The Art of Acting

David Carter

• Publisher: Creative Essentials
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9781842434284
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

The Art of Acting provides a basic introduction and general advice for people wishing to develop their skills as actors or actresses. It is aimed at both the amateur enthusiast and for those wishing to pursue their interest further and undertake professional training. Advice is given on the basic skills which every actor needs to develop, such as breathing, voice control, the use of body language, timing and handling the audience. The importance of understanding a text and the interaction of the characters within it is considered, as is the relationship between the actor/actress and director. Auxiliary activities such as actors' exercises and warm-ups are evaluated and general advice provided. Specific skills are discussed, such as the learning of lines, mime, mastering dialects and accents, period manners, and ensuring that make-up is suitable to the role. Summaries of the ideas of famous theorists, directors and actors, are included such as: Stanislawski, Lee Strasberg, Michael Chekhov and Dorothy Heathcote; Peter Brook and Peter Hall; and John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Simon Callow, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Alec Guinness, Michael Caine and Dirk Bogarde. There is also some consideration of the differences between stage and screen acting; the problems of acting in the open air and the particular demands of certain playwrights, such as Shakespeare, and Brecht.

MASTERING THE ART

THE ACTING EXPERIENCE

Being an actor is, compared with most other professions, except perhaps that of the dramatist and the novelist, a very remarkable way of existing. Actors spend their time developing and being other selves. Many of us pretend, at times, to have qualities and to be in moods with which we do not actually identify ourselves, but we rarely do so for the sake of the pretence alone, and usually have some ulterior motives. Actors have the ability to let go of their own selves, to subsume them under other selves which they, in collaboration with dramatist and director, have invented. Outside the realm of theatre or film such behaviour would be regarded as psychotic. It is only considered acceptable in the play of children or childlike people. It should not be surprising, therefore, to discover that, in actors’ own reports about their experiences of acting and becoming an actor, there is evidence of the persistence of elements of childhood play into adulthood, as well as a certain instability with regard to their own identity. Many speak of having felt, from a very early age, the need and ability to perform in some way. This has led many to claim that an actor is indeed born and not made. Whatever the truth of the matter, it does seem to be the case that most actors have felt an inclination to act or show off and play with words right from the start. Once the inclination is discovered there is some hope that the ability may be nurtured.

Annabel Arden, actress and director of plays and operas, has said that acting is a basic form of human behaviour common to us all, and, in its purest form, it is play. She cites the example of a young child picking up a crumb from a table. The child directs all its energy towards picking up the crumb. She believes that actors need to bring such a degree of presence and concentration to their performances.65 Simon Callow, stage and film actor, director, and author of several books on acting and actors, also considers acting to be an activity which is ‘deeply and seriously childish’. He writes that actors revert to a period in their lives in which their personalities are undetermined and in a condition of flux. Like children in play, they are always trying things out and imitating others. He concludes his thoughts on this topic with the words: ‘It’s neither comfortable nor easy to get hold of your child-self again, but it’s behind all great acting and all great theatre.’66 It’s easy to act when you are a child, but it becomes more difficult for most people as they get older. Peter Barkworth, theatre and television actor, writer and teacher, has also stressed that actors start in childhood, but that, as most people grow up, they become shy and self-conscious.67

Being unable ‘to get hold of your child-self again’ would seem to be the condition of those adults who could not act to save their lives. An incapacity to act is clearly related to an inability to let go of their adult selves. This is a polite way of saying that they are too concerned about their own dignity and the respect of others to be willing to indulge publicly in childish behaviour. An adult person who behaves persistently like a child is considered to be a fool. To be an actor you have to be willing to make a fool of yourself.

The actress Ayşan Çelik, educated and acting in America, has spoken of her experience of exercises designed to help actors share their private selves with an audience. She does not use such exercises very much in practice, but she feels that the experience of such training in a class was very valuable to her. It helped her get over the fear of sharing very personal things with others. She is no longer embarrassed by her own emotions: ‘…if you want to be creative as an actor, you have to be prepared to make a fool of yourself.’68 The Welsh actor Michael Sheen has stressed how frightening overcoming inhibitions can be. While being as exploratory as possible, ‘…you have to be prepared to look like a complete idiot in front of your fellow actors.’69 Sheen also believes that people obsessed with the preservation of a particular self, or personality – in other words, those who, unlike actors, cannot face the investigation of their true selves – end up by destroying themselves. For him, personality is not an expression of the true self, but is rather a defence against it. We need this conflict to survive in the world, but it can also destroy us.70

The fear of embarrassment is what prevents many people from being able to act in public; it is wrong, however, to assume that actors do not suffer similar embarrassment: they have simply learned how to utilise it, make it work for them, or, if they find it difficult to overcome, they have devised ways of escaping from it – most commonly by being someone else. The actor Roger Rees has explained how scared he has always been of performing in public. He finds even walking about difficult. When he has a long speech he does it as quickly as he can, to get it over with. It is his way of dealing with fear. A little later he adds: ‘It’s me fighting against myself, and I think that’s what acting is about.’71 The extremes to which an actor must go to overcome embarrassment have been stressed by the stage, television and film actress Eileen Atkins. For her, you should not be an actor unless you are willing to reveal everything that is inside you: ‘I’ve been on stage stark naked covered with shit (in Mary Barnes), so I’m not somebody who’s holding back…’72

Simon Callow has commented that the first time he felt he was truly acting was when he was able to forget about himself, how well he was performing, what others thought of him, etc. For the first time since he had joined the Drama Centre he felt he was not performing, and he was beginning to understand what playing a character meant. It meant giving in to another way of thinking: ‘I was being in another way.’ He feels that any talent for acting that he might possess involves the ability to cast aside his own self-consciousness. In doing this he discovers a new liberating energy.73

It would thus seem that actors, while, like the rest of us, being unable to bear many unpalatable aspects of their own selves, are nevertheless willing to let down their defence shields, contemplate those aspects, and then either utilise them in some way or devise ways of escaping from them into other personalities. Eileen Atkins has said that she does not understand actors who just want to become famous and earn a lot of money. For her, the real joy of acting is in persuading people that you are someone else, entering into the being of someone else entirely. She quotes a comment by Alec Guinness, which pleased her, on one of her performances: ‘Eileen, you were marvellous. I could not see you at all.’74 Nigel Hawthorne had always felt acting to be a way of escaping from painful shyness into being someone else; as a child he had felt himself to be rather plain and was very self-conscious. It was a great relief when he found that he could hide himself behind all kinds of strange characters.75 Judi Dench’s view is similar; she believes that you have to be a certain kind of personality to want to act, and that most actors are quite shy people: ‘So I put my energies into being another kind of person, entirely different, and trying to understand another person’s life. I’m happier doing that.’76 But actors vary in the ways they perceive the process of acting a role. Simon Callow used to believe when he was younger that it was possible to become someone completely different. But, since then, he has changed his mind, believing it is neither possible nor desirable for him to become someone else entirely. He would not prescribe the same attitude for other actors, however, because he feels that each actor must follow his or her own compulsions. Acting means very much working together with the audience: ‘I now very much see my work as an actor as finding a meeting point between me and the person envisaged by the audience…’77

However actors may describe their state of mind during the process of becoming another person, it is clear that some kind of psychological instability, cultivated or otherwise, is necessary. Fiona Shaw has described it as a ‘binary state’. On the one hand acting consists simply in walking about and talking, but it is more than that: the actor has to see ‘the possibility or significance of those moments…’ And thus, for her, acting is clearly an intuitive matter, which is why ...