Acting Technique
Top Books on Acting
Most books on acting are complete nonsense, these are the books that I personally recommend:
True and False -David Mamet
Practical Handbook for the Actor – Bruder et Al.
Action – The Actor’s Thesaurus – Lloyd-Williams and Calderone.
The Power of the Actor – Ivana Chubbuck
The Intent to Live – Larry Moss
The Monologue Audition – Karen Kohlhaas
The Sanford Meisner Approach – Vol 1 – Larry Silverberg.
The Actor’s Art and Craft – William Esper.
Playing Shakespeare – John Barton
The Right to Speak – Patsy Rodenberg
Not a long list, but my personal guide to books on acting that are worth reading.
Excerpt from An Interview with Mark Westbrook
This is an interview I did a while ago (but didn’t end up getting published)… It’s just an excerpt. Hope you enjoy it.
When I met Mark Westbrook to interview him, he was not how I imagined him to be. Some of the pictures on his website show a rotund bearded man, in his 30s, jolly, well dressed, full of laughter and enthusiasm. The man sitting waiting for me, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book about Feminism, was wearing jeans and a martial arts hoodie. He spoke enthusiastically about his passion for acting and actors.
RM: Mark, how did you become an acting coach?
MW: Some of my friends were actors, I was a director and had taught acting for several years, but didn’t consider myself an acting coach. Many of my actor friends seemed really at sea when it came to the very basics of their craft, no matter how much they had worked, or where they had trained.
RM: What do you mean by ‘all at sea’?
MW: They didn’t seem to have a way of working that would help them consistently, there was no ABC of acting for them, and that worried me, because I thought Drama Schools should be providing that type of educating.
RM: And you believe that they’re not?
MW: I don’t just believe it, it’s borne out by experience, the craft of the actor seems to be missing from the modern actor’s toolbox, they don’t even have a toolbox. They face a script almost completely clueless, or the methods and techniques they’ve learned are so contrived or impractical, they just don’t work.
RM: What’s a toolbox?
MW: A set of tools that they use in their job. Just like a plumber.
RM: So an actor should have certain tools they use for…
MW: For certain tasks.
RM: So you started coaching actors because you felt they were missing some important tools for doing their job?
MW: Yes, and not only that they were missing tools, but that the tools they had didn’t work, or served only to create very stiff or fake acting.
RM: You’re saying that what they teach in drama schools, doesn’t work?
MW: For the most part.
RM: That’s a pretty arrogant thing to say, isn’t it?
MW: It’s only arrogant if it isn’t true.
RM: But you yourself, you went to drama school?
MW: Yes, college, university, drama school and an acting conservatory in New York.
RM: So some of it must have worked.
MW: I think I was able to pick and choose what worked and what didn’t and forge it into an approach that can help actors to work better for and by themselves.
RM: Right, so you’re not anti-drama school?
MW: No, not really, I think actors need to learn their craft somewhere.
RM: Some might say that you don’t have a background as an actor, how can you know this stuff, aren’t you just being provocative?
MW: I’m not just being provocative, I am being provocative because I believe that what I’m doing helps actors, and my experience is that if most actors could swop three years of training for a year with me, they’d be a lot better off.
RM: Well, you would say that.
MW: That’s true, I would. Again, experience in the studio shows that actors that work using the tools that ACS provides, they can work with greater confidence.
RM: Do you teach complete beginners?
MW: Sure, everyone has to start somewhere.
RM: What about middle aged people?
MW: Yes.
RM: Surely, they’re never going to have a successful career, they’re competing against people that have been in the business for years.
MW: That’s true. But no one really cares about that, if the person can do it, they can do it. If a casting director sees that person and they fit the bill, and they’re professional, and they’re gifted, and they’re not a dick, then, that’s all that matters.
RM: But aren’t you just giving people false hope?
MW: There’s nothing certain about being in the acting industry, from the top to the bottom, I’m helping people have a full on, two hundred percent stab at something that they want to do. I’m really sensitive to people’s aspirations, because there’s a lot of charlatans out there that will milk aspirational people for all their worth, I’m not into that. I can help actors at all levels, but they’re not just cash machines for me, their careers and potential careers are important to me, and essentially my success rests on their own.
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
Method Acting and Practical Aesthetics: What’s the Difference?
For Oliver.
One of my students asked about the difference between Method Acting and Practical Aesthetics:
First off, let’s make clear a point of similarity. All acting techniques have the same goal, to produce truthful acting by freeing the actor from self-consciousness and physical tension.
A second point is that they are both derived from the life’s work of Konstantin Stanislavsky, Russian actor, director and theorist. However, whilst Method Acting was shaped in America by Lee Strasberg, a devotee of Stanislavsky who never directly studied with the man, Practical Aesthetics is influenced strongly by Sanford Meisner, a contemporary of Strasberg, who chose to focus on behaviour and doing as a route to truthful acting, rather than Strasberg’s focus on Emotion.
I will be generalizing throughout this blog, in order to refrain from writing a PhD thesis here.
First off, the Strasberg-Meisner difference is at the heart of the difference between Practical Aesthetics and Method Acting. Acting for us is based in what Meisner called the reality of doing and the truth of the moment. This is a focus on the actor’s actual reality, not pretend circumstances. This is a focus on the actor’s subjective view of the truth of the moment and not a belief in the imaginary circumstances, which results in Scenic or Dramatic Truth. A truth based on the actor’s capacity to delude themselves that fictional things are real.
Next, the Practical Aesthetics (PA) is writer-centred, the creator is the writer, they do the job of making things up, the actor is a creative interpreter but not a creator in the same way that a writer is. Method Acting (whatever that means) is more actor centered. We are most interested in serving the writing, this cannot be said of the Method Actor, who creates a character built from details of the script but also from their imagination. They may also serve the writer, but they do so by trying to create a ‘truthful’ fully dimensional character.
To the Practical Aesthetics actor, there is no character. It cannot be created, the writer has already given you everything you need to act the role by suggestions made in the script. The illusion of character is created when the writer’s words mixes with the performer’s actions and is born in the audience’s mind.
The Practical Aesthetics trained actor, does not look for emotional connection to the text or character, instead, they find the commonality in action. We are interested in how the character fulfils their intent. It is about truthfully carrying out the character’s actions, although note that we are not talking about walking, talking or eating breakfast, we are talking about objectives fuelled by intention and manifested through the truthful performance of psychophysical actions.
The Method Actor creates from the self, the actor is the start and end point. For us, it is the text and the other people in the scene. We are not infinitely fascinated by our own creative capacity, but firmly focused on the Other. They (writer/text/other actors) are our fuel source, everything we do is motivated by a concretely achievable goal (we call an Essential Action) and based in the subjective truth of each moment. It is not ‘does my character smoke?’ but instead ‘what can I do to change the behaviour of my scene partner?’.
Quite often, less experienced students will confuse the method by which we connect to the scene and the role known as the ‘As-If’ with Emotional Memory. First of all, in Method Acting, actors are trained to recall the memory of their senses, this is later used to help stimulate the recall of emotion through provocative memories.
The goal is emotional truth and a connection to the inner life of the character.
In the As-If exercise, the goal is a personal connection, an understanding of what performing the Essential action is like to you. We often use analogous (past) circumstances to help relate to the action, but we do not look for emotionally stimulating memories, especially when a daydream will do instead. We are reliving nothing as we believe it removes one from the scene. We work out what the action means to us and use the memory or daydream as a memory aid, to remind us how to behave, not feel, but how to act.
One is a tool for stimulating truthful emotion (I have not set out my objections to this here) and the other is a stimulus to action. Quite different intention and practical application.
Practical Aesthetics is also not a ‘system’, it is a few simple principles to bypass the common day bullshit of actor training and rehearsal. Of course , the philosophy that surrounds PA is entirely different from that of other acting techniques too.
Rehearsing a play with Practical Aesthetics is entirely different too, much simpler and yet with deeply affecting results nonetheless. How? Because challenging the dominant acting ideology does not mean replacing it with something devoid of beautiful, affecting. Practical Aesthetics is just as effective and affective.
For us, it is not the actor that should undergo the great emotional journey but the audience. It is they that should feel.
Whereas the actor and their character is centre stage in the Method Actor’s performance, the Practical Aesthetics trained actor gives a truthful performance, which steps aside and allows the story to be told, rather than featuring emotional oases demonstrating the actor’s capacity to ‘feel’ on command.
In Practical Aesthetics, a simple motto:
Invent Nothing, Deny Nothing, Accept Everything and Get On With It!
The Beauty of Truth
I love watching performance. There’s something magical that I’m drawn to in the actor’s art of storytelling. But most of the time, I confess, what I see is little short of rubbish. Sometimes the play is intellectual at the cost of the story, sometimes the ideas thrust upon the actors by the director are faulty and give the performance a pretentious or unnecessary edge which spoils what you see. And sometimes, the acting is no good. Correction, most of the time, the acting is no good.
What do I mean by ‘no good?’ Well, I mean that it was artificial, mechanical, empty, disconnected and most of all, it was bullshit. I use that as a technical term, bullshit is when I can sense the actor’s are lying to me. Something in their performance is not truthful, it is fraudulent and it stinks of artifice and even worse, the vilest sin of PRETEND.
I crave truthful performance. It is one of the most beautiful things that one can see. It often goes unnoticed because it is not showy, it is not marked by a sense of ‘performing’ or ‘acting’, it is subtle, unadulterated and most of all truthful.
Many acting techniques falsely believe that truth can be achieved through faith. If you just believe in the circumstances of the character enough, you’ll create truthful acting. That is pure nonsense. You are already truthful. The art of the actor, is NOT to work hard enough to create truth, it is instead, to reveal truth, the real whole truth of the moment to the audience. This is an act of courage and bravery that many actors find very difficult.
I was recently watching a rehearsal for a friend’s show at the Edinburgh Festival this year. I watched the performance and the actors all gave good ‘performances’, but that’s what they were ‘performances’, there was not a scrap of truth involved. But one actor’s performance, my friend, as it happens was so subtle that often, her fellow actors responded to her as if there was a problem and she had broken out of the performance, so truthful was her performance, so subtle, that even her colleagues, hearing the words they had heard a hundred times didn’t recognise the truth when they saw it. Or perhaps they did, and thought that she had stopped acting – which is of course exactly what she had done.
The beauty of truth is that it allows us to enjoy a ripping good story and not focus on the individual actor’s performance, which – in the end, is why they come.
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
The Other
“The best way to be in contact with the audience is to be in close relationship with the other characters in the play” Stanislavski
The Other is the most important person in your scene. For Stanislavski, the Other was the other characters, but for us, the Other are the actors in your scene. By placing our attention lightly on our scene partners and by seeking an action from them, we develop a less selfish type of acting, self consciousness dissipates and your engagement with the Other makes you engaging to watch.
Stanislavski himself believed that we should show ‘limitless attention to our scene partner’. When I teach acting, I do not ask the actor to imagine or pretend that the Other is someone imaginary or fictional, I ask them to deal with truth of the moment, deal with the person in front of them in that moment, not in rehearsal, but in every moment. This means every moment is different and every moment is truthful. In this case we mean that the actor responds directly to what they see from the Other. They do not make up their response based on something they did in rehearsal and project it out regardless of what The Other is doing.
In my acting masterclasses for professional actors, I constantly repeat ‘It’s NOT about You’. It’s an important lesson to remember, one that actors find quite funny since they know their habit for self-absorption. Taking your attention off yourself and placing it in the pursuit of a goal through action is the best way to relieve stage fright, to develop captivating action and to give the performance you wish to give.
The ‘Other’ is the key to a spontaneous and improvisational style of acting. By improvisational, we do not mean that you make up the words, but that you spontaneously react to what the other is doing. Each moment is different, inside the sandbox of the circumstances of the play. The other person in your scene gives you one of the most important elements of acting, something to react off, a way to behave, a way to act, the ‘HOW’. The Other is the fuel of the scene. Whatever the other fellow in your scene does, it provides you with material to work from in the scene, even if they do nothing. If the other actor is being difficult or pouts or rolls their eyes, you immediately have something to work off. How do you know HOW to deliver the lines? You don’t. You deliver your lines based on what the OTHER is doing within the given circumstances of the play.
Seek your goal from the OTHER, commit to your tactic and the truth of the moment will be your guide. But it takes bravery and courage.
‘You may play well or you may play badly; the important thing is that you play truly’ Shchepkin
The truth of the moment, the truth of the scene, the key to truthful acting is DOING REAL THINGS to REAL PEOPLE.
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
Just Say the Lines
My experiences as a writer are that given enough rope, the actors will labour the lines to death. They’ve also develop an assumption through popular culture or training that they are superior to the words in some way, and can (and often do) request changes to the text based on ‘what sounds better’ or the removal of something that doesn’t ‘ring true’. My point is this. Shut up and say the lines. If you were asked to bring your editorial skills to the table by the playwright/screenwriter, then by all means, please do. In film of course, the director and the actors regularly shit all over the writer’s work. In the name of ‘what works’, or ‘what rings true’, or basically, some deficiency in the actor that means they can’t say the line the way it is written. Here’s a trick. The writer, through fluke or gift or training or none, is actually probably quite good at their job and has been paid money to produce the words. If as an actor, you think you can do better, please do. Otherwise, just say the lines.
An excerpt from a 2008 article in The Independent makes this point for me: “The uncanny exactitude of Mamet’s notation is borne out by a story told by the actors David Suchet and Lia Williams, who played the professor and the student in that production. At the start of rehearsals, they found the carefully positioned emphases inhibiting. So Pinter asked the author for a script without the underscoring. Mamet declined on the grounds that the stressings were all in the right place and necessary. Pinter stuck to his guns and an unmarked script was provided. The telling point is that when the actors re-consulted the marked script four weeks into rehearsal, they discovered that they were in fact playing virtually every emphasis originally indicated there.”
Say the lines, don’t labour them, and enjoy the benefits of the writer’s own talents, add yours to theirs, rather than trying to avoid doing your job by taking on their job too.
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
Rehearsal: A Demonstration of Excess and Waste
Our rehearsal process is a demonstration of excess and waste. We often waste the three weeks of rehearsal common to most subsidised shows by fannying about for two weeks and then panicking like crazy for the final week. It’s what the film director Werner Hertzog refers to as ‘what starts as aesthetics ends in athletics‘.
We waste so much time. We talk endlessly in circles about irrelevant issues that cannot be acted upon. We listen to the director’s vision, which is less actable than the discussion, we do character work. I’m not even sure what that means. We try to become part of the creative team by ‘creating characters’, that basically involves ‘writing’ whilst standing up and talking and improvising about things that do not have any impact on the scene. Ah yes, but we must improvise the previous circumstances of the scene. Bullshit. That will be great fun, but in essence, entirely wasteful.
Much of the things that we do in the rehearsal period are not helpful in putting on the play. They do not help the actors to act the scenes, instead, they are a wasted time. Activities like these are things that I call PARLOUR GAMES or FAKE WORK,, they feel like creative work, but actually, they are not supported by the text, nor do they support the work on the text. These games and exercises are little more than fannying about with good intentions. This is often a form of well-meaning hippie crap that masquerades as acting or performance training. Improvising around the circumstances, total. waste. of. time. Hot Seating: Nonsense. These are tools of improvisers and devisers and is a completely different skill to acting. We answer inane and ridiculous questions about what colour, shape, flower, animal, fizzy drink that our characters are, it’s all complete twaddle. It is unnecessary, it does not make you an artist, it makes you FEEL like an artist. If helps you to tell yourself that lie. But it is a lie.
This is how to spend your time rehearsing a show
- Learn the Lines in advance of the first rehearsal (completely devoid of intonation)
- Read the Play Lots
- Understand the Script as a Whole by Asking Some simple questions that will unlock the essence of the play.
- Analyse each scene of the play for action (the actable parts of the script) with simple tools again
- Practice the actions of the play without the script, on real life scene partners
- Build relationships between the actors
- Add the words.
- Block the Play
- Run the Play until the actors are comfortable with what they have to do.
- Perform the Play, live in the moment, make it different every night.
- All else is waste and does not contribute to the performance, but to the actor’s belief that they are doing some good, hard work, fake work, pretend work.
And before you get there before me, it doesn’t make us any less of an artist because we don’t stroke our egos by thinking we are creative artists equal to the writer, we are interpreters, creative, dramatic interpreters, it is not our job to ‘work on the play’, it is our job to tell the story to the best of our ability.
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
An Essential Lesson
If there is one thing that I must impart, it is about lines. In my career to date, there is one issue that I come up against time and time again, lines.
Look, you are an actor, your lines are vital to your performance. Learn them all dead cold, with no intonation and do it before rehearsals/filming begins. The freedom you will feel for doing this is elating.
It is not acceptable to sort of know them, to paraphrase, to wait until the last minute. Sit down and learn them, and learn them verbatim.
And verbatim means verbatim. Not kinda or sorta, verbatim. If you want to make up lines, go be a writer! And then see how you feel when actors fuck with your lines, paraphrasing and hacking up your precious words.
“But I don’t know how, I don’t know the best ways.” Well, here is a tip, it is not magic, just sit down and memorize them until you learn them. Cover and speak, use a dictaphone, get an iPhone app, write them out or use memory hooks like pictures.
You cannot know your lines well enough. You cannot over-learn them, that’s a bullshit myth. If you want your lines to be truthful and fresh, learn
I hear lots of excuses, I believe none of them. If you sit down long enough, you remember them, if you don’t, you wont. They will not ‘go in during rehearsals’, that’s not the purpose of rehearsal. The purpose of rehearsal is for the actors to practice the actions of the character. If this is held up by your paraphrasing, stuttering unlearned excuse making, stumbling, then you are holding everyone else back.
I can barely believe that I have to write a blog about this, isn’t this a given? From my experience, it is not. How sad.
As Spencer Tracey once said about acting ‘learn your lines and don’t bump into the furniture’.
The Secret of Text Analysis
What is the Secret of Text Analysis?
Regarding text analysis, there aren’t any ‘correct’ answers, there are just answers that can acted upon and answers that can’t.
The results of the text analysis should lead you the actor towards action. Anything that leads you back into inexpressive reaches of the inside of your head is not useful to actors, actors are active, not waiters or thinkers.
But where do these answers come from? The script. You’d think that was obvious but many actors look for magical answers and there aren’t any, just those evidenced by the script, discovered and revealed by asking the right questions.
Unfortunately many actors think this is the time to engage creatively and they are wrong. This no time for creative work, this is time to understand the work of another creative artist, the writer.
And without a robust technique to apply, the actor is not armed to tackle the text, and yet so many actors leave college, conservatory or drama school without rudimentary technique, sometimes because it isn’t taught, sometimes through laziness. Sometimes both.
And yet discovering the actable part of the script comes directly from your understanding of that script. That is the secret, and of course, it’s not a secret, it’s quite rudimentary, but you must learn it, and if you do not know the right questions to ask, well, you can always look for an acting coach.
So if you there’s a skill you need to work on this autumn, it’s text analysis.
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
The Last Moment of a Monologue
So many actors kill their monologues in the last few moments. A few things can happen. Sometimes there’s a moment where it finishes and they look embarrassed with themselves, that usually kills the moment. Another thing is when they break the moment and immediately look at the panel, like a small child who has just finished using the toilet. Others rush the end, to get it finished and to put it beyond them. All of these and more ways exist to kill the moment and leave the auditiors/panel feeling cheated. The people watching you are always a few moments behind you in comprehending what you are saying. If you end abruptly, without a moment to let it sink in, you cheat them, and they won’t thank you for it.
End the monologue with purpose. Finish with strength, leave an impression.
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
Get Craft
Some people are lucky, they can just do it. They don’t really know how they do it, if they’re asked to talk about it, they mainly speak nonsense, but they can do it and no one cares. For the rest of us, there’s CRAFT. The actor’s craft is highly disputed, but one things for sure, if you have no craft, if you’re a purely instinct person, you’re great when the going’s good, but a nightmare when it doesn’t come spontaneously. You need to get CRAFT, CRAFT isn’t insurance, it won’t protect you if it all goes wrong, but it will give you a stable set of tools to work with and THAT is sadly missing from the British/Scottish acting industry that I work within. Without craft, you’re just lucky and luck has a habit of coming and going.
Craft is something that can be learned over the years, but not by just repeating the same mistakes. I never trust someone who tells me they have 20 years of experience, I instinctively worry that they’ve spent 20 years making the same mistakes. Craft requires testing, an element of deliberate practice and it really helps if you are able to learn it, test it, learn some more test it, etc. You may be an actor without getting craft, but I don’t expect you to have a long career, of course, there are always those that have the knack, they develop their own kind of personal craft, that is okay too, as long as it works and it works consistently and it makes you a better artist, a better collaborator perhaps even a better person.
I’ve always thought that our craft was built on graft, hard work, working harder than anyone else, working longer than anyone else. Craft can learned in a classroom but it requires performance to test it. Performance puts us in crisis mode and everything that’s not nailed down, will go out of the window in the moment. Craft is what sticks.
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
The Universal Action
When I work with acting students at my acting studio in Glasgow, I learn a great deal from them. One of the things about being around aspirational and inspirational people is the amount of drive to succeed that they have and when they arrive in our classes and we offer them a set of tools with which to take their innate abilities and strive, they often really do make giant leaps.
You see intent plus action is a powerful thing. When a desire meets the capacity for action and is shown a way to express itself, it’s amazing what happens.
The same thing happens with characters. All characters have a desire, they want something, they are compelled by it. As an actor, figuring this out is vital. Trying to work out the character’s emotional state is pointless, trying to represent it utterly fruitless.
Instead, when we are compelled, we engage in what you could call universal actions, these are certain things that cross cultures people do in pursuit of their goals, to get someone to let their hair down, to get someone to stand up for themselves, to get someone to rise to the challenge, these things are universal.
Once the actor has discovered what is driving their character, the next step is to find a universal action that the actor can do, which will represent what the character in the scene is doing. If the actor really does this universal action, they will create the illusion of character by combining the essence of the scene with their own actions and the writer’s words.
This is the simplicity of acting and what we teach at our Glasgow acting studio and the results are gob-smacking.
3 Seconds
A short one to end the month:
I can tell within roughly three to five second whether someone can act. No one suddenly gets better over three acts, they just get less bad or we become desensitized to their poor form.
There is something immediately available to test, even within that short space of time.
Three seconds.
And if I can do it, so can your auditors, in all their many forms.
What I see immediately is not a magic or talent, but an ease with which things done
In a bad performance, I immediately see signs of someone over-doing it. I see tension and I see the fakery of sentiment, like lies dripping from every moment.
Three seconds. This is all visible in three short seconds. So is excellence.
Get Out of Your Own Way…
I know, I haven’t blogged for a while, life is complex, but here’s one about something that’s been on my mind.
For the past few months, it seems that I’ve been saying the same thing to many of my students. That the fundamental learning change that they need to make is not one of acquiring new skills, but of getting out of their own ways. But what does this actually mean?
Once have some basic elementary technique, the real change that must occur with the actor, the most vital task is to remove the barriers of internal resistance between impulse and action. And so our task becomes to nurture the instant relationship between inner impulse and external reaction, to remove the time delay, and this requires not belief in the imaginary, nor supplication to a technique, or genuflection to a teacher, but the dissolution of our own inner resistance.
So, alongside our skills training, we also work for the removal of those personal blocks that impede the spontaneous impulse, to reduce the time between reaction and action, action and reaction. This is not a new idea in any form, it is expressed by Mamet as ‘Getting Out of Our Own Way’ and by Grotowski as working via Negativa.
The actor that works to destroy the internal resistance will be able to show the tiniest, the least impulse as it flashes through the body.
This requires an exceptionally brave actor, one who is willing without bullshit to reveal themselves, their most intimate moments to the audience for their pleasure and entertainment. It not only requires that the actors knows themselves, but that they learn their own tricks and brutally dismantle them. It demands the actor discover their boundaries and their barriers and bulldozes them. It necessitates the actor to trust their teacher, because none of us go easily into this state. We must also learn that criticism is not our enemy, good criticism, criticism that can be acted upon is the very best kind of help. Trust your teacher, but do not make him/her your friend, it is impossible for your friend to help you get out of your own way, they have too much invested in not upsetting you. Sometimes when working to remove these internal blocks, the teacher must be harsh or brutal to you, they may also try sensitively talking to you as well, but the chances are that you will respond to this with defenses and excuses.
To work this way often requires the circumvention of thought, as least introspective and reflective thought. This is often where the resistance lies. The little voice in your head. Self-image and the self-consciousness are the seat of internal resistance. At our pinnacle, training must be, what the Zen practitioner calls ‘No Thought and No Image’. Action and Reaction exist in us as a spontaneous and impulsive energy ready to ebb and flow with the impulses, unimpeded by barriers, blocks and walls of resistance.
Those that are interested in the idea of Via Negativa in Performance Training, might like to read Jerzy Grotowski’s Towards A Poor Theatre.
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
Characters are NOT Real People
No one that takes my classes will find the title a surprise to them. Yet, there still exists a school of acting, or nine, that tries to teach the actor to invent/create a character as if they were a living person. When their students fail to do this, they degrade them for not ‘committing’ to the task, being difficult, or not having invested or worked hard enough. But the task that was set was baloney, it was the kind of exercise that second class minds produce in order to keep children occupied. And as such, it is patronising, and that person doesn’t deserve to work with actors. But but but!!! They still get results. Yeah, it’s amazing what actors can pull out of the bag when they have to, isn’t it? And all the time that was wasted fannying around talking about the characters, could have been better spent rehearsing the play. But then those people wouldn’t know what to do, and would be exposed as the swindlers and peddlers of snake oil that they are.
Sadly, some actors are still labouring under the mistaken belief that a character is some how a real human being. A character is no more a real human being than the Mona Lisa. A character is the crafted work of art of an author, they are metaphor or cypher for humanity and human nature, but they are not human beings. Of course, we relate to characters as if they are real, that’s the point for the audience, but character is a made thing, a constructed thing, a crafted thing, just like any other work of art. Characters are clearly cut, they are not as confusing and contradictory as real people are. Otherwise it wouldn’t be fun to watch them. They are reliable when our friends are constantly changing. The characters in plays, novels, films and television series always essentially remain the same. Characters are constant. It makes them enjoyable to spend time with.
Character is expressed through the words that the writer gives us to work with, and through the way that impulsive motivational drives and desires of the character are interpreted by an actor in rehearsal. The actor is a real person. Guess what happens when a real person performs the actions and words of a metaphorical work of art? The collision produces the illusion of character for the audience.
If building a character meant exploring every aspect of them, as if they were real, it would take you until after you were dead before you found out nearly all the things about them.
Character, like dialogue is made thing. A construct. And when the actor takes on this construct, they must find ways to deal with this problem. Many actors, attempt to create the life of another human soul on stage or camera. Then they wonder why they feel that they never ‘got into character’, that’s because they gave themselves a meaningless, and more importantly IMPOSSIBLE Task.
There is no character, there is only the magic trick performed in front of a collusive audience, an audience who want to believe in magic, even though they know they are being fooled.
There is no character. This is the quiet revolution.
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
Deliberate Practice
I was reading about the concept of Deliberate Practice, an idea espoused by Geoff Colvin in his book Talent is Over-Rated. It is a simple way of looking at the idea of practice, or a way of working. There are several levels to Deliberate Practice:
- A Level of Effort that is directed towards a clearly outlined objective
- Thorough analysis
- Sharp Feedback
- Layered, systematic approach to work.
I was reading it and thinking, this is exactly how we approach acting. It is a perfect way of defining how we should go about learning within the studio or through performance.
Effort to Objective
The job of the actor is to pursue an objective, something like that of the character whilst other watch. To do this, they have the fixed or given components of the words of the writer, the notes and direction of the director and their body and voice. Whenever we put effort towards objective, we produce action, it may not always be the desired action, but if you are truly engaged in placing effort and energy behind action, then your action, your acting will be truthful.
Thorough Analysis
It is essential to throughly examine your approach to work, to examine what intended to do, what you did, where you ended up and how and why you ended up off course. The answers do not need to be complex, they can be immensely simple. Analysis with other actors and the director can lead to great insight, as long as everyone is aiming to conduct a thorough analysis and not just make their opinion heard or demonstrate their intelligence.
Feedback
Honest, sincere and informed feedback is vital. Feedback must come in the form that can actually help. People may believe that they are being helpful, but often they are sounding off, or giving very vague notes that don’t add up to something that can be acted upon. So this is my own personal rule on feedback. Whenever I give a piece of feedback, you must immediately be able to do something about it. It may take time to achieve, but you must be able to act upon the suggestion, it must compel you to do something.
Systematic Approach to Work
A systematic approach to work allows us to build upon the self, peer and tutor led analysis of our work and respond to the feedback that is offered. This allows us to sharpen our focus on the goal, redouble our effort towards the objective and redefine the target goal if necessary.
A systematic way is not paint by numbers, it is not fool-proof, it only allows us an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and recognise where patterns of effort towards the objective have delivered a result.
This is essentially that all acting classes and rehearsals should follow, this is deliberate practice, this is our deliberate practice, a practice that with time becomes intuitive.
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
Tongue Twister for T and TH sounds
You probably know by now that I love a good mouth exercise for teasing the tongue, limbering up the articulation and loosening any tension in the jaw.
If you take my classes, you might recognise this, it’s not a standard tongue twister but a great mouth warm up nonetheless.
I thought a thought but the thought I thought was not the thought I thought I thought.
I thought a thought but the thought that I thought was not the thought that I thought that I thought
I think I thought a thought that I thought but I think I thought that the thought that I think was not the thought that I think that I thought.
I think I thought that a thought that I thought was not the thought that I think that I thought though the thought that I thought was the thought that I thought and not the thought that I thought that I thought.
To You, The Best…
Mark
Ethics & Aesthetics for Actors: Part 2 – Aesthetics
With our work ethic established, we must have our developing working practices based on aesthetic principles. I worked many times as a director with an amazing minimalist designer called Carrie Southall. We grew up 40 miles from each other and met 200 miles away at university, and although we weren’t particularly friends until the last year of our degree, once we started working together, I knew we shared a basic aesthetic, one that projected our joint and own careers.
What does having an aesthetic mean? Technically it is a theory of art, but it can also be a shared perspective or paradigm for making art.
When you work with people with a shares aesthetic, you speak a secret language, one that excludes others and reinforces the group, but more than anything, it develops a practical working language with which to effectively communicate with your fellow artists. It becomes a short hand and in the acting business, we have long spoken many and confusingly similar tongues.
Every group must develop their own practical aesthetic. What must a practical aesthetic be?
Primarily PRACTICABLE, meaning capable of being put to use.
Otherwise it must enable and empower, it cannot do this if it creates confusion.
Stanislanski’s systematic approach was a practical aesthetic based on some simple ideas for truthful acting.
In my opinion, he took a wrong turn, but he had an aesthetic that he shared with MXAT. Just like Boley and Ouspenskaya shared their aesthetic with the Lab. Likewise Strasberg shared his vision of Stanislavski’s work, Adler upset the apple cart by sharing her version of that aesthetic.
An aesthetic is a way.
Ethics & Aesthetics for Actors: Part 1 – Work Ethic
Success as an actor is a matter of work ethic and working aesthetics. This tricksy balancing act is what gives your average acting-shmo more than a fighting chance. Of course, there is a place for luck in this equation but without a solid, killer work ethic and a workable, practical aesthetic, you will not produce the conditions for or opportunity to capitalize upon that luck.
Today’s blog is about developing a killer work ethic and it starts with an Atlantic Theater Company-inpired guidelines for success in work and training. At Acting Coach Scotland, we call it, The Minimum, it is the least you can do to prepare for class, coaching, auditions or work.
There are 5 parts to The Minimum:
Be Prepared
Be Early
Wipe Your Feet at the Door
Don’t Complain
Help Your Fellow Actors
Let’s go through each one at a time:
1) Be prepared
Preparation is an essential minimum. Yet many actors adequately fail to prepare then blame everyone else, finally chastising themselves when their failure to prepare only prepared them to fail. This is the widest and deepest of the Minimums, because it includes taking responsibilty for everything that is within your control. In the blame culture in which we live, the dog ate my homework and other excuses are just failures to accept responsibilty. Be prepared, no excuses, remember that our industry is liberal and often indulgent but equally unforgiving in equal measure.
2) Be Early
No one ever thought badly of you for being early but being late is a crime in time based arts. If you are due to start work at nine, plan to arrive early, plan to overcome car trouble, rail strikes and snow on the line. Cultivate the habit of always being early and you will cultivate a professional working ethic. Don’t expect anyone to indulge your real but irrelevant excuses. Stella Adler used to make late students bring flowers, I’d prefer chocolate, but in the real world just be early. As the folks at the Poor School used to say: on time is ten minutes late.
3) Wipe your feet at the Door
What the heck? Well, what I mean is that you should leave it all at the door, your outside concerns, your bills, your finanicial or boyfriend troubles, leave it at the door. We will indulge you but no one really cares. Leave the drama for the room, leave your shit at the door.
4) Don’t Complain or Moan
What is the collective name for a group of actors, it might be a company, an ensemble, even a cast, but more likely it’s a moan, a moan of actors. If you don’t like it, do something about it or shut the fuck up and don’t bring the while group down with your pessimistic shit. This is an essential minimum, you have no entitlement to moan. Turn up, do your job, go home. If you don’t enjoy it, leave.
5) Help Your Fellow Actors
This might seem obvious, but we are a very self centred type of people. Cultivate in yourself the habit of helping each other, supporting each other, we’re in it together.
This is the Minimum. The Minimum. I would add to this:
Don’t leave your common sense at the door.
Do more than is expected of you.
Tomorrow’s blog will cover successful working aesthetics
To You, The Best
Mark Westbrook
Acting Coach Scotland
There Are No Heroes
I’ve been reading Mel Gordon’s excellent Stanislavsky in America, a sort of mirror edition of his wonderful The Stanislavsky Technique: Russia.
As a young man, I devoured the mix of history and exercises that filled this marvellous book and it took me years to stop taking it out of libraries and buy my own copy.
The new book is a similar mix of history lesson and practionercentric exercises. I’m still fascinated by the historical journey of systematic acting from it’s early conception to its post-Practical Aesthetics future.
But these days the exercises look ludicrous, they are examples of waste, they are examples of how incredibly gifted people tried in vain to convey the art and craft of acting from the inspirational to the aspirational, from the unconsciously competent to the unconsciously incompetent
As I read aloud these exercises I laughed, I felt guilty at laughing at the endeavour of my heroes but there was something ridiculous about it. This was the wisdom of those who believed the moon was made of cheese and the earth was flat. They were interesting enough diversions, perhaps even enjoyable activities but they were to acting what a halibut is to driving a bus.
This made me very sad. Have my great heroes spent all their years toiling, labouring under a fallacy? Very sadly I now believe they did.
These games are nonsense. They don’t work and they confuse the actor. What’s more, forcing actors to guiltily comply is tantamount to abuse. But they’re fun and so many actors enjoy doing them, although fucked if they know how to apply what they learned from all this fun and games.
We need less flimsy games based on flimsier acting theories, we need simple aesthetics, and killer working ethics.
Over the next two blog, I’ll outline what I mean by that.
Lastly, I want to leave you with something to ponder, why do so many people believe that they can act? Because the best actors make it look so fluid, so natural, so truthful that we don’t see any strings or joins, we see them in the words of Bobby Lewis just ‘walking and talking’ – and anyone can do that, right?
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- A Handy Guide to Acting Emotions with Steven Seagal
- Method Acting and Practical Aesthetics: What’s the Difference?
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