There are many
ways one can use ‘Sensory Meditation’ (SM) as a basis for the Knock-at-the Door
(KatD) improvisation – with an infinite number of personal variations. Once
you’ve established enough familiarity with SM to understand how it works at
all, you can begin to concentrate on using it before and during KatD.
It is important to state, even at
this early stage, that as you go along
you will need SM less and less during the improv, until eventually most
people drop it altogether and work only ‘in the moment off the partner.’ It is
individual to some extent and depends on what scene you are preparing.
It will become apparent that you are
getting somewhere with the SM process when you keep flashing on the same memory
or set of memories, which seem to relate to each other in some significant way
– although their collective message may not be discernible at first. You can
place your improv in the same place that your SM occurred. That place usually
isn’t very exciting, as I’ve probably mentioned before. It’s apt to be the
‘same, old,’ ‘same old’ and you realize that’s part of repeating the same
stupid mistakes over and over, which is what the exercise is all about. As you
go deeper with the exercises, you become more ingenious at placing your
partner- for whom you usually substitute a family member from your very early
years.
As you practice this exercise more
and more, you can be less strict about using early substitutions. Eventually
your mind understands that later life is a repeat of earlier life – especially
the traumatic aspects. The conflicts we get into replicate the past, which
means that you are repeating the same old arguments over and over. Remember
that as soon as you exit the conflict you end up ‘discussing’ not ‘conflicting’
– and that just isn’t dramatically interesting.
As I’ve said many times, conflict is
a particular ‘state of being,’ in which
one is endangered, frightened and imprisoned. The more deeply you enter this
work, the more you comprehend why you have to follow strict procedures to get
into it and why people will do anything to avoid pursuing acting in this manner
– everything from going to sleep to attacking the methodology as unnecessary
and absurd. Since the memories on which this work is based are from long ago, often
in the beginning we feel far away and totally alienated from them.
Let us say that you have reached the
point where you can initially enter the KatD Exercise with some ease, but find
it very hard to keep up the necessary level of intensity. When you feel ‘out of
it,’ it means that you have stopped listening and reacting to your partner.
In reality, when we are in an
argument, we are often overwhelmed by the other person – there is no question
of ‘not listening’ – I’m not talking about listening to the words, but rather
to ‘the entire being,’ (more on this later). It is at this point that we ‘name’ as in
‘naming behavior.’ This is the whole basis of the exercise. You are supposed to
feel all sorts of negative things like ‘out of it,’ sad, angry, disgusted, like
giving up, etc. You want to win but are unable to – that’s a very unpleasant
state to be in. Even when you reduce your partner to tears, they are ‘winning
by losing,’ because it is their duty – and yours – never to give in. (There are
exceptions to this rule, but they are rare and will be explained at a later
date.) When you finally master the technique, these feelings meet more or less with
your approval; i.e. your conscious mind grudgingly accepts their unpleasantness
as something ‘acceptable,’ if not actually ‘good.’
One thing I started noticing after
I’d worked with these techniques for a long time was the difference between ‘inducing
conflict’ and being ‘actually in conflict.’ They are completely different, as
they should be. One is related to acting, based on the past which you have, at
least to some extent, resolved. The ones that occur in your present life belong
to the present, although they are always rooted in the past.
I’d like to make a slight digression
here and use a personal example. Two nights ago, my husband and I went to see
an outstandingly good movie, Before
Midnight – some of you may have seen it. A long argument takes place
between a husband and wife; it contains a severely knotted series of familial
and work-related issues. The wife, to whom I related deeply, is voicing a fear that
at some time in the future she may be manipulated into moving from one continent
to another. Her husband remains more or less charming and helpful throughout
this seriously fraught interchange. Many people watching this, especially men, obviously,
would find him much more
sympathetic. I related to her - not that
I have anything against men - but because I am a very difficult person who is apt
to give in ultimately out of guilt for having behaved like an absolute bitch.
The movie touched on a nerve for me,
and after we returned I went into a slow burn about an issue that has bothered
me for many years. It is initially rooted in the abandonment I felt when my
mother died, but there are many instances since then which bring up the fear
and pain of that early wound. Just seeing this movie, which had nothing
directly to do with my early problem, but which reminded me of an
abandonment-related subject connected to my husband, started a fight the next
evening - one that upset me very deeply and was unpleasant for him.
I’m still recovering, but at
least I know why I reacted that way. One of the things you find out during
this particular learning process for acting is ‘what actually happened in the
past.’ This gives you a measure of satisfaction – even if what you discover is
worse than your child memory could comprehend. Often it’s sadder but less
anyone’s ‘fault.’ You are learning about the human condition.
The reason for using the ‘seminal’
or original memories is that we can relate them to the ‘human condition.’ They
make us sad but are usually attributable to a collective failure and not only
the fault of one person or even one group of people. Also, we find that we have
not been singled out, individually, for a particularly horrible fate. These long-ago memories are the actors’ food
for endless chewing. This is not the same as grinding over someone’s bad
behavior – even our own. When we allow this information to arise from the
unconscious during an SM, instead of waiting for someone to randomly activate
us, the objects or images connected to the memory give us an opportunity to
study them more coolly, more scientifically, if you will.
However,
if we are in the middle of studying a role – or trying to write a Blog about
studying a role – real life intrudes and we find ourselves getting really
upset, as I did! That sort of remembering is ‘hot’ and truly upsetting. We
cannot help but have them in ‘real life’ and when we are working on a role, but
they don’t wear well for the actual ‘act of acting.’ That’s why ‘inducing’
memories is so much more effective, and worth the trouble to learn. We want the
control that comes from ‘bringing it on’ rather than having it ‘invade from the
unconscious...’
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