Sooner or later most actors have to face this knotty problem. Some actors work very hard at their profession, but many haven’t a clue how to even begin this delicate process, whose secrets are often hidden from the self and have to be hunted down and seized upon. Self-motivation is key because a lot of this work is done alone: thinking about the character to be portrayed and how best do approach it. But throughout the years, I have often encountered actors who will not/cannot embrace the specific aspects of the work that will benefit them most. Through all sorts of ruses they avoid doing the homework of burrowing into the areas of themselves that need to be understood and freed so they can move forward. They tend to come around when there is a part to be coached, but are allergic to doing the groundwork between jobs, particularly weaknesses in script analysis and how to relate to a character through their deeper selves. I’m going to make a confession about my own process to try to get to the bottom of this.
I have been writing a poem during two and a half of the three hours I set aside to complete this blog, which is supposed to be published tomorrow. Why do I do this to myself. I take the blog very seriously and I enjoy writing it and yet the actuality of writing it makes me feel claustrophobic. Probably this is because I require myself to write it – and artists often dislike requirements. It doesn’t mean that we are exactly undisciplined – this problem has to do with ‘meaning’ – the origins of why we do anything. We are aware that there is something underneath or supporting our effort that we must grasp in order to make the work worthwhile. Reading a blog written by someone who is merely filling a requirement is not interesting. We must write it because we have something to say that is of urgent interest to our readers, but we must find out why we need so urgently to do something for ourselves before we can fulfill our obligation to others.
I find it hard to write about my ‘dawdling’ because it’s not a pleasant subject – I hate the fact that I can’t get things done without constantly straying and then having to rush to completion at the end. It’s childish, it makes me feel ridiculous – and worst of all, I’m not sure where I’m going with all this, even as I write it - and if I will lose my way in getting to my ultimate point. I know that I will have to dig and come up with bits of truth that I’ve spent my whole life covering up. Otherwise, I could glibly put down some pithy statements on my subject and get on with all the other things I have to do. Ah, something’s just come to me – rage and hurt are involved. It’s a sense that I’m not going to be good at what I have to do, so why make things worse by trying and failing. My vices are connected to it, as well. The worst thing about dawdling is that I’m not really dawdling at all, I’m actually actively engaged in doing something other than what I’ve decided to do. When I was child, I would sit by the hour chewing my cuticles until my fingers looked like bloody stumps. I ate a lot of food containing sugar - I didn’t gain weight, because in those days I had a fast metabolism, but I ruined my teeth. Later, I would obsess by the phone waiting for some boy or other to call and ask me out and day-dreaming about what the date would be like if he did. In fact, I spent most of my life day-dreaming about what I ‘would do’ until I realized that I would never do anything unless I actually ‘did’ it.
That awareness scared me into action, but even though I stopped day-dreaming, I wasn’t able to do much ‘real work’ for a long time. By ‘real work’ I mean creative output – in those days it was acting. Instead, I became more productive about cooking, taking care of paper-work, cleaning and making sure I kept up social activities with my friends. When I finally began to work more consistently, I found that I was unable to grasp the solution to questions about dramatic texts, character motivations and continually the problem of ‘identifying with the character’ would come up. I had to face the fact that I was failing.
I wish I could tell you that this problem goes away. It’s a horrible feeling and I would do almost anything to get away from it. Even though I realize that ‘dawdling’ is a way not to face my worst fears of failure, I still find myself buying items on-line or writing e-mails as a way to avoid the grip of facing the worst – I just can’t do this task. Sometimes it is impossible to move ahead at all, and I have to wait until I feel better. But I don’t like this course of action, and it can be quite impractical in the long run. What happens when there are new things to do tomorrow, and you have everything left over from today.
It’s midnight and I’ve just finished this. I wanted to get along further in this analysis, but it would have been impossible without laying the groundwork first. Patience and thoroughness – not very sexy, but necessary when attempting to communicate something useful about a problem as complicated as this one. Next time I’ll discuss stratagems for actors who want to break through to more effective ways of exploring their work and capitalizing on the results. I’m a plodder so if you’re seeking a quick ‘how to’ this won’t be for you…
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