The essence of theatre, so far as I can tell, seems to be doing the right thing at the right time in the right place. Action, timing and location. This rule applies equally whether you’re working onstage as a performer, backstage as a hand, behind the scenes in the shop, or assisting in rehearsals (just to name a few – these are the areas I’ve gained some experience in).
Until you gain some actual experience though, figuring this all out is confusing at best. Assuming you actually have a desire to do your job well and to get better at it, the learning curve can be steep. Can’t remember the original source of this (maybe Peter Brook?), but I read somewhere that painters work with paints, brushes and canvases. Sculptors work with shape, form, mass and volume. Actors, though, all they have is their behavior.
And when behavior is your medium and performance is your product, that essentially means that people are constantly watching you and judging whether what you’re doing is the right thing at the right time in the right place. If it’s not, hopefully you work in a theatre where you’re lucky enough to have people tell you in a constructive way what’s wrong and how to fix it.
But this puts you into a peculiar position vis-a-vis your professional community. If you’re relying solely on the people you work with to tell you whether what you are doing is right or wrong, you end up at the mercy of their judgement. If their judgement is refined, and their sensibilities sound, you may gain a great deal from the experience. If they are petty, jealous or unskilled, you may find yourself in a nightmarish working environment.
How do you find your way around such a thing? From my own experience – and I’ve mostly worked with great people throughout my short career – what you have to do is soundly build your own skills and confidence in what you are doing. If you can internalize through training, practice, patience and the right application of natural talent what is the right thing at the right time in the right place, then you will be acting from a position of strength and resilience.
If not, and you’re solely rooted on what others think and feel about you, you’ll be inevitably stuck playing social games you can’t win. The more I’ve seen of this hidden undercurrent behind professional acting, the more I’ve come to understand the wisdom of Antero Alli’s paratheatrical focus on “asocial intent” within the work his group does.
Social rituals fulfill personal and social needs for security, status, courtship, emotional support, and a sense of belonging. These rituals serve socialization processes, as well as, the development and integration of the social personality. Pursued as an end in itself, however, social rituals become a spiritual cul-de-sac where personalities conform to consensus morals, ideas, dogmas, and status symbols, which inhibit the more authentic spontaneous impulses flowing free of social considerations.
[...] The intent of asocial ritual is to cultivate receptivity to transpersonal forces emanating from the body itself and beyond the social persona we sometimes identify with. The physical body embodies and personifies the so-called Subconscious. In this way, the body acts as a gateway to the internal landscape where autonomous archetypal forces govern existence as we know it (and don’t know it). These forces can be liberated after meeting the body’s most central need for being felt deeply. When the body is felt deeply it yields its treasures with less resistance.
[...] An asocial climate can also be established by increasing commitment to one’s individual integrity and autonomy. This can occur as each participant commits to a silent pledge of being responsible for their own safety and creative states. Becoming accountable for one’s own fears and frustrations amidst the creative process increases one’s integrity and autonomy, two core values in this approach. It also sets up a non-responsibility to others in the social sense.
Don’t get me wrong though: working in theatre is absolutely wonderful partly because of the tight communities which spring up amongst those brave souls who can commit their lives not only to the integrity of the work, but to the success of one another. But in order to be a fully-functioning, effective, grounded and meaningful contributor to such a creative community, you’ve got to find your own footing. And it seems, the only way to do that is to work through the fears surrounding other peoples’ judgement of your actions, by making yourself pliable enough to learn from those whose experience and skill surpasses your own, and the confidence to express the skills and talents you’ve developed.
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ASSOCIATED CONTENT BY TIM BOUCHER (Auto-Generated)
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- Do What You’re Most Afraid Of
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