Action: Reading

I am currently reading Uta Hagen's A Challenge for the Actor. It is already fascinating stuff. She is brilliant and imaginative and liberal, and just the sort of person I think I am or wish I could be.

Most important, 60 pages in, it is really making me think. Some of the stuff I disagree with, and I think part of that is because I'm still trying to find my own style as an actor. She comments frequently on the differences between "formalistic" (outside-in) and "realistic" (inside-out) actors, wholly preferring the latter.

Intellectually, I've always wanted to be that second kind of actor. I've always wanted to have an imagination so deep that I could be completely in every scene. I've always wanted to feel those emotions fully, to truly be grieved or amused or angry, etc. when my character is feeling it. And I want to be spontaneous instead of static.

And, I think, at times, I do achieve that. But...

I also think there's a lot to be said for outside-in. I've known too many actors who claim to really be feeling what their character is going through — Interestingly, that is usually during scenes of grief, turmoil or angst. And people seldom seem to brag about truly feeling happy when their characters are happy. — and despite their tremendous "feeling," they are communicating nothing. Their faces are blank. They are suffering inside, but they aren't showing it. I find that kind of acting to be self-indulgent and worthless.

The ideal, of course, is to really feel in such away that you are able to let those emotions loose on the stage and behave in character. But if there's a choice to be made between really feeling while outwardly showing nothing and not feeling while outwardly communicating that feeling, I'll choose the latter.

And the element of believing in the truth of the scene and characters can have positives and negatives. Uta Hagen recounts an anecdote of Laurence Olivier (a formalistic actor) playing a part with "incredible involvement and spontaneity" and then saying "I don't like that kind of acting; I didn't know what I was doing." I agree. I've had that happen in a couple cases. I was so involved in the scene that I really was feeling what my character was feeling, that I believed I was in this world and not on a stage. It happened without my planning or trying for it. I embraced it and reveled in it; it felt amazing. But I have no idea whether I communicated with the audience. I have no idea whether my inward belief transferred out. That is the trick: transferring that inward belief and feeling into outward communication (expressions, movements, vocal tone, etc.).