The Acting Blog

Tackling Talent: Part 2 with ACS Assistant Coach Ian Watt

Friday’s have become special days at the ACS studio. Over the last few weeks we’ve been working through a DVD of Meisner classes. It’s a real treat to watch the man himself training actors in his own techniques. At 8 hours it’s a bit of a marathon but it always sparks off lots of discussion.

We’ve been thinking about talent. The core skills of Repetition, Script Analysis & As Iffing can all be developed through hard graft – so does the term TALENT even fit with the Practical Aesthetics ethos of acting?  Does it matter how TALENTED or UNTALENTED you are?

Talent is a difficult term to understand to begin with. One dictionary definition is – a natural ability or giftedness. So someone with talent has an aptitude for certain things or an innate ability to achieve a level of skill or competency. Now here’s a much misunderstood term.  Competency sounds like an apology for being just-about-passable but is defined as a combination of aptitude, knowledge, understanding and attitude.

Two indisputable talents sprung to my mind – Picasso and George Best. Picasso’s early works are worth a look if you ever thought he couldn’t draw and Best was such a great footballer that Pele, the Brazilian legend, signed an autograph for George with the words “from the second best footballer in the world.”

Yet Picasso said it had taken him a lifetime to learn to draw like a child and Best worked so hard in extra training to develop his weaker left foot – it became stronger than his right. Without doubt both showed signs of having great talent at an early stage in their lives but they also demonstrated they had a great work ethic – even in Best’s case.

But all of Best’s aptitude for balance and ball skills didn’t help him extend his playing career and Picasso’s understanding of form and hand to eye co-ordination wasn’t the reason he continued to produce works until he died aged 92. Maybe the difference between them was attitude.

Mamet wrote a private letter to the original students of Practical Aesthetics before their first performance – ‘A good actor trains his voice and body and analytical powers even though this training is taxing and “no one may ever notice.”

I feel talent shines out. It is obvious and noticeable – especially to those who can’t. So how does that fit with the P.A. approach? To be honest – I dunno. I like the idea of talent being a gift – something you’ve simply been given.  It’s nothing you can or should take any credit for – it’s just the way you are.  If you perceive a gift as something of value then you’re likely to take care of it – nurture it and not hide it at the back of a cupboard next to the horrendous cardigan you got from granny last Christmas.

REAL talent makes something difficult look easy to do – SO easy that everyone thinks they can do it. Ultimately I guess you can either use it or choose to waste it. My advice – which you didn’t ask for – is nurture however much talent you have whether it be great or little. Don’t worry about whether you have it or not, work hard and concentrate on developing the skills you need. If you are tenacious enough to keep on learning – you might surprise yourself and manage to be competent!

Thanks

IAN

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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Tags: Do you need talent?, Ian Watt, Practical Aesthetics, Talent

A Few Good Resources

Hey All

In today’s blog, I wanted to offer you a few resources that I’ve found across the web.

STINTON TALKS MAMET: The first is for people in the UK or for those who can listen to the iPlayer or catch Radio 4 somehow.  Tomorrow evening (Monday 8th February), Colin Stinton will be reading some of Mamet’s work on Emotions, The Rehearsal Process, and The Play and the Scene.  It would be good to hear Mamet’s close collaborator Stinton expressing Mamet’s ideas before Mamet’s latest book ‘Theatre’ is released in April this year.  This was meant to be a permanent resource, but check it out before it goes…

APPROACHING SCRIPT ANALYSIS: I was looking up some stuff on the web, and wanted to seek other perspectives when I found this interesting article on Backstage, it compares several acting teacher’s approach, one of which is Practical Aesthetics, take a look here. I’m interested in what you think of the OTHER approaches mentioned.

CASTING THE UNKNOWN: This is a great Radio 4 (finite) resource on the show FRONT ROW is taking about acting, using REAL people, non-actors, casting straight from the street.

It’s only a few resources, but I’ll bring more too, let me know your thoughts…

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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The Wood for the Trees

Often when we’re working on a new scene, we find it difficult to get to the heart of it.  Our acting techniques have been almost crippled by asking too many unnecessary and possibly academic questions and this really ends up with us missing the important parts of the scene, the actable bits.  Not all of it IS actable to the same degree.  When you find out that your character has been married twice and has two children, there’s nothing actable in there.  Oh yes, but surely a man twice married behaves in a certain way.  Maybe he’s MORE nervous around women than normal, maybe he’s over-protective of his daughters.  Sure, they’re reasonable thoughts.  But they’re not actable unless there’s a part of the script which allows you to reveal something of this.   And here lies a small problem actors have, they get an idea and they want to force it onto the script.  But that’s not how it works, it usually just makes for very bad choices, occasionally it will work, but more often than not, it’s just rubbish.

Pare back any scene, pull right back and get to see the most basic view of it.  This will prevent your initial (sometimes wrong) view of the scene from colouring the potential for the many different ways to play a scene.  Work to understand the basic human fundamentals going on within the scene, this will reveal to you the actable parts.

We must aim to get a clear understand of what we must DO in the scene.  DO is the important word.  DO is the essential word.  Because acting is doing.  It’s not thinking, it’s not pretending, it’s not creating, it’s just ‘doing’.  And doing is acting, being in action.

To get to the heart of a scene we must ask:

QUESTION: What’s LITERALLY happening in this scene, in the most basic sense.  Strip away all the detail, because it ends up confusing us.  Within the scripted page, the simplest answer is there.  Something simple and basic and universally human.  This is the actable core of the scene.  This leads to the next question:

QUESTION:  What does your character WANT from the other character in the SCENE (AND what does your character want them to DO).  This is a simple define the goal of the character, but place it in the other character (or the other actor) in practice.

QUESTION:  What is the ESSENTIAL ACTION? What is the essence of what the character is doing in the scene?  The WANT will lead you to this answer.  When you have this, you have all you have to do in a scene broken down into something terribly simple, but compelling, that has its core in the other character, and then the other actor.  It something so simple and yet so challenging that you will be able to immediately act upon it.

Now you can see the Wood.  If you still can’t see it, let me be your guide.

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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Lessons from Sandy…

I’m sure you know by now that we’re greatly influenced by many of Sanford Meisner’s ideas.  I find myself inspired by his words more and more.  I found a few new quotes that I thought I would like to share with you.  I will use the quotes to explore some ideas on acting and hopefully pass some of the inspiration onwards!

“Less’s more!” Mies van der Rohe and the Bauhaus may have gotten there first (well, second I think actually), but when Sanford Meisner says ‘Less is More’, I wish more actors knew this from birth. The actor should always aim for less, often much less.  I spend much of my time reigning actors in, helping them cut back on their over-done faked emotion and their desire to push so hard.  Less, less, always less, because more is often sickening, like too much cake.

“The truth of ourselves is the root of our acting.” Stripping back to the truth, the simplest most basic truthful sense of ourselves is often the best way to bring truth to the role.  You bring your truth to the role and rather than creating character, you reveal the truth of yourself and that truth sells the audience on our well-meaning trick, the creation of the illusion of character.

“Acting is not talking, it’s living off the other fellow!!!” Of course, the basis of acting for Meisner, taking your inspiration, your fuel for the scene from your scene partners.  Acting has nothing to do with talking, little in fact to do with words.  The bit of the ice berg that you CAN see is the words.  The rest of your acting is why lies beneath.

“You can’t learn to act unless you’re criticized. If you tie that criticism to your childhood insecurities you’ll have a terrible time. Instead, you must take criticism objectively, pertaining it only to the work being done.” You do need someone to help you cut the shit, can the bull, stop letting yourself off the hook, and if its done with love and care, or the professionalism you deserve, then that object criticism will make you stronger, a better, truer performance, and perhaps a better person too.

“The only way to deal with yourself as an actor is to follow the emotional truth of what you have to do under the imaginary circumstances. And as you develop you become confident. You come to believe in what you’re doing and trust it because it’s out of you.” Trust yourself.  End of.

“Transfer the point of concentration to some object outside of yourself – another person, a puzzle, a broken plate that you are gluing.” One of the first things that I learned as a director was that actors that had a focus on something other than themselves were completely different in their performance from those that were ’self’ conscious, in other words, inwardly focused.  A puzzle may be fine, something that holds your attention is good, but you can’t always find a ’something to do’ in every scene, although I confess I like scenes where people do something other than just talk.  However, for most scenes, you have the most interesting, attention-holding thing of all,  a fascinating human being playing opposite you.  Let them be your focus and you’ll fly.

“You can’t fake emotion.” I think my greatest dissatisfaction with acting in general is that I see faking that’s done as if it’s done well and audiences lapping up like it’s remarkable, when really it’s just a downright lie.  Fake emotion isn’t interesting, it’s distracting to me as an audience member, it doesn’t add to the scene, it completely detracts from it.  If the emotion doesn’t come to you, don’t even try to fake it, your bullshit standardised, generalised fake-ass emoting won’t fool anyone, and all you’ll get from your audience is indulgence, which is to say, a sort of pity, wrapped in applause.

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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Tags: Sandy Meisner, Sanford Meisner

I don’t trust Acting Schools

For Joanne:

I don’t trust acting schools.

There, I said it.   Now I’m going to get some abuse.  I don’t trust Acting Schools.  Not the real ones, not the accredited ones, not the universities pretending to be ones, not the colleges desperately trying to be ones, not the small independent studios, not the large commercial ‘theatre’ schools that warehouse kids and offer them singing, dancing and acting,  I don’t trust them.  I’m not saying they’re bad, well, perhaps I’m inferring something about that, but what I’m saying is that I don’t trust them.

I don’t trust their programmes, their curriculum, their staff. I don’t trust their games, their exercises, their techniques, approaches, methodologies, systems, ‘ways’, means and motivations.  I don’t trust what they teach or what they say.  I’m not saying it’s wrong, bad, evil, wicked or deceptive,  I’m saying I don’t trust it.  Have I been to these schools, conservatories and universities, these studios, workshops, seminars and lectures?  Yes I have.  I have heard academics spouting theory about practice they’ve never experienced, I’ve heard acting gurus being economical with the truth, I’ve heard acting teachers berating students that don’t get ‘it’, when there wasn’t really ‘anything’ to get.  I don’t trust them.  It’s too easy to make money off aspiring people.  Drama courses are resource hungry, institutions dislike them for THAT very reason, but they also like the fact that they attract high fees and as many applicants as they can allow.  Drama courses are even worse, if you think I don’t TRUST acting schools, I’m downright hostile about drama courses.

Now wait a minute Mark, you have an acting school.  Are you saying we shouldn’t trust you either?  As a matter fact, as a matter of principle, I say NO, don’t.  Be skeptical. I believe that we teach at Acting Coach Scotland, is sound, practicable approaches to acting for the acting industry.  But I’d say that even if I was a charlatan now wouldn’t I?  I’d bamboozle you with fancy terms, I’d show you the fantastic facilities and make you feel that ONLY THE CHOSEN ONES can come in. That’ll make you feel special and you’ll feel indebted to them for giving you a place.  Perhaps you don’t need them, did you ever think of that?  Perhaps you can do it without them.  Oh Mark, you’re so irresponsible, fancy suggesting such a thing.

The proof of the pudding’s in the eating and most schools leaving you feeling empty and then you feel bad for pigging out on junk.  Don’t trust ANY acting school, don’t hand over large sums of money, don’t play the game.  Hold back.  You’re the customer.  You’re the client.  Wait.  Look.  Listen.  Examine.

If Such and Such a famous actor went there, it MUST be a good school.  Only if you believe that the famous actor had not gift for acting before they got into the school.

Who is that the Acting School lets in?  Those they feel already possess those capabilities and abilities that three or four years slog won’t discourage or destroy.

The acting schools rarely teach anything that works.  So don’t trust them.  And when you find one that works, that REALLY works for you, not something you guiltily comply with.  Then stick with it.

But don’t trust them and don’t give up your common sense.  No one said being an actor meant being a schmuck.

I don’t trust them.  You shouldn’t either.

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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Advice to the Advancing Acting Student

At the end of the day, acting is doing.  It’s doing, it’s not talking about doing (as the academics and some directors think) and it’s not pretending to do (as others have been known to posit).  It’s real doing.  Meisner said ‘the foundation of acting is the reality of doing’.  Once you see an actor take that on board, there is a change in them which is often remarkable.  They stop living in a semi-daylight state of pretend and they begin to commit to action, this is a transformation more captivating than any ‘character’ actor could perform.  Looking at acting as doing is a healthy way to approach acting, psychologically it does not ask you to interfere with your emotions, it accepts them as part and parcel of you, and who you are, and what you bring with you.  It does not ask you to stop being you in order to become someone else, it does not insist that you stop being yourself in order to pretend to be someone else, nor delude yourself into a state of otherness.

Acting that involves doing is highly watchable – how often do I see a show on television or stage where the actors really aren’t doing anything.

One of the keys to good acting is listening.  Not pretending to listen – usually accompanied by an indicative little nod to prove/fake that you are listening, but REALLY listening.  Once you engage in the task of really listening and watching your scene partners, you give up some of the control that you feel you must keep over yourself and the scene, and things start to happen by themselves.  Your spontaneous humanity and your creativity come together and strive to help you – without even trying.  Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing, Accept Everything – Mamet says.

Remember that which we do consistently (DO – consistently) becomes our technique.  Whether this is good or bad, whether it works or not.  So you must strive to listen all the time you are on stage, even when you have lines, or especially when you have lines.  You must still be tuned in to your partner, even when you are busy DOING.

In repetition, you must remain relaxed and not strain yourself looking for something to say.  You must learn to trust yourself that what happens, when it happens, will make itself apparent enough for you to see/hear it.  And if something occurs, it is part of the game, everything that happens during the game IS THE GAME.  Just like everything that happens on stage or on camera IS your performance, you can’t hide from it, and in those moments, those wee special moments, you will see the magic of the actor.  Not where you seek for it, but when it finds you.

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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Tags: advanced acting class glasgow

The Craft of the Actor

It’s a new year, a fresh start… and it’s time to start taking a fresh look at your profession.

Despite living in a quick-fix world, our profession does not support this kind of culture.  The profession of the actor is one of the apprentice and one of the craftsm’n.  The craft cannot be taught in a few minutes, a few hours, weeks or even months.  Whilst training may only take a limited amount of time,the craft of the actor requires the acquirement of skill, expertise, knowledge and experience which takes the actor from the position of an apprentice – someone learning on the job, to the position of master craftsm’n.  To learn the craft of the actor takes a significant amount of time, it needs both professional and life experience.

The craft of the actor is learnable.  It is a discovering and developing a set of skills that will eventually allow you to effortlessly perform a task, just like the craftsm’n.  Of course, a knack for your craft will probably help you to move faster in your learning at the beginning of your career, but acceleration will eventually slow right down.  In the end, it’s a marathon and not a sprint.  Craft requires constant work and unfortunately since most actors are out of work a lot of the time, they cannot get enough time on the job in order that they properly learn the craft of acting sufficiently.

Too quickly come the shortcuts, the basics are not well-learned, the technique still feels awkward, stiff and difficult to apply.   You must spend your years working on the associated skills and knowledge of the craft, but it will take much longer to gain mastery of language, action, nuance and your own vulnerability.  It takes years to learn to remove the layers of self-protection, self-doubt, self-conscious, to get out of your own way significantly enough that you can reveal yourself to the role and to the audience.  That’s the greatest challenge of the actor’s craft, not to create a clever character, or out-think the writer, but to reveal youself, without barriers.  That’s the real craft of the actor.

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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Tags: the craft of the actor

Does Practical Aesthetics work for Physical Theatre?

In yesterday’s Acting Blog, I stated that: “A technique of acting must work all the time, every time.” An anonymous (American?) commenter asked:

“Does PA work for physical theater?”

I feel that there are about eight different answers to this question, so we’ll have to take this one in parts.

For me, the answer is very much a Yes.  However, it’s worth working through the entire answer to this question to see why:

First of all, when I said that a technique of acting must work all time, every time, I was referring to actors working in films, television and theatre on scripted pieces.  I was referring to what we might refer to as ’straight’ acting.  I was also referring to it working consistently for the actor, on each stage and set they tread – rather than Practical Aesthetics being some kind of answer to everything.

Because of course, Practical Aesthetics is no use at all for installing televisions or baking cup cakes.  So part of my answer is Yes, it will work if it is useful to you.  The answer is No, if it is not useful to you.  A fork is great for eating with, but sometimes you need a spoon, right?

Next, of course, it depends on what we mean by Physical Theatre, according to various resources I checked, the term is a ‘catch-all’ meaning:

• Mime
• Contemporary dance
• Theatrical Clowning and other physical comedy
• Some forms of puppetry
• Theatrical Acrobatics

I’m sure many would argue that Physical Theatre is in fact, an entirely separate art form and has it’s own individual skill set, that an actor must learn separately from the main acting technique.

I do not believe that Practical Aesthetics is a catchall.  However, it can’t hurt to apply some principles from Practical Aesthetics to ANY of these individual art forms.  In this case, Practical Aesthetics might be considered to enhance this skill specific training.

Practical Aesthetics is also a philosophy of making theatre (Mamet’s new book ‘Theatre’ due out in April 2010 should offer us all more)  and so many of the great principles of pragmatism offered by Practical Aesthetics are useful to any creative person or group.  If we just take one idea of ‘Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing, Accept Everything and Get on with it!’ we can see how easily that this ethic could be used by the Physical Theatre practitioner in the creation of their work.

Furthermore, if we ask if PA useful for the creation, rehearsal and performance of Physical Theatre itself, then the answer is a resounding Yes.  If we take the example of DV8, which in its recenty physical theatre performance ‘To be Straight With You’ used physical performance enhanced by the spoken word, then we can see that it could be useful and work well.

And if we remove the spoken word and think of a company such as the German-based, Russian monks of physical theatre such as Derevo, there are many principles and tools in the basics of Practical Aesthetics that could help, enhance or develop this type of work and its rehearsal/creative process.

Practical Aesthetics, is primarily an action-based approach.  It isn’t about words but actions.  As Mamet has one of his characters in American Buffalo say ‘Action talks and Bullshit walks’. Much of the early Practical Aesthetics training is learning to work on real spontaneous impulse.  Those trained in PA learn to work truthfully from moment to moment, in a physical sense, they become great observers they learn to respond truthfully to what the other person is doing within the truth of the moment, – these are all surely useful, or vital to excellent physical theatre.

We train first and foremost to learn to act through the body – as Meisner said ‘the foundation of acting is the reality of doing’.  Sandy also wanted an exercise where ‘there is no intellectuality’.  Where we learn to work from the intuitive centre, where we allow ourselves to become impulsive – this can only aid the physical performer.

Additionally, when you add Practical Aesthetics training to something like Viewpoints, then you get a creative philosophy and practical tools that feed off each other and stimulate fascinating creative work.

So the answer is yes, many of the principles and some of the approach itself is suited to making and performing physical theatre, and finally yes, if Practical Aesthetics could be useful to the making, rehearsal and performance of Physical Theatre, then yes, it would work.

So I guess, my overall answer is yes, it works well for physical theatre, if you mean a physical theatre performer who wants to work impulsively, living in the moment, responding truthfully to other performers, to the situation or circumstance, to music, stimulus or mood.  Yes, if you want to learn to work without denying those impulses.  Yes, if you like to work in action.  Yes, if you like to take too much thought out of the equation and move towards action. Yes, if the essential actions of Practical Aesthetics can stimulate the performer physically, yes if tactics lead a physical performer to express themselves physically, rather than simply in words.

In general and in the specific, does Practical Aesthetics work for Physical Theatre? Yes. Yes. Yes.

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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Tags: Practical Aesthetics

Glasgow Acting Coach on…The Death of Method Acting…

I’m annoyed, it’s 03:44am in the morning and I’m fuming at the media’s constant need to agree with the Methodists, that’s Method acting practitioners to you and me.  Remember Bush and his ‘You’re either with us or against us’ speech, well the same type of impractical theory has crept from the Methodists themselves to others.  Their over simplistic rant goes that if you’re not a Method Actor,  if you don’t sue for Emotional Truth, then you’re pretending.  All those who don’t pursue this emotional truth are therefore fakes and frauds.

In this recent Wall Street Journal article, David Thomson gives his potted history of the Method, with a small gripe or two, he’s also fallen for the ’swat or not’ mentality.  As if – not liking oranges only left you with apples.

Read the Article on Method Acting yourself.

Well sorry Methodists, sorry David Thomson, this just isn’t true.  Look, I’m all against faking it, pretend just drives me up the wall and when I see it, it makes me shudder, because those that can pretend well are basically few and far between, so the rest are left asking for the audience or viewer’s indulgence while they fake it and hope to get away with it.

The opposite of Method Acting is not Pretending.   To me, the opposite of Method Acting can be found in the philosophy of Practical Aesthetics, the approach to acting that was categorised by William H Macy and David Mamet in New York in the 80s, based on the work of Stanislavski and Sandy Meisner, it involves pursuit of action within the truth of the moment.  Well, at least the title gave me hope, The Death of Method Acting, I hope so.  I would say that the actors that are being called pretenders are just naturally gifted at taking action, pursuing achievable goals and acting in the moment.

Method Acting seems on the rise in the UK at the moment, who knows why? We’ve never been known for suffering that self indulgent crap before, why start now?

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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Tags: Method Acting

Glasgow Acting Coach on… How to Avoid Faking It.

Okay okay you say, since you hate faking and love truthful acting so much, how the hell do I avoid faking it?

Actually, it’s quite simple, it’s a mental shift in the actor’s perspective that helps us to see things clearly.  I was working with an actor today and it started to become very clear to me the different between states and action.  When someone is angry, they are in a state of anger which is projected by the things that they do.  Their emotional state is caused and maintained by their actions (and reactions to whatever made them angry in the first place).  We know they are angry by the things that they do, the actions that they take, the tactics they use, and again – the things that they do.

When an actor is learning to act, they often get stuck in the trap of trying to reproduce emotional states.  It is the mistake of playing the result rather than stimulating the truth through truthful action.  Of course, any good director or acting coach knows this, yet still many insist on the production of a result or state rather than helping the actor to find it themselves.  Over the years, this creates a self-confidence crisis in actors who were consistently having to fake emotional states in order to please their teachers and directors.

The key to avoiding faking it, is to remember that you canNOT will yourself into a state.  I know the NLP voodooists would claim that you can, but to my mind, you can only turn the temperature up or down on a state, you cannot conjur one at whim.  We’re not talking about emotional truth, emotional truth already exists without you seeking it.  Acting is action and not emotion.  Emotion is crazy state, uncontrollable and wild.  If your character is angry, sad, horny or whatever, you have to look at what horny, sad and angry people DO.

This is the key to avoiding faking it. Find a coach that will help you learn this on a 1-2-1 basis, it takes someone else, someone you can trust to tell you when you’re faking it.

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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Tags: Actors - How to Avoid Faking It

It’s All in the Script

Certain methods of working as an actor put the actor’s creative powers at the centre of their process.  I can understand this, as the people with the least power in a production, one will take any opportunity to have a tiny piece of the decision making.  However, to my mind, the script is the most powerful resource the actor has at their disposal.  The trouble is that the script is not often the actor’s friend, they fear getting to grips with it, so a few weeks spent in self-pleasuring character exercises tends to make them feel at east – until it comes to actually performing the script – because they still haven’t overcome that problem.

In television and film, the script is often less-than-respected, in the theatre, the writer is still king.  In many ways this is a shame, because it’s the writers who know how to tell stories best.

My own training and what I teach on a daily basis is that the answers to the puzzle of any scene, of any script in any medium, can be resolved by looking to the script.  The script has it all.  But what about when the script is crap?  You can’t save a bad script, you really can’t.  You can save yourself, but you cannot save poor craft.  You will of course be tempted, but I say resist.  Anyway, let’s not look at worst case scenarios, let’s look at your average script for a television show or play, or film.  Let’s imagine that the writer spent a long time working on it and it was hell on earth to get it to this stage.  Let’s not piss all over it immediately as we disrespect the writer by imagine that we can make it better.

Let’s go to the script.  How to play the scene is given in clues by the writer.  Let’s face it, writers try to write the most useful script they can for actors – and some will even take out insurance and try to make it actor-proof- meaning even the worst actors with the worst performances based on the worse choices given the worst direction in front of the worst audience can’t fuck it up.  Well, they try anyway.

For actors will little experience, I ask you now to learn to respect the script.  For experienced actors that have learned many bad habits and begun to think they can do it better, respect the script or start writing your own and prove that you CAN do it better, then try not to pull out you hair whilst the actors tear it to pieces.

Say the lines simply.  Don’t overdo it.  The audience are NOT stupid.  Help them on their dramatic journey by being good at what you do, bringing the 2-D page into 3-D performance.  And when you’re looking for help with how to do that.  Respect the script and start looking for the clues there.

John Strasberg, son of the famous acting teacher Lee Strasberg famously said that he ‘realised that everything is already in the play.’

But an actor needs to have faith in themselves that they can learn to use the script as a tool and not as a painful enemy, an obstacle that prevents them doing their job.  Actor Steve Buscemi who was a student of John Strasberg’s said after working with John  ‘I think learned to trust myself more, to look for clues in the play to help me with the character I was playing’.

To focus this much on the play means that you have to have a fairly rigorous approach to using the script as your closest ally.  So find yourself an acting coach that can teach you to make the script your friend.

And oh… read more plays )

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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Tags: The play's the thing

Mamet on Acting: Part 3 – The Final Part

So, this is it, the final part of the 3-part Mamet on Acting. In our glasgow acting classes, we often talk about Mamet and I try to inspire the students with some of his more useful suggestions and maxims. His new play RACE looks like it might ignite Broadway when it opens officially. Thanks again to JAG for the PlayBill )

When asked about what he meant by ’stick to the action’ by Matthew Roudane in a wonderful interview in 1984 Mamet said:

“The action is what the character is doing. That’s what the actor must do. Acting has absolutely nothing to do with emotion or feeling emotional. It has as little to do with emotion as playing a violin does.’

Mamet’s pet hate is emotional performance. I guess, many people then believe he thinks acting should be emotionless. This isn’t true. It’s just that he believes that it’s the audience that should be feeling something. The pursuit of emotions or emotional truth ends in self-indulgence, self-consciousness and self-pleasuring – yes, it’s a kind of masturbation. Anyone who has ever ’stuck to the action’ long enough to try to get it from someone in a scene will realise, when their defenses are down, that they will feel, that emotion will appear, but it shouldn’t be chased. Of course, a lover spurned and trying to get a second chance will be emotional, but their foremost concern will be to get the second chance, and they will be looking hard at the other person, desperate for signs of success or failure, and they will often do ANYTHING, and I mean ANYTHING to get what they want. When emotion comes, they won’t be in control of it, but they won’t give up the fight for that second chance either.

On the same subject, in True and False – Mamet says: “If we learn to think solely in terms of the objective, all concerns of belief, feeling, emotion, characterisation, substitution, become irrelevant. It is not that we “forget” them, but that something else nbecomes more important than they.”

I like this next passage very much and remember, I’m an acting teacher: “A word about teachers. Most of them are charlatans. Few of the exercises I have seen, in what were advertised as acting schools, teach anything other than gullability. Don’t leave your common sense at the door…” Provocative words, but let’s face it, we all know it to be true. For my own students, the next time you enter the Acting Studio, look above the door and see what it says.

Finally, an our last word from Mamet for a while and I encourage any of my students to do this with me, because if I truly believe in what I teach and if for a second I thought I was turning into one of the charlatans that Mamet despises, I would pack up my business and go run a book shop or something: “If you don’t understand the teacher, make the teacher explain. If they are incapable of either explaining or demonstrating to your satisfaction the worth of their insights, they do not what what they are doing.”

I have to say that I’m sitting here at 01:10am in the morning, re-reading Mamet’s incredible book on acting True and False, and marveling again just how right he got it. Extreme? Yeah, maybe. But that doesn’t stop it from being true. If you don’t have a copy of it, get a copy, it won’t hurt you to read what this guy has to say on your craft. He’ll probably make you spitting mad, but if like me, you read it again and again, it starts to make sense, common sense.

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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Tags: acting teachers are charlatans, Emotional Acting, hate my acting teacher, Mamet Acting Technique, Mamet on Acting, Matthew Roudane

The Puzzle

After discussing this idea with two of my private coaching students Craig and Paul, I thought it would make an interesting blog post for today:

Craig and I were analysing a scene from Fargo and Craig pointed out that this way of working was fun because it’s like a puzzle, in a separate class Paul commented that it may be a puzzle for the actor but the writer never intended it to be so. I would strongly agree with both of them.

Working on text is a puzzle. It should be approached with the same open-mindedness, curiosity and tenacity that one might face a logic puzzle, a riddle or even a crossword or Sudoku puzzle.

A puzzle is a challenge that is intended to be solved. Our puzzle is how to take the literary artefact of a play (dead wood with ink blotches) and transform it into the living, breathing performance of an actor.

The puzzle is a way to view scene work which actors often find difficult and irritating – it’s the bit they often find most frustrating.  In classes, we make sure that our students have strong puzzle skills before they go on to work freely on scenes. Without them, they’re simply making shit up and that isn’t acting, it’s improvising on the theme of the play, which is disrespectful to the writer and the craft of acting.

Actually, this topic reminds me of something Mamet writes in Some Freaks, so I thought I’d share some of it with you:

In his chapter entitled ‘Stanislavsky and the Bearer Bonds’, Mamet discusses Stanislavsky’s Puzzle – a scene that Stanislavsky set his students to improvise, telling them that when they could analyse and perform that scene, then they would know how to act.   Mamet says “What is the answer to Stanislavsky’s Bearer Bond problem? Stanislavsky said that when one knew how to correctly analyse and perform the problem, one would know how to act; so, then the question is, How Does One Act?’  You start with a conundrum. You have to find the answer yourself.

Great acting involves puzzle solving, faced with the conundrum, stay curious, don’t give up, don’t try to get around the problem.  When you finally find a solution, you have the keys to the kingdom.  Now the real work begins.

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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Tags: acting is a puzzle, David Mamet, private acting coaching, script is a puzzle, Some Freaks, the puzzle of the play

Mamet on Acting – Part 2

Well, it was Mamet’s birthday on 30th November (St.Andrew’s Day) so to celebrate, here’s Part 2 of our blog series of Mamet on Acting:

From an interview in 1994 with John Lahr:

LAHR: Character is?

MAMET “It’s action, as Aristotle said.  That’s all that it is.  Exactly what a person does.  It’s not what they ‘think’, because we don’t know what they think.  It’s not what they say, it’s what they do. Which is exactly the same we that understand a person in life, not by what they say, but by what they do.”

Here Mamet is expressing his Aristotelian belief that character is action, character is the sum of their characteristics, the things that they do, their actions.  Character is Action.

Mamet on the basic task of the actor.

“What they should do is they should learn their lines, understand very, very simply what the character in the script is doing, and try to find a congruent action for themselves, which is physically capable of being done.”

Many people have taken this quote and tried to undo Mamet’s logic – oh is THIS all acting is, oh come on, Dave, surely that’s not true.  He’s trying to simplify.  It’s the opposite of what the other approaches do, which is to complicate the actor’s craft to a level of voodoo so convoluted that no one can actually do it, so they experience various shades of failure.

“Most of the Stanislavski system is a Practical Aesthetic for the actor, based on the Aristotelian idea of unity’.

Mamet believes that the Stanislavski created a practicable (capable of being put to use) aesthetic (a theory of art) which based on the principles that Aristotle expressed that drama featured unity of time, place and action.  Mamet would of course, favour the idea of unity of action.  One action, one scene.

(1986 – First time I could find in print Mamet mentioning the term ‘Practical Aesthetic’ – if anyone out there in Tinterwebland can correct me on this, I’d be very happy)

“What is necessary is intention, clarity and intention.  And the rest is just… as I used to say to my students, the words are just gibberish.  They really are.  Not to the audience, but to the actor”. Mamet offers us his definition of what’s really necessary, a clarity of work, a focused specificity, not generality and understanding intention.  To him, even as a playwright, to him the actor should consider the words as gibberish, first and foremost, it’s intention, and how we attempt to get what we want.

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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Tags: Mamet on Acting, Mamet on Actu

Mamet on Acting – Part 1

It would hard for anyone to read my blog and not read in my obvious admiration for the contribution to drama, theatre, film, and acting that David Mamet has made.  His ideas certainly have inspired me greatly over the years as a director, acting coach and writer and they still do.  I don’t always agree with him, or some of his highly provocative statements (“Repetition is BULLSHIT” – to a recent Atlantic Theater Company Acting School class*) but there’s a lot that can be gleaned from him.  His word is not law, but many times, it inspires and agitates, and it makes us question, that’s the important bit.  Coming up with the answer can take a life time, and that’s okay.

Here are some of my favourite moments of David Mamet talking about the topic of acting, and these I do agree with.

“The theatre is a profession of mountebanks and misfits, much like myself, who’ve come in through the backdoor because no one else would have them and learned to find a place in society by getting up on the stage and doing plays that people need to hear, doing them well in an interesting, provocative and unusual manner.  Who haven’t had the life bred out of them.” I think any of us that work in the arts know this feeling, a feeling of being an outsider, and many still are outsiders to the outsiders, those who live on the fringe of the misfits.  Perhaps these days, the gate keepers are employed to keep people from coming in the backdoor quite so readily.

Mamet talks about organic acting and relates it to objectives, this is important for Practical Aesthetics practitioners, this is great for scene analysis, As-Iffing or playing the scene:

“A child who doesn’t want to go to bed.  A lover who wants a second chance.  A man or woman who wants a job.  Someone who wants to get laid.  There’s nothing that these people won’t do.  And that’s called having an objective.  Having an objective is just a fancy word for wanting something real, real bad.  When all of us, or any of us, are in these situations, there’s nothing we won’t do.  All our attention is on the other person.   And we’ll change horses in the middle of the stream to do anything to get them to give us what we want.  Now when you see that in an actor on the stage it’s awfully damned compelling.  Because what the great actor is doing on stage is changing his or her tactics to get what they need from the other person on stage, rather than performing what they dreamed up at home.”

*And let’s face it, whilst it was Meisner that created the exercise, it’s Mamet that taught it to his original NYU Practical Aesthetics Workshop class, and part of Practical Aesthetics it has become, perhaps these days, he doesn’t think it works, I’ll do some investigating and see what I can find out!

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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Tags: David Mamet, Mamet on Acting, Practical Aesthetics

Assistance with Repetition

The Repetition Exercise is one of my favourite parts of actor training and in my classes we spend a considerable amount of time attaining high skill levels in this exercise at all levels of the ACS training syllabus.  I’ve been reading a lot about emotions this weekend, and whilst we do not try to fake emotions, we do try to be able to determine the behaviour and emotions of our partners.  I’m sorry, this is probably not much fun for anyone that isn’t already taking classes or doing repetition elsewhere, but it’s fairly essential reading for my students.

The trouble is that among experts there is very little consensus on the actual basic emotions that the human being feels and therefore exhibits:

The Stoics believed there only a few basic emotions:  Pleasure or Delight, Distress or Fear. (Can you tell when your partner is in one of these four basic states?)

In 1972, a now famous psychologist called Paul Ekman (he pioneered the reading of micro-expressions and emotions and a character based on him is in the TV show Lie to Me) came up with his own list of the basic emotions namely: Anger, Disgust, Fear, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise.

Now these are useful, but they don’t quite complete the full range of basic emotions, so in 1999 Ekman revised his list and came up with:

Amusement, Anger, Contempt, Contentment, Disgust, Embarrassment, Excitement, Fear, Guilt, Pride in Achievement, Relief, Sadness/Distress, Satisfaction, Sensory Pleasure and Shame.

This is very helpful for those of us staring at someone’s face (don’t forget it’s their body language and their tone too, this is just ONE facet of Repetition)

So Jesse Prinz was dissatisfied with these and came up with some of his own, Prinz is a philosopher, working in the field of emotions and the philosophy of psychology.  Here’s Jesse Prinz’s list:

Frustration, Panic, Anxiety, Physical Disgust, Distress, Self-Consciousness, Satisfaction, Stimulation and Attachment.

Now again, not all of these work for repetition, but they’re good to consider.

Now the reason that I’m highlighting these for you, is to get you to become better and more specific at naming what you see.  Think of it in terms of the stoics, then in terms of Ekman in ‘72 and Ekman in 99, then widen your thoughts on emotion to Prinz in 2004.

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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Tags: Acting Emotions, Emotions and the Actor, The Repetition Exercise

A Grammar of Acting

This grammar helps us to speak the same language, to develop a vocabulary for discussing the work that we do and the work of others.  A shared vocabulary allows us a solid foundation for understanding how acting works and how to develop our skills.

When you have a language, you can enter into a dialogue.  Dialogues empower us to learn and change. Without this grammar, without a shared language, we will find it difficult to engaged in this learning dialogue.

ACTOR: Someone that takes action.

ACTING: Acting is living truthfully under the imaginary circumstances of the play (Sanford Meisner)

ACTION¹: also known as a TOOL or a TACTIC

ACTION²: Behaviour, the things that you do, made up of WANT, ESSENTIAL ACTION, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY and PHYSICAL ACTION.

ANALOGOUS CIRCUMSTANCES: Parallel Circumstances that help us to understand what we must do and how we must behave in the As-IF.

ANTECEDENT EVENTS: Events that occurred before the play begins.

As-IF: Developing parallel circumstances so that you understand the context for how you will play the scene, offers stakes and tempo-rhythm elements for your ESSENTIAL ACTION.

As-IFFING: An exercise used to habitualise the TACTICS of the ESSENTIAL ACTION into your body.

BIT: An individual section of the play script/text

BIT CHANGE: When one BIT of the scene changes to another because the character’s ESSENTIAL ACTION changes.

BEAT: What it sounds like when a Russian says ‘Bit’ and so, BIT has been replaced generally by BEAT and BEAT CHANGE.

CHARACTER: The sum of a person’s characteristics, the total of what they do.  The sum of their actions².

DIRECTOR: Someone who directs the ACTION² of the play

DRAMATIC ACTION: The conflict of will as the Antagonist(s) strive to achieve their goals and what they do to try to achieve them.

ESSENTIAL ACTION: What your character wants from the other reduced down into a single powerful, actable sentence. Each Essential Action has 9 Criteria.

THE FACTS: An effective way to arrive at a summation of the GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES: The term comes from Stanislavski and refers to all of the unchangeable facts of the scene.  These facts are not open to interpretation; they are external influences that affect the situation of the scene. The writer, director and all the actors should be able to agree on these circumstances, as they are FACTS.

HABITUALISATION: The task of making something into a habit and therefore capable of being done without thought.

IN THE MOMENT: Now, not before, not before after, but RIGHT now.

LITERAL: A basic description of the scene – given without interpretation.  A summation of what’s happening concluded into a single phrase.

MOMENT-TO-MOMENT WORK: Responding truthfully to what occurs in each moment, rather than based on what you did earlier in rehearsal.

OBSTACLE: What hinders your task IS your task.

PHYSICAL ACTION: Another name for a TOOL or TACTIC.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY: Physical doing.  Making a pot of tea.  Killing Claudius, Undressing, Crossing the stage to pick up an object, or waving hello, these are all PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES.

PLAYWRIGHT: The ‘maker’/’wrighter’ of the play.  The person that puts the pieces of the DRAMATIC ACTION together.

PRACTICAL AESTHETICS: A practicable theory of art.

RELATIONSHIP: The relationship type, be it PARENT, CHILD, TEACHER, STUDENT, EMPLOYEE, EMPLOYER, FRIEND, STRANGER etc that is between the characters in the scene that helps the actor to understand HOW to behave under the Imaginary GIVEN CIRCUMSTANCES.

REPETITION: An exercise created by Sanford Meisner to teach actors to listen to each other and respond to each other truthfully.  It helps to develop spontaneity of action and reaction in the moment.

REPETITION WITH ACTION: The exercise played from the perspective of the ESSENTIAL ACTION.

SCENE ANALYSIS: A way of tackling any scene by asking several essential questions:

1. 1. WHAT’S THE CHARACTER LITERALLY DOING?

1. 2. WHAT DOES THE CHARACTER WANT THE OTHER CHARACTER TO DO?

1. 3. WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION?

1. 4. AS IF: WHAT’S THE ESSENTIAL ACTION LIKE TO ME – IT’S AS IF…..

SCRIPT ANALYSIS: The overarching analysis of the play/screenplay to align the actors with the Dramatic Action the writer has constructed.

STAGE BUSINESS: Incidental PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES performed for dramatic purposes.

STAKE: What your character has to lose in the scene, what you have to lose in your AS-IF.  Often generated in class/rehearsal by the question:

WHAT IF YOU DON’T?  – WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES

TACTICS: The things that character/actor does to get what they want.  The things the actor does to the other actor in terms of TRANSITIVE VERBS that aim to produce the result required by the ESSENTIAL ACTION.  It must immediately be capable of being done to another human being.  TACTICS should be played based on what the other ACTOR is doing and not planned in advanced.

TEMPO-RHYTHM: A way for the STAKE to create speed of motion by setting a time signature.

TRANSITIVE VERB: A verb that can be done to someone else in Practical Aesthetics these are known as TOOLS or TACTICS.

TOOL: Another word for a PSYCHOPHYSICAL ACTION or TACTIC.

VOLLEY: To automatically fire the same ‘YOU CALL’ back in REPETITION when it isn’t necessarily true.  The term is taken from tennis when the ball is hit back over the net before allowing it to bounce.

WANT: The desire, the underlying need that powers the character through the scene.  Expressed in SCENE ANALYSIS as: ‘What does the character want the other character to DO’

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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Tags: Acting, Acting Coach Scotland, Acting in the Moment, Essential Action, Glasgow Acting Classes, Repetition

Improvisation and the Advanced Glasgow Acting Class

I want to tell you something about the project my advanced students are currently working on in their Tuesday evening classes.  Not because I am trying to persuade you to join them, cos I’m not, but because I think it might be interesting to hear about the work we’re doing together.

The advanced acting class at Acting Coach Scotland is a place where students that already have a firm grip on the technique of Practical Aesthetics explore more advanced elements of the technique and the training.  This is an invite-only class and the standard of the student is high.

In this block of classes, we’re doing something different, we’re creating improvised scenes from scratch, working on them for a while and then handing them to playwrights to work up into script scenes.

The project started with the students creating an improvisational scenario for two other acting students.  We do this with the tools of Practical Aesthetics.  The student actor created a scenario, involving two people in a situation.  They determined the location and what the individuals wanted from each other in the scene.  Then they decided upon Essential Actions for the characters in the scene.

The next part involved a story conference with the students telling each other their ideas and I worked as story editor, working out any kinks, strengthening any parts of the story that I felt were vulnerable and challenging some of the thinking behind the decisions made.

The ‘actors’ for each scene then created an As-If for their improvised scene, to make a personal connection to the circumstances of the scene.  Then they go from Repetition to connect with their partner, to Repetition with Action to begin to habituate the essential action whilst staying connected with their improv partner and finally into the As-If to bring it all together.

The students will work for a couple of weeks now on exploring the scene through improvisation before our three playwrights Ann Marie di Mambro, Chris Dolan and Philip J Larkin come in and watch the work in progress improvisations.  They’ll then take their notes, their impression of the scenes and an audio recording of the improvisations and spend a week creating a scripted scene from it.  The students will then work on rehearsing the scenes under my direction and using Practical Aesthetics to bring the scenes to performance.

I’ll keep you up to date with how the scenes develop and the process the students go through as they experience the generation and fruition of ideas into their performance.

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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Tags: Acting Coach Scotland, Advanced Acting Class at Acting Coach Scotland, Glasgow Acting Class, Improvisation, improvisation for acting, Practical Aesthetics

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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A YouTube Clip for Acting-Blog.com from Olivia from Straight From School.org

A great wee clip from Olivia, a trainee Casting Director…

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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Tags: Acting for Film, Olivia B, Straight from School