It's been a busy week in Lake Wobegon...
I begin with this Garrison Keillor reference (The News from Lake Wobegon is the last segment of every Prairie Home Companion broadcast, for those who don't know this great public radio show) because this week has been about listening.
By this week of a process (Week 3), actors have a strong sense of most of the basics: Who they are, Who they are talking to, What they want from the other person, How they are going to get what they want, Where they are, What happened in the moment before the scene, etc. What we're talking about here are two of the key things that make us who we are in any given moment: 1) Point of View and 2) Need or Objective. The way I see another person (my Point of View on that person) dictates my behavior around and toward that person. That is, I generally behave differently toward my mother than I do my best friend (unless, of course, my point of view in a particular scene is that my mother is my best friend!). My Point of View on a place figures into my behavior therein (a church, a bar, my apartment, a dark alley late at night, etc) just as importantly. Need or Objective (as seminal theatre artist, teacher, and theorist Konstantin Stanislavski called it) shapes much of human behavior and is worth examining and revisiting throughout a process. Tactics, finally, are the ways in which--the HOW--I will get what I want in a scene.
So those choices are all settling in nicely at this point. Scripts are almost completely absent from the stage now--that is, the words are in the actors' heads and are in the process of dropping more deeply into their bodies. Most scenes have been worked through on their feet at least twice and blocking is becoming more specific. What we're doing now is listening work. James is listening for the clearest possible and most worthy story. The actors are listening to each other from a more informed perspective and, as a result, the words people are saying mean more.
This is the stage that separates the pros from the hobbyists. An actor must strive to UNDERSTAND the character and not JUDGE or play the idea of the character. Giving the character the respect and dignity to make him/her a full person--yes, even in wild comedies--is what will make the AUDIENCE listen, sit forward, and be moved. The trick is, it costs something to go that far. It takes time. It takes patience with oneself to get it wrong, to look foolish, to kick at one aspect of a character's point of view for awhile, to dare to care so much, to risk being "all in", so to speak.
The great voice teacher Patsy Rodenburg calls this the Power of Presence, or being in Second Circle--a place of genuine presence and contact with others and the world around you. First Circle is being within oneself/thinking about oneself and not fully available or present to others and the world--as we are in the morning, stumbling to the coffee maker, thinking about how you feel and what you have to do today. Third Circle, essentially, is a place of talking AT someone or someones. It's almost a form of bullying. I want results and not relationship, therefore I talk AT you. Second Circle is where it's at.
At a workshop I was in with her, Patsy told a story about when she was a kid. She was thinking about the story of Adam and Eve hiding after they had eaten of the forbidden fruit. God said to Adam "Where are you?" Patsy thought "What kind of God doesn't know where he is? Isn't he supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing or something?" Years later, it hit her. God and Adam, prior to the disobedience of eating the forbidden fruit, had RELATIONSHIP--Second Circle style--full presence relationship wherein they were both all there, really listening to one another. That was broken now. Adam left the Second Circle, causing God to ask "Where are you?" Thanks for that, Patsy.
Patsy also says that our kids want nothing more than for us to get down into Second Circle with them--be all there with them, really in play, really listening to them. My kids want that. My wife wants that. My friends want that. And...my scene partners want that. Being fully present, all in, all there. It's risky and it costs something, but there is no other way to bring a character to full life.
As the Russian said "It should be like in life."
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