Matthew Arkin's Acting Technique And Scene Study Blog

AN ACTOR'S CREDO: Why what we do matters

2012-01-07T17:17:00.000-08:00

Ah, the holidays. The end of one year, the beginning of another. A time of joy and inspiration for many of us, of family pressure and craziness for others. A time of looking back and evaluating, of looking forward and committing to new goals and ideals. A time when our emotional pot can get stirred. This year, many of us are facing financial uncertainty unprecedented in our lifetimes, both for ourselves and the nation as a whole. This can lead to a lot of questioning and soul searching, particularly for those of us who have chosen to follow a career in the arts, a career known for financial instability even during the best of times. Sometimes the voices in our heads can get very loud. We might look at our wallets and ask, “What am I doing with my life?” We might look at our work and ask, “Does any of this really matter?” So now that the holidays are over, and we are getting back to day-to-day business, I’d like to share some of the thoughts that percolated through my eggnog-and-shopping-crowd addled brain throughout the season.

For me, at times of stress, general questions about goals and ideals in life become more focused into questions about the value and purpose of what we as actors do with our careers. After all, we’re really just storytellers, purveyors of entertainment and diversion. There are serious problems in the world. What are we, artists, doing about these problems? We’re not curing cancer, or housing the homeless, or feeding the hungry.

Or are we?

December, 2001 in New York City. The first holiday season since the towers came down. 9/11 had thrown everything into sharp contrast for me, and like so many others, I was having a crisis of faith. I wasn’t sure what I could grab onto to keep me steady when the world was rocking so violently. Prior to the attacks, my role as father and provider gave me an identity. After the attacks, when my then wife and my child were feeling afraid and insecure in a world that had always seemed safe to them, that role felt more like a burdensome weight than an anchor that kept me moored in a turbulent sea. I was being looked to for strength, context and answers that I didn’t have. At the time, I had not developed a strong spiritual practice or connection to anything, and so I didn’t feel I had those things to give. And though finances were pretty good — I was working steadily as an actor, lots of theater, a recurring role on a television drama, tons of voiceover work — a career in the arts is always tenuous. It was an unsettling time.

One day I was making my rounds in the city, pondering these questions. Cheerful holiday advertisements were a painful and hollow contrast to the questioning and mournful mood of the city’s residents, who were not yet ready to celebrate, so soon after the tragedy. Riding the subway, hurrying to my next appointment, the rattle of the cars was a welcome relief after the cacophony of carols blaring from every open store, shallowly proclaiming the joy of the season. I got off at my stop and was walking down the platform toward the exit when a young woman caught my sleeve and said, “Excuse me, but I have to tell you that you saved my marriage.”

I stopped short, confused. I must have looked dumbfounded. I had never seen her before. I may have said “What?”

“I’m sorry,” she continued, “I saw you on the subway, and I just had to let you know.” We stood there on the platform as trains came and went, and she told me her story. She and her husband were both actors. They had been married for a couple of years, both of them struggling to make a living at their craft, studying, holding down menial support jobs so they could go after their dreams. After a while, things had started to go better for her. She was getting a good amount of paying work, and no longer had to do anything else to bring money in — was, indeed, too busy to do other things. But the same was not true for her husband. Instead, for him, things were getting worse. Nothing was happening in his career, and he had to devote himself more seriously to something else in order to make the necessary amount of money. Construction, I think it was, or perhaps carpentry. Although he was happy for her, it was difficult for him, watching her success grow, and he became demoralized. He was working so hard, for longer hours and for so much less money than her, at something with so much less “prestige,” whatever that is, and his ego was taking a hammering. There was tension between them. She suggested counseling, for him and for them as a couple. He was resistant. The tension grew into friction and, as she put it, their marriage was circling the drain. Still he would not agree to counseling, and she started to wait, with resignation, for the end.

Then one day a friend offered them two tickets to “Dinner With Friends,” a play I was doing in New York at the time. It is a wonderful play about, among other things, the difficulties a marriage can face as romance melts into comfort and then congeals into mere routine. They took the tickets, and at intermission, in the lobby, this young woman’s husband broke down in tears, told her he had been a fool, that he had been forgetting what they had, that he would do whatever he could to save their marriage. They got into counseling, and now, two years later, she told me, they were going to make it.

Now I am under no illusions about this story. I know that I didn't save this woman's marriage, any more than the paramedic who uses a defibrillator saves someone’s life. Hundreds of people save the life of a heart attack victim — all the people who play a part in the system: The donor who buys the defibrillators for the hospital, the councilman who votes for the funding for the paramedics, the man who invented defibrillators in the first place. But the point is that without each link in that chain, the heart attack victim dies. Likewise with the events that saved this woman’s marriage. I was merely doing my job to the best of my abilities. I was playing my part in a process — I was a link in a chain.

I believe that the work that we do as actors and writers sends energy out into the universe, and we can never know where that energy is going to go, or what it is going to do when it gets there. Meditating on this simple fact can be very freeing in your work. It will help you to get your focus off of yourself. It will make your work about something outside yourself, and your petty concerns. That will make you a better actor. It is ironic, but true, that the less you think about yourself, the more of yourself you can bring to your work. Of course, so many of the jobs that we do to survive seem to have no redeeming value other than the money that they bring us. This is true even of many high paying acting jobs: the Tide commercial, the 3 episode arc on Gossip Girl — probably not going to save a marriage with either of those. But again, links in a chain, and work that enables you to go out and pursue all the other jobs that do have the potential to be a gift in someone’s life. Think of the Beverly Hills plastic surgeon who does liposuction, breast augmentation, botox and collagen injections, and then volunteers at a low income medical care clinic and fixes a child’s cleft palate. One job supports the other, and a life is changed.

A friend of mine once told the following story, particularly apt to this discussion. When she was a student in college, her family situation was difficult, and her social life at school was not going well. She was afflicted with a serious illness from which she would never recover, leaving her with some permanent physical challenges. As the holidays approached, her sense of loneliness and isolation increased to the point where she resolved to end her life. She gathered the necessary supplies, and was setting them up on the table in her small apartment, with only the noise of the television to keep her company. At around one o’clock in the morning, as she was preparing to take her pills, the opening credits of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life began to roll. She had never seen the movie, but she watched it then, start to finish, and when it was over, she flushed the pills down the toilet.

The Talmud tells us “And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” I think about this often. Now of course we never know how our work plays out in the grand scheme of things. I don’t know, for instance, if the people whose marriage I “saved” will go on to have a kid who discovers the cure for cancer. But I also don’t know that they won’t. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I did my part. It’s not up to us what happens after we have followed our dreams and done our best. What is up to us is the decision to use the gifts that we are given, and trusting that a power greater than us has a design that we can’t see.

When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren’t told or books weren’t written, man would live like beasts, only for the day. Today we live, but tomorrow today will be a story. The whole world, all human life, is one long story.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

STEVE BURTCH: LIGHT AND DISCIPLINE

2012-01-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

When I ask my friend, artist Steve Burtch, how he would characterize his career, what he feels he is poised to do at this point, he says “take over the world.” We both laugh, and he goes on. “No, seriously, things are going very well. I’m about to debut my most exciting work to date.” Sitting with Steve in his living room, he tells me “I basically stole my artist’s statement from David Lynch, who it appears lifted it from Eva Zeisel,” the Hungarian ceramicist who passed away December 30, 2011 at the age of 105. When asked how to make something beautiful, Eva replied simply, “You just have to get out of the way.”

Steve Burtch

But what about all the studying, all the training, that artists do, be they actors or painters? If all we have to do is get out of the way, what’s the point of all that? Steve admits that, while he has plenty of classical training, and thinks that it is important, there are those that get by without it “just because they have talent. I mean, you see that as an actor, don’t you, in your field?” What Steve does think it takes, for everyone, in any artistic field, classically trained or not, are “discipline and a willingness to work at it every day.” That regimen, that pattern, helps you get out of the way. “Like when you go for a long run,” he says. “You train and train, and then one day, you find that you’re just running.” But unlike Steve’s friend Trey McIntyre, with whom he used to be roommates and who was profiled in the April 2011 blog article An Offering of Suffering, Steve says, “I don’t offer up my suffering for anyone. I like to keep it all for myself, and a few choice members of Congress.”

Art critic Shana Nys Dambrot described perfectly the paradox of this interplay between intense discipline and the ability to simply get out of the way and let the art happen when she said of Steve’s work, "Burtch's paintings and drawings...are impossibly delicate, nuanced affairs, whose fine, almost maddening subtlety belies the controlled chaos of their making." If you want the chance to see his work in person, he is about to be featured, via Peter Blake Gallery, in the 17th Annual LA Art Show: Modern and Contemporary, and next month in the Palm Springs Fine Art Fair: Post War and Contemporary Art, all leading up to a Spring show at Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach, California and a project with Devin Borden Gallery in Houston, Texas. He is represented by Peter Blake Gallery and by Devin Borden Gallery.

You can see his work and get more information on his website at steveburtchstudio.com. But you should know that there is no way that photography can capture the subtleties of his work and do justice to the relationship that the pieces have with the ever changing qualities of light, so do yourself a favor — go view it in person. You’ll see it, and it will stay with you. It has with me.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: PALOMA RABINOV

2012-01-07T16:25:00.000-08:00

Paloma Rabinov

A big congratulations to Paloma Rabinov, a student of mine who was just admitted to the Drama Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. At the age of seventeen, Paloma has already long dedicated herself to the hard work and discipline needed to become an exemplary performer. Her father Paul arranged for private coaching with me prior to her audition for Tisch, and she threw herself into our sessions with enthusiasm. As Paul points out, “Her acceptance validated for her that hard work properly directed can produce desired results . . . She went to New York (for her audition) better prepared and more confident.”

“I've always been interested in the performing arts, especially in acting,” Paloma says, “because it allows me to become someone I’m not.” Paloma shows a depth of perspective uncharacteristic in one so young when she discusses the gifts that the study of acting has brought to her life: “Through the years I realized that acting has taught me to be more empathetic with people and understand different points of view that I wouldn't be able to experience normally as myself. Even if I don't become a professional actor I think those are some of the most important skills I've learned throughout my training.” When asked for an example of where this idea has come from in her studies, Paloma points to her work on the part of Karen Wright in Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour. “Her ideals were so much different than my own that I almost despised that she acted the way she did,” says Paloma, “But it really forced me to connect with a person that I barely had any similarities to and make her a part of me.”

About to graduate from Crescenta Valley Senior High School, Paloma started studying at the age of 10, and is thrilled to be going to New York to take her studies to the next level. “It is a dream come true to have gotten into Tisch. I think New York is the best place to become a part of the theater world and I cannot wait to get a first-hand look at what it is like.” As her father says, “Paloma’s mother and I are thrilled for Paloma, and very proud of the effort she made.” As are we all. Break a leg in New York, Paloma!

MIND THE GAP: How to avoid preconceptions, and bring truth, freshness and spontaneity to your work.

2011-08-25T09:43:00.000-07:00

Austin Pendleton, the wonderful actor, director, author, and teacher at New York’s HB Studio, was directing a reading of a new play. On a break during rehearsal, one of the other actors approached me with a question.

“Do you know what this means?” she asked, pointing to one of her lines. “I’m not sure I understand what I’m talking about here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, so that Austin would hear me, “but I studied with Austin, and he taught me never to read the other actors’ lines before doing a reading, only to read my own. That way I can be surprised by what the other characters are saying.”

Austin piped up. “I’ve improved upon that technique since you were in my class, Matthew. Now I don’t even read my own lines before a reading. That way I can be surprised by what I’m saying.”

Of course, we were both kidding. But the joke springs from an idea that we share about how the text is to be approached, and a method that will lead to richness, detail, authenticity and spontaneity. This method requires bringing an open mind to the text and the reading, without preconceived ideas of event or character, and an eye not just to what is said, but also to what is not said.

I want to give you a practical tool to use in your first rehearsals of a scene with your scene partner. But first, I’m going to get very academic and technical for a couple of paragraphs. Bear with me. I think it will be worth it in the end.

A Theoretical Problem:

Our moving through life as individuals is a moving through experiences. Our rehearsals or performances of a scene are not only experiences in and of themselves, but also representations of the experiences of the characters, as spelled out by the writer in the text. Each “experience” that we have, and each event that happens in the life of a character, might be termed a “phenomena.” The school of philosophy known as Phenomenology, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “is the study of ‘phenomena’: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience.”

The German literary scholar Wolfgang Iser applied the perspectives of Phenomenology to literature, discussing what transpires in the act of reading. Iser theorized that there is a gap between each idea and its written or spoken expression. These gaps are a result of the inherent limitations of language. Consequently, when we read, we have to fill these gaps, and we reach into our own experience in order to fill them, to flesh out the text and give it its meaning. That process he calls konkretisation. The result of any single reading is that the text has become konkretisiert, or realized. It is apparent that there are as many realizations of a text as there are readers. More than that, even, because when a reader comes back to a text after a period of time, the reader is a new being with a new perspective, changed by his or her experiences in the intervening time. The reader will then bring new experiences to the reading and create a new konkretisation.

“How does this apply to acting?” I hear you cry. “I thought we were going to talk about scene work and rehearsals.” We are. The point I want to make is this: The same thing that Iser is describing happens when we are rehearsing. Just as a reader fills in the gaps, so does the actor. Give five actors the same script and have them do five cold readings, and you will see five very different characters, five different “konkretisation.” This is a problem if you are at the very beginning of your rehearsal process. Once we as actors make those choices, we begin to make a “konkretisation,” and the “konkretisation” then becomes, as the name implies, concrete. It starts to become fixed, at a time when we have not yet fully explored the options offered to us by the text.

This problem of “konkretisation” springs from an excessive eagerness to “act.” Beginning actors, in particular, want to “act” so much that they jump into strong choices before they have fully comprehended the text. We want to get the part. We want to impress the other actors, the director, the creative staff at the first table read. We want to be camera ready. We don’t want to look like fools. So we pick up the text, and we immediately start making choices. These choices, of necessity, reflect our own personalities, our own “default settings.” Yet how do we know which one of those most serves the text? Of course there is no single correct and objective interpretation of a text. But we do ourselves and the text a disservice if our choices are based on our own default settings, without exploration of the different options afforded us by the words, and the gaps.

There is another layer to the problem posed by the phenomenological view. When we read a novel for ourselves, for our own pleasure, and we fill in the gaps, we are merely having our own experience. However, when we rehearse or perform a play, we are involved in a collaborative process, and we must look not only to how we would fill in the gaps, but to how the character would fill in the gaps, based on his or her culture and experiences. (See my article Coffee Grounds, Kaleidoscopes and Character.) Moreover, we must also bow to the demands of the production as conceived by the playwright and perceived by the director. Bringing too much of our own perspective, too quickly, can shut us down to the profound richness that can result from remaining open to these questions and these influences.

So what is the solution to this problem? We have to slow down when we approach a text, so that our own experiences, our own perspectives, don’t overwhelm the experience and perspective offered by text. Of course we are going to use our own perspective and experience to bring depth and truthful emotion to our performance. But when we dive too quickly into performance mode, when we aim from the beginning at a result, then we miss the range of possibilities that exist in the text. These possibilities live in the text not only in the words that are present, and also in the gaps between those words; in what is said, and in what is not said.

A Practical Approach:

It is easy to say that we have to slow down, but how do we actually do it? Technique, after all, should offer us more than simple platitudes about what we should be able to do. The purpose of technique is to give us concrete methods by which to obtain a goal. An instructor in a cooking class doesn’t just tell you to cut the onion into a very fine dice. You are shown how to do it; what kind of knife to use, how to hold it, what part of the onion to cut off first, and then how to make the two sets of perpendicular slices almost all the through the onion before making slices from a third angle that will produce a dice of the desired size.

So here is an approach that you might use with a scene partner, whether it is to prepare for class, or when sitting in one of your trailers before shooting a particularly difficult scene.

Preparation: Sit comfortably at a table, facing each other, with your scripts open before you. Look at each other for a few moments. Wait until you can feel that you are both present, calm, connected. Do not rush it.

Step One: Once a connection is established, look down at your scripts. Whoever has the first line, look at it, but only up to the first punctuation.

Step Two: Look back up and reconnect. Do not say your line. Wait. Look at each other and make sure that you and your partner are there, present, attentive.

Step Three: Speak your line, with intention, but without any spin. Say it with its most basic semantic meaning. You should not apply any emotion, attitude or implied meaning that you might initially presume to ascribe to it, but neither should you make it robotic or monotone. If it is a statement, make a statement. If it is a question, ask a question.

Step Four: After you have said the line, stay connected. Do not look back down at your scripts. Let the words sink into each of you, and only after their echo has faded in your minds should you look down to see what the next line is.

Here is piece of script:

KATE

So, where will you be headed tomorrow? Or are you still going to be evasive?

AARON

I’m not trying to be evasive, I just . . .

KATE

What?

AARON

I’m not sure what it is I’m looking for. I used to do your job. Lived in Manhattan, had a pulpit at a small congregation just north of the city. Simple. Quiet. Had a framework that had all the answers, or would lead to them, at any rate. Or so I thought.

KATE

And what happened?

AARON

Life. The unplanned. The paradigm didn’t work anymore.

Here is how this method should work in practice, applied to this piece of script: Sitting comfortably, the two actors connect. They wait. Then they look down. Kate looks at her line up to the first punctuation, the question mark. They look back up at each other. They wait. They connect. Kate asks the question “So, where will you be headed tomorrow?” She stops speaking, and the two actors stay connected. They let the question resonate. Then they look back down. Kate sees that it is she that continues speaking. The actors look back up. They connect. They wait. When the connection has been fully reestablished, Kate speaks again: “Or are you still going to be evasive?” Again, after the question is asked, neither actor looks back down. They continue to look at each other, keeping the connection alive between them, allowing the question to rest in the air. After a few moments, they look back down, and Aaron will see that it is his turn to speak. They look back up. They wait. They connect. Then, and only then, Aaron speaks: “I’m not trying to be evasive, I just . . .” And so it continues.

I have described the exercise in such detail because, although it seems incredibly simple, it is very, very hard to do correctly. In fact, every time I describe it in class, students look at me as if I am crazy. They think it I am being pedantic, and that the exercise will be boring and pointless. They interrupt as I am explaining and say “Yeah, yeah, we got it.” Then they get up to do it, and each time, every one of them fails at the first attempt. They start speaking almost instantaneously when they look up from the script. They put spin on the lines: anger, sweetness, sarcasm, etc. When they finally have the patience and discipline to wait until a connection has been established before they say their line, they then break the connection instantaneously the moment they finish speaking. I have to sit next to them and stop them, coach them through it, making them pause, making them back up and say a line without attitude. Once they have the pattern, I tell them to use the method in their next rehearsal with their scene partners.

A marvelous thing occurs at the next class. Every student comes back with a look of wonder, telling me that they worked the exercise, and that they finally heard the scene for the first time. What they begin to perceive is that the scene, driven by the text, floats above all the stuff going on in the ocean of meaning underneath. Using this method allows the student to learn this, allows the actor to dive with wonder into these depths of meaning. Even when we are no longer beginners, this exercise is incredibly useful. The pause, the slowness of the pace, allow us to hear the words, divorced from any preconceptions. It allows us to explore the gaps in the text, and to find the many possibilities of meaning in them.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: MEEGHAN HOLAWAY.

2011-08-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

Meeghan Holaway is one of the most courageous actors I know. To illustrate just how courageous, here's a quiz: I first met Meeghan Holaway:

A) Backstage at New York's Variety Arts Theater.
B) One-half hour before she was to go on in front of a full house.
C) Making her New York stage debut.
D) In a role she had never performed in front of any audience, anywhere.
E) Playing my wife in Dinner With Friends.
F) All of the above.

You guessed it. The correct answer is F — All of the above. And she was fantastic. It was an experience neither of us will ever forget, and a true lesson in how to be present, pay attention, and be in the moment. As terrifying as this experience was, however, Meeghan says she is not sure whether it was quite as scary as the time "I had to wear a stork suit to a baby shower and sing 'You must have been a beautiful baby' to the pregnant chick!"

In addition to her succes on stage, Meeghan also has extensive television credits. You can catch her now in her recurring role as attorney Amanda Burke on ABC Family's Switched at Birth. Other television credits include Everybody Loves Raymond, Law & Order, Cold Case, Without a Trace, Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, and Private Practice, among others.

A working actor and an accomplished acting teacher in her own right, Meeghan continues to study and to hone her craft. In her words "I keep trying to be a better actor today than I was yesterday. Matthew's acting class requires me to expand as an actor without being indulgent. He is a terrific teacher because he has great reverence for acting as an art form, but never forgets that it's a business for the actor as well." And on her debut at New York's Variety Arts Theatre, "more exciting than riding a roller coaster at Six Flags, especially when you have to do a love scene in front of 500 people with a man you met only one hour ago."

For more information on Meeghan, check out her IMDB listing.

HAITI REMEMBERED: An Actor Gives Back By Stepping Behind The Lens.

2011-08-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

"There is more to Haiti than rubble, although that's rarely portrayed in the media," says Kendra Waldman, actor, entrepreneur and humanitarian. An avid photographer, Kendra visited Haiti shortly before the devastating earthquake that left more than 230,000 dead, and by some estimates, closer to half a million. Realizing that she had a recent record of the natural beauty, culture, and spirit of Haiti, all of which will rise again with time, hope and help, Kendra decided to do what she could to contribute to that cause.

Kendra Waldman
Actor and Photographer

Haiti As It Was is Kendra's photographic portrait of Haiti, which she calls "a charming country, a place of serenity, and a place you, too, will want to visit." To view images from the book, to learn more about Kendra, or to make a purchase, click on this link. All profits are donated to relief efforts for Haiti and, in Kendra's words, "to their undeniable resilience, the pristine beaches, the mesmerizing waterfalls, and the simple Haitian spirit that stands alone."

A CONVERSATION WITH DALLAS TRAVERS

2011-08-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

In August I had the pleasure of appearing as a guest on Dallas Travers' Thriving Artist Circle. It was a wonderful discussion covering a wide range of topics relating to spontaneity, creativity and confidence in your auditions and performances. You can listen to our conversation here.

For those of you who don't know Dallas, do yourself a favor and check out one of her free seminars on how to boost your acting business. It is filled with invaluable advice. Many of us, as artists, have little inclination to treat our careers as a business. Some of us try, but have no experience or knowledge as to how to go about it. Dallas combines information and expertise into an inspirational, achievable, no-nonsense program. I think she is very much worth a look. You can sign up for her free seminar by clicking on this link.

KARL HAHN:(CINEMA)(PHO)TOGRAPHER

2011-05-17T12:25:00.000-07:00

SLICES OF LIFE

Karl Hahn is a both a cinematographer with a brilliant commercial vision, and a still photographer with a unique perspective on the world around him and an ability to catch glimpses of joy and beauty in unexpected places.

Raised in the town of Media, Pennsylvania, Karl Hahn seemed destined for film from the outset. After years of shooting diving competitions in the backyard swimming pool, Karl attended The School of Visual Arts in New York City . He started his career in film production in New York City, paying his dues as a production assistant, but was able to begin camera assisting after completing courses at The Maine Photographic Workshop. He worked his way up to director of photography, shooting as a 2nd Unit DP on commercials.

Working with high profile commercial companies, Karl continues to hone his craft as an award-winning director of photography shooting numerous commercials and the occasional documentary. He makes frequent trips around the country and the world from his home base in Los Angeles, documenting his travels with photographs that showcase his unique and intuitive view of the world.

Karl's work is currently on display at Bloom Cafe, 5544 Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90019. For more information, please visit his website at www.karlhahnphotography.com.

ACTING VERBATIM

2011-05-14T17:00:00.001-07:00

SAY THE WORDS, SAY ALL THE WORDS, SAY ONLY THE WORDS.

One day in a beginning scene study class, two young actors were working on Act II, Scene 7 from Angels In America: Louis and Joe sit on a park bench in front of the Hall of Justice, eating hot dogs. It’s a wonderful scene, one which I often assign, and in the middle of the scene Joe has what might be termed a short monologue, interrupted only by an interjection from Louis. (In actuality I don’t believe there is any such thing as a “monologue,” but that is a subject for another day.) When the scene was over, I asked the actor playing Joe — let’s just call him “Joe” — to read the monologue directly from the script. He did so, and when he was done, I asked him to find the phrase “you know” in the monologue, and tell me how many times it appeared. He looked through the script for a few moments. Then he looked up at me and said, “It’s not in there.”

“Do you care to hazard a guess as to how many times you said it?” I asked.

He hesitated, and it seemed for a moment that he was going to say that he hadn’t said it at all. But by this point in our working together, he knew me, and knew that I was driving at something, so he took a flyer. “Thirteen?” To his credit, he was close.
“Fifteen,” I said. Then I asked him to close the script, look at the cover, and read what it said at the top, above the title.

“The Pulitzer Prize-winning Play,” he said.

“That’s right,” I said, “and the Pulitzer Prize is awarded to a playwright for writing, and we must respect that.” Indeed, it is noteworthy that in the submission guidelines for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, it states that “A videotape of the production is strongly urged but is not required.”

The great actor and teacher Herbert Berghof said, “Words are the messengers of our wishes.” The playwright reveals the desires and intentions of the character using both description of action and the lines the character is to speak. When a stage direction prescribes an action, perhaps saying “Louis mimes barfing in Joe’s lap,” as in the scene from Angels in America, we would never think of changing that to suit our own idea of an alternative action. We might be free to perform the “barf” the way we want, realistically, cartoonishly, — in that freedom lies the art of our interpretation — but “barf” we must. We should no more think of eliminating that action than we would an entrance or an exit. So it is with the words that the playwright assigns to us. They are the “messengers” of the character’s wishes, actions that define the character every bit as much as entering, exiting, slapping, barfing, falling, dying. Your work as an actor is to find an interior life that will let you own the actions and the words of the character as set down by the playwright, not to alter those actions or words to suit your own ideas as to what the character should be doing or saying.

Sometimes, it might seem impossible to speak the line as it is written by the playwright. You look at it on the page and don’t believe that it could ever come out of your mouth in a natural way, and so you back off of it, swallow it when you say it, pull the energy out of the scene and the playwright’s design. But by backing off of it, you preordain a negative outcome. Rather, you should invest in it fully, give it everything that you have. Attach the arrow of your intention to the words, and in so doing, you may discover that it does indeed hit its target.

I had a lesson in this phenomenon while rehearsing for Donald Margulies’ Dinner with Friends, another Pulitzer Prize-winning play, in which I was playing the character of Gabe. At one point, confronted with a situation both devastating and confusing, the only line Gabe is given is “Huh.” At first this left me, the actor, feeling incredibly uncomfortable. It didn’t seem to even be a line, but rather just a sound, and I tried many different ways of swallowing it as I said it, glossing over it, sliding it in unobtrusively, avoiding it. None of these half-assed attempts, none of these readings, worked. I could tell that both my performance and the play were suffering as a result, that in that moment, I was amateurish, a pale reflection of a real person. It was only when I tried to say the word with vigor, not swallowing it, that I discovered that it was not an aside, nor an inarticulate way for Gabe to express something. Rather, Margulies was choosing a word that was perfectly articulate. The word “Huh,” spoken clearly, with strength and intent, was the most exact expression of what Gabe is experiencing at that moment. Any other phrase would not do. I also discovered that, although the discomfort I was feeling did not disappear, it was now Gabe’s, and not mine. And that is what we want to be doing as actors: Live the life, experiences, and thoughts of the characters, on stage, in front of the audience, so that we can tell the story set down by the playwright.

Theater is, of course, a collaborative art form, and one of the most exciting things you can do as an actor is to engage with a playwright during the creation of a new work, to be at those first table reads where the text is dissected, your character’s journey tracked and modified, his voice refined. But this is a privilege earned by those that have the chance to work on the play at the various stages of its development, and even throughout the development process, the playwright is king. You, as an actor, may contribute to the refinement of your character’s dialogue, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the playwright. But once he or she has determined what the lines will be, then those are the lines you must speak, and once the play is produced and published, it is set in stone.

In the end, we do our best in the telling of the story framed by the playwright, illuminating the lives of the characters, when we focus on the words we are given. If we divine the wishes that these words signify, and invest ourselves in the meaning of those words selected by the playwright, we will not need to add “You know?” We will be sure enough of ourselves and our actions to know that our intentions will land. We will not need to interject “I mean,” because we will have the confidence that we are already meaning it. As Hamlet said, “ . . . let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too, though in the mean time some necessary question of the play be then to be considered.” Although Hamlet is speaking here specifically of clowns, it is advice that we should all take to heart. For he goes on to say, and I agree, that taking liberties with the text is “villainous and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.” So please, speak the words, speak only the words, and speak all the words. Now, “Go make you ready.”

© 2011 Matthew Arkin

BITTEN BY THE BUG AT 91

2011-05-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Viola Flugge has an unquenchable thirst for learning and new experiences. At the age of 91, she indulged this characteristic by taking her first acting classes, which recently led to a performance of a one act two-hander. She was an unqualified hit. "When I moved to California from the Midwest I had no idea I would be bitten by the acting bug. It was the last thing on my mind! When I learned that there were acting classes at the senior apartments where I live, I thought 'Why not give it a try?'"

Raised on a farm, where her family didn't have much money, Viola didn't have the opportunity to go to college. She worked, married, raised children, and now, at an age when most people might just want to take it easy, Viola says "Let's go!" About the acting class, Viola says "Matthew understands what you can do and helps you do it better."

Taking an acting class was actually pretty low key for the active Viola. At 84, she learned to fly, and a profile of her adventure was featured in Jerry Dahmen's I Love Life, The Real Survivors, Pine Hill Press 2005.

As if flying wasn't enough, Viola also has a passion for fishing, learned how to play the organ in her eighties, and confesses that although she can't drive motorcycles, she loves to ride on them. I have to confess that I recently got my motorcycle license, and while I'd love to write more about Viola and her adventurous spirit, I think instead I'll borrow my friend's bike and go take her out for a spin. I'm sure she could teach me a thing or two about "going for it".

COFFEE GROUNDS, KALEIDOSCOPES, AND CHARACTER:

2011-04-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

How the past is used to shape character, both our own, and the ones we play.

Six women are sitting on a bench at a playground. They are watching a three-year-old boy high u the jungle gym, his balance precarious, his little hands tiring, his grip tenuous. He slips a little, catches himself, and pauses, looking back at his mother. He tries to read her face for an indication as to what he should do. Each of the women on the bench feels a different emotion as they look at the child.

The first woman remembers a time when she fell while rock climbing. She shattered her wrist, leading to surgery and months of painful physical therapy. She feels fear as she watches the child.

The second woman feels sad and lonely. Raised by a fearful mother, never allowed to climb a jungle gym, she remembers hours of sitting alone at the playground, watching the other children run and frolic.

The third woman sees the look of encouragement the mother gives the boy. She remembers her father coming to her own high school diving meets, and she feels joy. The fourth woman is focused on the boy. She doesn’t see the encouragement. She remembers her mother chatting with her gaggle of friends, never paying any attention to her. She feels anger and pain. The fifth woman remembers a time she let her own son climb too high on the jungle gym. He fell and needed stitches. She feels guilt. The mother of the boy simply feels pride.

Whenever I hear a student or a fellow actor working on a scene say about a character’s action as written or a suggestion from a director, “But I would never respond that way!” I think of this anecdote. Of course you would never respond that way! You haven’t lived the life the character has lived. As an actor, the text and the director will influence or insist upon the behavior and responses you are required to bring to the scene. How you would respond is, at first, completely irrelevant. The way the character would respond, the way the character has to respond, given the exigencies of the text and production, is paramount.

What determines how we respond to a given situation, a given stimulus? I like to think of the images of coffee grounds and kaleidoscopes. Just as water picks up the flavor and aroma of the particular coffee grounds it filters through, so your personality picks up the behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes of your time and culture. The same is true of a character you might play, and so you have to distinguish between the “coffee grounds” that have influenced you and the “coffee grounds” that have influenced your character. In addition, not only are you subject to the influences of your culture, your time and place, but specific incidents, either wonderful or traumatic, have refracted or warped your vision. We each view the world through a kaleidoscope that is filled with, and turned or twisted by, the large events of our life, impacting our view of the world around us. The same is true of any character you play. He or she will have her own coffee grounds and kaleidoscope.

For each of the women in the playground scenario, the situation they find themselves in, the data, or stimulus, they are receiving, is the same: The boy on the jungle gym. But for each woman this data is filtered through the coffee grounds of her own experience. Additionally, each woman views the world through her own kaleidoscope, and the events of her individual past have twisted that kaleidoscope so that, looking at the same event, they each see a different picture and have a different emotional response.

We are taught, if we are taught well, to act truthfully. When we are portraying a character, in order to find that truthful behavior, we naturally look to our own past, our own experiences, for the emotional context of the work we are doing. In looking at a scene many actors first ask the question “How would I respond in this situation?” But if this is the only question you are asking, if this is the departure point for your character work, you may arrived at skewed results. You are a different person than the character you are playing; you have your coffee grounds and kaleidoscope, the character has his or hers.

The question “How would I respond?” can only lead to truthful responses that also serve the text and the desires of the director if other work is done first. As an actor, you must deal with both your own coffee grounds and kaleidoscope, and then those of the character you are playing. If you are embarking on the path of the artist, it is imperative that you deepen your understanding of yourself, of the influences that have shaped you. You must dedicate yourself to a path of self-knowledge, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. The lion’s share of this work must be done on a personal level, with a therapist or counselor, at the gym or the dance studio, in church or with a rabbi or meditation guide. How you go about your own process of self-examination is your business, and there are many, many roads. But you cannot be an effective, truthful, inspiring actor without pursuing that knowledge.

Whatever path you choose in your self examination, the technique and exercises developed by the late Uta Hagen are a wonderful adjunct to your self-exploration, appropriate to your specific work as an actor. They allow you, in a classroom setting, to examine your own states of being in the theatrical or film set environment, in a performance context. As you gain understanding of your own processes and states of being, of your own coffee grounds and kaleidoscopes, you can then address the text, and immerse yourself in the study of the influences that have shaped the character you are to portray. After you have come to a thorough understanding of your own coffee grounds and kaleidoscopes, you are ready to take on the flavors of the character’s coffee grounds, to look at the world through his kaleidoscope. Then you can ask yourself “How would I respond to this situation?” and your answer will lead to truthful behavior on stage or before the camera, because you will have an internal understanding of the influences that have shaped you, both as yourself and as the character.

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: ROSIE COSCH

2011-04-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Like so many women, Rosie took a break from her acting career when she started her family. Now that her children are busy with school and activities, she's again finding the time to devote to her passion. "I returned to acting after a long break, and was incredibly lucky to have found Matthew Arkin's Technique and Scene Study Classes." Rosie audited classes with several different teachers before settling on Matthew's class. "So many of the teachers were intimidating or talking in riddles, but Matthew is thoughtful and encouraging, and creates a comfortable atmosphere where you feel secure enough to take risks and try something new without any fear." Returning to class helped Rosie to hit the ground running, and in less than two years, she booked a role in a community theatre production, then her first Off-off-Broadway show in the Midtown International Theater Festival. Now she's busy racking up more credits, performing as a member of not one but two NYC theater companies, Love Creek and The Michael Chekov Theater Company. "Matthew was always consistent and patient, and if I was having trouble with a role, he could target exactly what I needed to do to get to the heart of the character. Thanks to Matthew, I got my confidence back, and I don't think I could have done it without his gentle approach."

AN OFFERING OF SUFFERING

2011-04-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

Choreographer Trey McIntyre founded the acclaimed Trey McIntyre Project in 2008, and has been called "one of ballet's most surprising talents" by The New York Times. Watch this amazing video interview with him, as he discusses his creation "The Sweeter End," and gives a unique expression to the role that an artist's suffering plays in the creative process:

"The most challenging thing has been, because of the subject matter, knowing fully well that it's going to bring up for me painful things, it's been the realization that that's just part of it, and that's actually something that I'm good at, that I can bring my own suffering to the process, and it doesn't have to be something I have to get past. I'm actually good at living with that, and sharing that as part of the work that I'm making, and, you know, that's what I always respond to in other artists: When they share with you their authentic suffering, they're channeling the suffering of the person that they're portraying, but they're mostly showing you their own, and if they're doing it well, they're really feeling that, and that's not necessarily the most pleasant thing, but it's actually really wonderful to be able to bare that enough to bring it out and to share that with other people."