The Acting Blog

Repetition for Beginners

I hate WordPress, this is my third attempt at writing this for you, fingers crossed this time. )

Repetition or the Repetition Exercise or Game was developed by Sandy Meisner in the USA to train actors to actively listen to each other and pay attention to their stage partners. Repetition is a foundation exercise in Practical Aesthetics, the approach to acting developed by David Mamet & WH Macy.

Traditionally actors do not need to listen to each other, they’ve rehearsed the scene in the same way throughout the entire rehearsal process, so they know what’s coming next. This means that their skill must be in pretending to respond truthfully to something they’ve heard hundreds of times. However, sooner or later, your performance will degrade over time. This might be fine on film but on the stage, where you need to remain spontaneous night after night, it becomes problematic.

In Meisner’s view and that of practitioners of Practical Aesthetics, actors should listen and should not set their performances in stone, in the words of Mike Alfreds, they should be ‘different every night.’

If your performance is to be truly spontaneous and immediate (meaning based on what’s happening here and now rather than copying what happened in rehearsal ad naseum, then you must learn to work off what the other actor is doing in this moment.

Repetition helps you to build the skills to deal with this new spontaneous and immediate style of performance.

Repetition is simple. Say something truthful about the other person and then that person repeats from their perspective and continue to repeat what you hear until something happens that makes you change. For example:

You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure
Etc etc…

There’s no need to do anything, there’s no need to change what you say or how you say it unless you see something new occurring.

Simply put: if you see the person fidgeting and biting their lip, you may believe they are nervous, then say it and continue to repeat (until one of you sees some new change occuring)

You’re unsure
I’m unsure
You’re unsure
I’m unsure (you see them bite their lip’
You’re nervous
I’m nervous
You’re nervous
I’m nervous
You’re nerbus (you hear them err)
You made a mistake
I made a mistake (they go red)
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed
You’re embarrassed
I’m embarrassed

As David Mamet says ‘Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing’. This means that you do NOT need to change anything on purpose but If you see a change in your repetition partner, then say it, don’t deny it. Remember it’s Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing.

There are three rules for repetition:

1) Tell the Truth
2) If in doubt Repeat
3) Dont stop playing the game: keep playing if you get it right, get it wrong, completely fuck it up or a herd of gazelles tramples your classmates. Place your focus on your partner and play the game until you’re told to stop.

You must allow yourself to be influenced by the other actor and to inadvertently (at this stage) influence their behaviour (without attempting to do so).

This game has no winner, it’s not a competition, when you make a mistake or get stuck for words just attempt to keep going, your worst mistakes are gifts to your fellow repetition practitioner that will keep the game going.

Simply say what you see regardless of social politeness. Meisner used to say ‘Fuck Polite’. He doesn’t mean be rude, he simply means that if you are an actor, you must be open to live truthfully under a wide range of imaginary circumstances and scenarios. For this reason, the actor must be unrestricted by social niceties in order to prepare to do this. It’s not about being mean to each other, it’s about being open enough to say what you see and respond to it.

Over time your repetition skills are integrated into your scene work. From herein it’s just practise. So what are you waiting for? Get practising!

See you in class!

Tags: repetition exercise for beginners, repetition game

First Day of Acting Class – Some Housekeeping for Acting Students

This blog is for the students starting acting class with me this evening, it’s also for anyone going to an acting class for the first time, or going back to taking classes after a break.

Here are some general pointers on taking acting class, I call it housekeeping.

Arrive Early – there is no reward other than gaining a good habit. This good habit however will be appreciated by all teachers, directors, producers, choreographers, and musical directors that you ever meet. Learn it early in your career.

Always Be Prepared - Come prepared, bring your script, bring pen/pencil and note pad, the excuses you make always sound like poor excuses, even if they are genuine reasons.

It’s Not a Dream – It’s not a dream you have to become a performer, you’re beyond dreams now. Dreams are intangible and cannot be touched, therefore they cannot be achieved. So, stop thinking of it as a dream, and see it as your target, your goal in the near future. Then work out the steps to get there.

It’s Easier to give up than get Better - this is highly challenging subject, environment and profession and at times, you may be challenged to the point of wanting to give up. Those who give up can never succeed. Those who refuse to give up can defeat the odds. Those who give up, will harp on in life about how they could have been an actor. Whereas you will actually be one.

Learn to take criticism well - No one and I mean NO ONE wants to hear criticism. We just want to hear how good it was. HOWEVER, the only way to progress is to listen very carefully to the feedback and criticism and respond to it positively by putting it into action. If someone says that you need to organize yourself better, that’s what you need to do. Tutors only have one goal, to maximize your chance of being a working professional. Don’t you want that too?

Casting is never fair – Whether you like it or not, you may never play a lead role in your life, you may also never own a Ferrari, date a rockstar or sleep with a supermodel. Life ain’t fair, get over it and get on with making the most of the opportunities that you do get, rather than dwelling on what you don’t.
Work out what’s in your control – The Stoical philosopher Epictetus teaches to seek out what is in out control and what isn’t. Graft as hard as you can to change the things that you can control, forget the things you can’t.

Break a leg tonight guys, don’t hold back if you have questions!

To You, The Best!

Looking for Acting Classes in Glasgow? Mark Westbrook is a Professional Acting Coach and runs Acting Coach Scotland, a private acting studio offering acting classes in Glasgow, masterclasses, workshops and audition coaching for actors at all levels. His acting studio is based in Glasgow, Scotland, although he teaches all across the United Kingdom. All Blog Posts © Mark Westbrook 2010

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Tags: First day of acting class in Glasgow, Housekeeping for Acting Students, Tips on Being an Acting Student

Please Don’t Act

I hate watching actors that are performing to me. They rob me of my chance to look at what being human is as an observer and remind me that they are attempting to play a trick on me. I may disagree with the notion of the 4th Wall for actors but not for the audience, I want to overhear, I was to see things as if the actor is unaware of me.

One of the things that leaves me cold is when I see actors ‘performing’ and not living. This I think is a point upon which many of us could agree, the actor that is living gives off a completely different energy to the one who is projecting their act to the audience.

Imagine our enjoyment to come from an act of voyeurism, when you break the spell, when ‘Act’ or ‘Perform’, you kill the enjoyment for us.

We’re all in this together, it’s a highly enjoyable complicity, the audience suspends their disbelief and the actors behave as if there’s no one there. But once you start performing, mugging, emoting, theatricalising your performance, we break the covenant between us. From there, no way back.

Notes for a Teaching Assistant in an Acting Class

I’m currently away on a writing retreat at the Arvon Centre’s Writing Centre up in Inverness-shire. It gives me lots of time to think and write my new play before my scholarship place writing course begins next Monday.

My new acting classes begin in just under a week’s time and I will be teaching three classes a week, two intro classes and one advanced class and doing lots of private 1-2-1′s based on the number of recent emails that I’ve received.

I’m formally adding two Teaching Assistants to my intro classes this term and I’m excited to say that I think I’ve picked people that will assist me well and that will use the opportunity to teach others and learn something about themselves.

Anyway, I decided that I would write some helping hints to Acting Class Assistants in the hope that my own TAs and other TAs out there in the acting training industry might benefit from it.

1) DO see this as a position of responsibility, not of power.
2) If you aren’t sure, DO ask the tutor and ask aloud so everyone can benefit and everyone can see that if they have a question, they should ask.
3) DO use similar useful phrases that the course tutor uses, this will help reaffirm what the students are learning.
4) The tutor will not thank you for pointing out an error that they made, but that doesn’t mean you should let it go. If you think they’ve made an error, then DO speak with them after the class, you may learn something, or you may indeed correct them.
5) DO display all of the qualities that we are trying to develop in the students. Be punctual, be prepared, have pen and paper, have your script, bring extra for the students that haven’t yet learned good habits.
6) DO Encourage, but don’t contradict.
7) DON’T talk yourself into a corner. If you want to make a point, do so, if you don’t think you can make the point clearly, don’t – you’ll look back at a sea of confused faces. DO point out any concerns about the students to the tutor.
9) DON’T forget what it was like at your first class.
10) DO ensure that you are better prepared than any of the students.
11) Correct the students but only after they’ve given it a go.
12) Although the class isn’t about you, you can still treat it as a learning opportunity.
13) The tutor makes their comments after years of experience, take care critiquing others. Give feedback that is practicable.
14) Enjoy the experience.

Good Luck!

Ease and the Actor

I never liked the idea of relaxation for actors. It’s true that performing places horrible tensions on the actor but being relaxed seems only a good way to relieve tension, we do not want to be relaxed as such when we are preparing and giving our performance. We want an active state, this active state is called Ease.

When something is done with a feeling of ease, it is organic, fluid and flowing. It feels completely natural because you get entirely out of your own way. You do not become inhibited by mental or physical tension or resistance.

Stanislavsky and Strasberg both placed a great deal of emphasis on relaxation as an actor’s tool, but I’m not sure how practicable relaxation exercises are for future application. Even frequent practitioners of yoga, relaxation and meditation acknowledge that it takes time to get oneself into a relaxed state but this is neither useful to an actor warming up for a performance nor suitable to relieve tension during the performance. Tension cannot be willed away, nor can you take time out to change your state.

So how do you approach the achievement of a feeling of ease? To my mind it is centred around your attitude to several things.

Firstly, things that are artificial and not organic, attract more stress and tension. Habit can help by providing a way for new things to become natural.

Secondly, Mamet’s famous dictum offers us a great way to discover ease in our work. “invent nothing, deny nothing, accept everything”. Do not push, do not try to hard, do not invent. But be open, be vulnerable, be willing to see and seize opportunities that arise, do not deny what happens or what you feel. Denying will lead to inner stress and outer manifestations of tension. Go with The Flow they say. Lastly accept everything, decide what is within your control and what is not. Focus on those things that you have power to change and influence and you will be happier and more at ease with yourself.

Tags: ease and the actor, relaxation and acting, relaxation and the actor

What role has emotion got in acting?

A poor actor locates emotion in their voice, as If feeling can only be released vocally. This often produces a throaty, strangled sound that stands in for the experience of emotion. But when we experience our emotions it is a psychophysical experience which combines mental, corporeal and vocal reactions and responses. I would suggest that the actor that sounds as though they are trying to feel something by forcing the throat to convey meaning Is actually feeling nothing, they are faking, they defrauding the audience and watching them is increasingly tiresome.

But actors should feel something, they should take ownership of what they are actually feeling and make it work for them. And in the course of carrying out the endeavours of their characters, the actor should not ignore their own emotions for in the context, nothing that the actor feels should be denied.

When we carry out actions similar to those of the literary characters we seek to portray, we will feel something, and we must acknowledge that feeling. Just because we prefer our acting technique should centre itself not around real emotion but truthful experience, does not mean that we feel there is no place in acting for emotion.

Emotion is the bio-psychophysiological response to experiences that affect us. It has both a mental and physical display and never appears in the same way twice. Thus making it a highly unsuitable material from which to build a character. Emotion is shy, nervous and uncontrollable, it cannot be poked at with a stick, it will respond in ways you do not expect. You cannot train the emotions in the same way that Pavlov did his dogs. And if you were able to do so, why would you want mechanically stimulated emotions? Their beauty is their spontaneity of emergence.

I prefer my acting a little less emotional, for I see far too few actors in the UK that can successfully squeeze out the required emotion at the desired occasion. So they fake it and usually very poorly. Those that manage to squeeze one out in rehearsal will place their focus on reliving that moment and sadly, I would say, that makes them more self conscious in performance, self indulgent and boring to watch.

I’m sure as actors you enjoy this part of your job, but I’ve never gone away from a film impressed by the actors’ capacity to feel, to emote. I often sit speechless at the end of a film, moved by it. And here’s the key, I am the one moved by it. When am I moved? There are many occasions but I am usually moved when a character with whom I have developed a relationship, a bond goes bravely through something painful. Then I feel something far more than if I were to sit and watch them cry.

Tags: emotions and acting

Is Acting Thinking, Feeling, Believing, or Doing?

Is acting thinking? Is it feeling? Is it believing or is it doing? I suppose it could be all of these things, although each acting style or method seems to place a unique perspective on their emphasis and importance.

To my own mind acting cannot be any of these things in isolation. However how much of these things do we actually actively have any control over?

We cannot bend our real feelings and emotions to our will. Our thoughts occur as a bio-physiological response to things that happen to us. Belief has boundaries, we cannot choose what we believe, we can attempt to suspend our disbelief but whenever we try to force our belief, it responds like a petulant teenager.

That leaves Doing. I don’t say behaviour because I think that’s too complex, I actually prefer Action. When acting is about action, when we focus on the undeniably interlinked psychophysical action, then no belief is required. Thoughts and feelings follow on from committed action.

But what does this actually mean?

Replace focus on person to person doing, emotion is a red herring. Thoughts are suspect, they lead away from action. No believing in the imaginary.

Action is physical, mental, emotional, imaginative and spiritual – if you get out of your own way, stop trying so hard and let it.

A character is a sum of their characteristics, what they do is who they are. As you perform the characters actions, your thought and feelings stand in for those of the character.

Many will disagree, but my position as an acting coach is to offer my students acting training and solutions that are within their control and power.
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Lastly, on a completely different note. the sublime Cecile Monteyne has a small speaking role in the latest Final Destination movie, it’s probably the best acting in the entire movie, go Cecile.

Tags: What is Acting?

Working on the Scene

The largest unit that the actor should concern themselves with is the scene. In performance this is shortened to the moment. The moment is now, never repeatable, relates neither to the past or the future and once observed, it is gone. Learn to focus your attention on the correct unit at the right time.

Between these points, there are the beats, or the bits or beads, depending how thick Stanislavski’s accent was. These are usually marked by a major change to the scene, sometimes referred to as units, although traditionally a string of beads makes up a unit.

In each scene, there is a strong compelling drive, a purpose driven by a want or desire that burns within the character. It does not matter what their overall superobjective is, the scene should reveal all the needs to know about playing the scene, of course this doesn’t mean that we ignore the antecedent events of the play, but the actor cannot play a superobjective – only bear it in mind whilst working on the scene in rehearsal.

Once the curtain goes up or the camera starts to roll, only what sticks in your head from rehearsals and the immediate concerns of the moment matter.

Tags: scene work, work on the scene

Purpose & The Actor

Purpose – It’s that little flame that lights a fire under your ass. – AVENUE Q.

There are no good or evil characters for you to play. Those judgments will only ensure that you play stereotypes, empty approximations of certain types of behaviour bases on those shallow judgments.

Characters are just goal and action, a want, desire or purpose and the steps taken to achieve them. And just like real people if your characters lack a defined purpose or if you as the actor do not understand their purpose, they will be empty, flat – literally depressed.

Why is Purpose so important? Because it guides our action, and in context
It tell us how we must act.

Seeking the purpose will keep you and the character focused, directed and happy. For it is happiness that drives us all, real and fictional.

Some collected thoughts on the criteria for Purpose:

Purpose means that your character has something that they Want.

Purpose means they want to Accomplish a Change. If your Purpose was ‘I want Revenge’ the change would be from weak to strong, from victim to avenger.

Purpose is unique to the particular given circumstances of the scene. However, purposes are universal enough for the actor to comprehend what it means.

When Purpose is achieved or thwarted there is a significant change in dramatic tension.

Purpose is accompanied by a mental image, when we think about what we want, we use imagery to reinforce our desire.

Purpose is psychophysical and involves both mental and physical action.

Purpose meets Obstacles. It is the nature of wants to meet resistance. How does the character deal with the resistance they find?

Very importantly, the character’s purpose is not something the actor needs to share. The actor learns their character’s purpose in order to decipher how the character goes about putting their purpose into action. The actor’s job is to convert this into something they can do.

When you have decided what you believe the character’s purpose is, you should ask: For What Reason?

I hope this is food thought.

Tags: Acting and Objective, Acting and Purpose, Motivating the Actor, Motivation for the Character