtract the punch, keep the response – bingo. There’s your back-up for personal work – the apparency of personal work. That’s all we really give a shit about. But it’s not thought related. It’s not belief related. It’s not Acting Angels sprinkling “personal dust” on you during the performance. Your success at being personal may be recognized by an audience and not be experienced by you.  You can think you suck as an actor, even at the moment of performing, and still tell the story well. Conversely, your ‘being personal’ may be experienced by you, but not by the audience. Or you’ll have those occasions where you’re certain that you and the audience have gone on some transcendent ride together, and the director visits that night… He or she is unhappy, and gives you two pages of notes about how you fucked it up. So in the end you have to do it for the Fat Lady.

Silence.

ALLEN: Total silence. No one in here knows the reference, right?

STUDENT IN AUDIENCE: It’s not over until the fat lady sings.

ALLEN: No, that’s different. You have to do it for the Fat Lady. Nothing. Crickets. Jesus. SALINGER! Franny & Zooey! Anyone ever read it?

A couple hands go up.

ALLEN: Dear god. Okay. Zooey is a young actor, and he’s telling a story about being much younger, and they were a showbiz family of sorts, and I forget – one of them doesn’t want to go on, maybe it was Zooey – he doesn’t want to be looked at as a freak or doesn’t want to tie his shoes for the show they’re doing or whatever, and the older brother at that time tells him to do it for the Fat Lady. And Zooey then tells his sister, years later, who’s having a religious experience of sorts, that the Fat Lady is Jesus Christ. And trust me I’m not advocating for religion, I’ve been there, no thank you. What I’m trying to say is that if you’re acting for a review, or for money, or for me to say “nice scene,” or for some authority to come in and say, “Now THAT was personal,” you’re doomed. Act for the Fat Lady. You define the Fat Lady, you make her whomever you want. But I believe that the Fat Lady represents some sense of truth, some sense of a piece of you left on the stage, some sense of bringing an experience that you believe in, some sense of really nailing the physicality of the character or the environment of the scene, some sense of wanting to tell a good story honestly – any of that, because if you’re at least going for that, then I believe you’re going for personal, going for truth, and even if you don’t feel it organically you’ll make it up somehow and the story will simply be well told, and whatever there is in acting that can be looked at as a basketball – it will go in the hoop. And it if doesn’t make the grade by the measure of you… Well, shoot again. Clear? Or at least clearer?

STUDENT: Yeah. So…

ALLEN: Yes?

STUDENT: So are you from Boston or not?

ALLEN: Between Buckner’s error and 2004, I was a broken man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Feelings Don’t Matter

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Allen Barton

They just don’t. There is the job you do, and then there are your feelings about your job – and only the former is of any consequence or import. Now as an actor your job has to do with manipulating your own feelings in service of a story, so this no doubt gets tricky…

Image #1: You’ve got a leaky faucet. You call the plumber. The plumber comes over and he either fixes the faucet or he doesn’t. You generally don’t give a crap how the plumber may feel about his own work, you may or may not be aware of the full range of his “talent” as a plumber, or whether he thinks this plumbing career will really pan out for him. All you want is for him to fix the faucet. He may have been engaged in suicidal thoughts the entire time, but if he mentions them he becomes really annoying. If he shows up when he said he would, stops the leak, and charges a reasonable fee – you’re all set.

Image #2: A pianist is someone who uses hard-earned technique to play varying combinations of 88 different keys in an infinity of patterns and dynamics, so scripted by a composer, and interpreted by the pianist, to bring a specific piece of music to life for the audience.

So with these two images in mind, let’s look at the three pillars of the BHP training: Acting, Attitude & Administration.

ACTING: Your feelings don’t matter. I know. I know... How is this possible? Because you’re a plumber. Or, if you prefer (and I do) – a pianist. As Milton said early in his book, acting is weird because you are both the pianist and the piano. (I wish we had transcribed the conversation between us on this analogy – I was of course the guinea pig….) Your “piano” is the emotional instrument within you, expressed through the physical instrument that is you. You manipulate your feelings as a pianist does a keyboard. You can play that emotional instrument at an extremely high level without needing to feel “connected,” or “in,” or “inspired,” or whatever actors like to say about their own work. (Some would say it may well be better that you do it this way. It is possible that the more dispassionate you can be about playing that instrument brilliantly – the better off you may be in acting. )

When we listen to Horowitz at the piano, we have no clue about his feelings at that moment. We don’t know if he feels “connected.” Maybe he vomited with insecurity before walking on the stage. We don’t know. All we know is he’s executing the hell out the piece, but he may well feel like shit about it, and who cares?  We don’t know how Meryl Streep or Daniel Day Lewis feel at the moment they’re acting – nor does what they say about that process mean what they say is true. It’s simply unknowable. There are very happy actors who play their instrument well, don’t torture themselves, and can make us cry in any given moment, and there are very sad, depressed actors who constantly torture themselves for ‘art’ and yet can’t make us feel a thing. And vice versa. There simply is no connection between your feelings and the quality of work – other than that romanticized by actors regarding other actors’ ‘process.’

There is no correct thought process or feeling you need to have about acting. You can cry without feeling sad, you can yell without being angry. You can manufacture tears and anger, compellingly authentic, suitable for the scene, believable by the audience – all the while thinking you suck as an actor. Conversely, you can aim directly for putting yourself through what the character goes through, to experience literally what the character is experiencing – and feel you nailed that and everyone responds accordingly – great. (Cue the possibly apocryphal but no doubt entertaining story about Hoffman v. Olivier in Marathon Man.)

My point is only that one process is not better than the other. You’re like the pianist – you play the instrument you’ve got, and you study to improve your ability to play that instrument. All that passion and feeling about the process of acting may well fuck you up. Or, switching metaphors – as an actor you are using your emotional instrument to channel water (the dialogue or emotions of the script) in the direction it needs to go for the story. Your feelings about that process are as important as a plumber’s in arranging pipes beneath your sink.

Technique is that which you use to play the instrument. Actor A, contemplating a moment of grief in the script – she thinks of a sad moment in her life and then her instrument responds, her breathing gets weird, her eyes tear up and the the audience experiences sadness from her. Actor B, confronting the same moment of grief in the script, needs to use a physical trick (onion, etc) to make her eyes tear up. Some may say Actor A is ‘personal’ while Actor B is ‘fake’ – I disagree. They just have different means of playing the emotional keyboard. (And, by the way, both actors may use elements of either technique depending on the day, the moment, the specific situation at hand.) If both actors (and more importantly, the director) are going after the result of fooling the audience utterly, so they sit out there in complete belief about this moment in the script – we’ll be fine. Milton said the play happens in the audience, it’s the audience’s belief that matters, it’s the audience’s perception of whether the work seems personal that matters. Whether you use a fertile imagination to spark emotion, or physical provocation, all of that is technique, and one approach is not better than the other – they are either effective in making the audience believe you are sad or not. That’s the only measure. It’s about whether the audience believes you are sad. It’s emphatically not about whether you make yourself sad. We’re all liars here, it’s just about how good a liar you are. Liars know damned well they are untruthful, but it’s not about that – it’s about others’ belief in the lie. That is the sole concern of a good liar. This idea that you have to believe in what you’re doing  - meh. What we’re trying to do in class is enhance your ability to lie effectively under various forms of professional duress.

The fun of experiencing the dramatic arts is in temporarily believing what we know is not true. (Why do you think snuff films are a horrific crime and horror films make huge money?) Acting is a skill. It has technique – the vast majority of people walking the earth behave awkwardly and self-consciously on stage or in front of a camera, and sound wooden when asked to say lines written by other people. You don’t. Now, improve your technique so you can play the damned piano brilliantly and stop kvetching about your feelings.

ATTITUDE: Your feelings don’t matter. I know. I know…. But for those who’ve read Milton’s book, you’ll notice that the introduction to the “Attitude” section does not mention the word feel or feeling. Not once. The main point of his teachings on Attitude was that Attitude is a choice. When you experience an actor with a “bad attitude” – you make that judgment not by being inside his head and listening to thoughts and feelings. You make that judgment based on behavior! The actor behaves moody or hostile or depressed. The actor behaves in an uncooperative manner. The actor behaves in an irresponsible or neurotic fashion. The actor demonstrates a bad attitude by being argumentative. And we’ve all known cheerful actors who “feel great!” who are also chronically late, or fucking high, or seriously incompetent. Or the actor who is smiling and cheerful (“feels great!”) and then takes apart the director and the other actors through vicious gossip in the commissary. Similarly, you can “feel like shit,” “have no confidence,” “feel uninspired” –  and still show up on time and behave in a cooperative fashion, smile a bit, do your job, play your instrument in a compelling fashion that tells the damned story, and be known as an actor with a good attitude. Like the plumber mentioned above. I don’t give a shit how he feels – I want him to show up on time and fix the problem. If he does those things, I’m his fan. So do your job. Attitude has behaviors attached – choose the right ones. Feelings are utterly unknowable by others except by their undisciplined mirroring in behavior.

ADMINISTRATION: Your feelings don’t matter. In my position as teacher at the Advanced level at the BHP, I see many very talented people, swell personalities, mostly good attitudes, and generally a problematic deficit of solid, consistent Administration – I’ve written about this extensively on this blog. But as consistent with our theme, Administration is by definition a collection of behaviors, not a collection of feelings. Milton wrote a book focusing on career administration and called it Dreams Into Action – not, as he often joked, Dreams Into Feelings, Dreams Into Inspiration, Dreams Into Confidence, etc… Administration consists of those actions you take to move your career in the direction you would like. Done. You don’t need to feel good about taking those actions any more than you need to feel good about going to the gym a few times a week.  Often we’re dragging our asses there only to feel good after the workout, right? Enough said.

So please stop the madness. In my opinion the world is becoming weaker and weaker the more one’s personal feelings are emphasized – or at least to the extent this emphasis invades the workplace. The theatre is your workplace. Your class is your workplace. Now, no one has a perfect record here. Milton was a master teacher, one of the best to come down the pike. His temper was also legendary, and those who worked closely with him will tell you that his mood could really dictate the tone of an entire day for better or worse. Sometimes you feel a certain way and, dammit, the world is going to know about it. Sometimes in a professional circumstance those insecurities or minor depressions or hostilities become all-too-visible to others. So be it – this is not about perfection. But let’s stop targeting feeling good as a goal, or basing our acting, attitude or administration on some prerequisite of feeling good about any of those three elements. Feelings are an internal house of mirrors that have nothing to do with anything.

PS: Closely linked with misplaced “feelings” emphasis is the “liking” emphasis. We are told we need to like ourselves, like others, be liked by others, etc. ad nauseum. Another highly overrated concept. Liking is a bonus. Being effective is the name of the game. You needn’t like your boss, director, teacher, scene partner, agent, or yourself – you need those people to be effective in their jobs. And you shouldn’t worry about being liked, either. Milton, from Acting Class: “So you have to have the passion within that propels you to burn a barn, you have to be on fire. And politeness is not the answer. And likability is not the answer. That doesn’t meant you’ve got to be a shit, it doesn’t mean that. But it also doesn’t mean you qualify by being likable and being nice. You have a job to do, you have a fervent passion, and you go and do it.”

 

 

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A Slow Turning Wheel

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Allen Barton

Part of the Big Frustration with pursuing an acting career I think comes from the seeming zero relationship between competence and employment. My opinion is that certainly in the short run (under 5 years chasing acting professionally), it can appear that merit has little role to play in your career. It just seems too much a lottery, and that some lucky new person who’s been in town three weeks gets a great audition or books a swell job or signs with that perceived awesome agent/manager, while you, who have trained and are responsible and caring and artistic and have dutifully completed the latest workout regimen – you are unfairly left behind, unrewarded for hard work and talent.

Hence one can see a hell of a lot of randomity in the actions of those in the 1-to-5 year early chapters of this strange novel – constantly changing teachers, approaches, philosophies, desperate grabs at weird projects, too many bad plays, too many bad comedy reels, a sudden veering toward improv workshops, no, sitcom workshops, no, on-camera workshops, no, such-and-such a motivational speaker, no, a new Significant Other, no, back to the old Significant Other, no, New York, no, Los Angeles, no, writing, no, new agent, no, new manager…. On and on it goes. Actors can veer from one major decision to another along the steep, jagged upward and downward slopes of morale and inspiration that mark the early part of the journey. There’s always a good little high you get from making a decision, implementing some sort of change, but around the bend awaits the same old discouragement when this change didn’t yield results: regular acting work, a feeling you’re breaking through at last.

But as you move past 5 years in the profession, I’ve observed that the business does become more and more a meritocracy. Yes – there’s always politics, celebrity, vapidity, nepotism and money at work (as they are in all industries), but overall there is a weird meritocratic response. If you look at actors you admire who have been at it for 20 years or more – they really do know how to act, and how to comport themselves in professional situations. Even the character types who aren’t celebrities but work all the time – they know what they’re doing. You rarely see a total no-talent boob who ends up ‘making it’ over the long haul. In the end, I believe talent, or frankly more importantly, professional competence, wins.

And no, of course this does not guarantee success for even the most stellar actor who stays at it for more than five years, and the definitions of “success” vary widely. But this is a business, like any other, where it can easily take 5-10 years not only to develop your talent to its fullest, but for you to settle down, build a network of professional contacts, get a couple hundred auditions under your belt, a better awareness of your casting, a better awareness of certain styles of writing and how to serve those writers, better personal relationships, and just that much more maturity in general. You simply become better at the many skills associated with an acting career (and there are many that go beyond acting itself), from having stayed in it and having practiced.

Certainly for Type-A super-achievers, who are used to being recognized as such in more conventional environments like job-jobs and fixed-size organizations where their competence shines quickly and is rewarded, the morass of The Biz and its seeming nonresponsiveness to their intelligence, responsibility, and work ethic is particularly maddening.

But it’s a slow-turning wheel. I spoke with an actress this week (Type A Super-achiever) who, while politely but clearly infuriated by the lack of career progress, was able to reflect on a particular scene from Burn This, and noted that two years ago when she began the class she was really clueless about it, and now, revisiting the script, she feels more knowledgable. Well that’s a bit of the slow turn in action. Apply that same sense of incremental maturity and competence to the Big Picture, and you can see how a few years in the business will bring that much more certainty about the various skills, what to do, how to do it, who can help, how you can get them to help – perspective. Some actors have an innate maturity that lends itself better to older parts, and their 20s may just be a long training period as they wait for their look and their casting to match up with the music inside. Others need to break out of bad 20-something romances, or get off the parental dole, or develop a stronger work ethic, or knock off the dope smoking, or [insert non-optimum life situation here] – all of this in addition to developing their skills as actors.

So stop the manic panic. Set aside the deadlines and the “I’m giving it until I’m ____” and all those annoying “You know they say that _____” pieces of career advice that are ceaselessly discouraging, and all seem designed to make you feel a schmuck for not being on a series by the age of 24. You’ve set upon a course as a performing artist, and while it can feel as if career certainty has gone out the window, the wheel slowly turns and you get better, wiser, more connected to the business – and the business will respond. Life can be unfair, the world unjust for sure. But try not to make too many major veering decisions on those early jagged slopes, thinking that those micro-level moves will have a major effect on the Slow Turning Wheel. The house-of-mirrors freak show that no doubt seems to describe your thoughts, feelings, confidence and psychology on any given day frankly matters very little to the Big Turning Wheel. Persistence, diligent work on your skills, steady administration – that’s what will fuel the Wheel’s rotation, and lead you ultimately to professional competence, and measurable results over time.

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