At first I couldn't quite believe that I was finally caving and making a blog for myself. But lately I've been thinking that, with everything going on in my life - career, relationship, friends, school, etc. I needed a place where I could come and put down my thoughts and findings. I'm hoping that this blog will do that for me.
I guess the most forefront thing on my mind at the present moment is my acting career. I've been in a strange slump for quite some time. I've had no stage time all semester other than a production of Waiting for Godot (where our biggest audience was thirteen people...), and I've felt like I am just going through the motions with classes I am taking. With the exception of my Movement for Actors class, I have felt that my professors are not teaching me any technique or giving any enlightening information. All this frustration has lead me to do a little soul-searching, and self-evaluation of the concepts of theatre and what makes actors tick onstage...
Acting is living truthfully in an imaginary circumstance. That is what I have been taught on more than one occasion over the past couple of years. I've wanted to know what that phrase truly meant. Why say it that way if it could just as easily be defined as "pretend like you are this character?" I've started my evaluation of the modern actor by means of looking at the actor's body.
I've gone to the theater many times and it seems that, whenever an actor doesn't seem in tune with their body in space, no matter how much professional training or equity points they may have, their performance will seem shallow to me. I believe the body is an integral part in an actor's being truthful. In his writings, Tadashi Suzuki speaks of the noh theatre as a completely unique and honest artform in that the actors are constantly engaged with the space around them. He says that this immense energy and awareness comes from the feet. The noh stage is designed so that actors can use their feet in many ways, and be constantly aware of their feet. I've taken this note and started applying it to my every day life and my life on the stage. What sort of messages am I sending to people through the way my feet are connecting with the earth around me? Am I paying attention to my feet while performing?
As an ex-martial artist, I was once incredibly attuned to my feet and hands. Studying Taekwondo, or, the way of the hand and foot, I certainly gained an awareness to how important your feet are. Evolutionarily speaking, the feet are of a vital importance to humans. If we lose a foot, we are in grave danger of losing life itself. This urgency of the feet can certainly be applied to the stage I think. After all, a character would be nothing without their feet either. If I were to play Iago (who is a dream role of mine, I might add), walking around without an intense amount of energy surging through my feet, even my whole being, into the the earth and the space around me, I could have no hope of effectively playing the strength of the role. Iago is an interesting character to me in respect to the energy that he must give. As an actor, I of course must be giving my energy to the others on stage, but if Iago were to willingly give everything to the other characters, he would have been foiled at the very mention of his schemes. He is an intricate character to me in the sense that, he must give off several different forms of energy, several qualities. I must give to the actors, and Iago must avoid the other characters, yet give to the audience.
I plan on looking more into the character of Iago as I explore more ideas and techniques of how to make a performance truly real. How to live truthfully in the imaginary circumstance.
Josh
