The Acting Blog

What does good acting look like?

ACTING STUDIO UPDATE: The studio is starting to look the part and the office is a great haven, where lots of work can be done for both ACS and Writers Inc, our writing arm… Pictures to follow!

THE BLOG: Recently in the advanced acting techniques class, we were doing repetition and I asked the two students Ian and Paul to go into the ACS Office and do repetition.  The other students and I then watched through the window of the studio which allows a limited view of the office.  The two students doing the repetition looked fantastic, they were just two guys, enjoying a chat, if they’d had a pint glass in their hands, they would have looked like two blokes in a pub, having a chat over a drink.

So what convinced me of this?  They were relaxed and at ease with each other, they were living truthfully.  They were responding to what each other was doing and they were having a good time whilst they were doing it.  And it got me thinking.  What does good acting look like?  You see, I can tell you what bad acting looks like:

*stiff

*false

*exaggerated

*dead

*loud

*mechanical

But good acting is somehow less obvious:

* easy

* not convincing but invisible (you’re not aware of it)

* subtle

* organic

When I watched Ian and Paul doing Repetition in the ACS Office, I saw this, I saw this invisible, subtle, ease and now as advanced acting students and professional performers, it’s their job to bring that same sense of ease and invisible to the acting of their scenes.

On a great positive, this advanced class will be joined by experienced playwright/screenwriters Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin to develop the student’s improvised scenes into carefully crafted scripted scenes.

To You, The Best!

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 2009

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