WHAT IS ACTING?
An aspiring student walked up to me yesterday and asked this question. He wasn’t curious. He simply wanted to judge my caliber through my answer. Nothing wrong with that, since he wants to learn from me. I had to give an answer and the first words I uttered were, “I don’t know”? Sometimes spontaneous words push forth from our sub-conscious mind. Of course I added another line that would be appropriate for the moment and could be as close to a simply definable, generic answer in one sentence. “Acting is ‘being’ what people are in real life. To Be the vastly differentiable possibilities of their extreme physical, emotional and psychological selves”.
The question though simple cannot have a simple answer. Even if the answer above is one aspect of it, how can one achieve to become another person? Of course like any form of art, Acting too has its technicalities. How to use one’s body, voice, imagination, believability, spontaneity, mime, time, space, status, timing, gestures, expressions, graph, so on and so forth. We do learn some and more of these technical tools in Acting courses, workshops and of course with work experience. But there is a bigger picture to this.
Suppose I am an actor and in my personal life am a weak person. I am given a strong character to enact/be, can I do it? The answer is simply no. Why so? The demeanour, personality traits are out of my reach, are out of my experience and I cannot possibly be that person.
On the other hand, if I am a strong person who has to play a weak person’s part, I will be able to do it. Now this may sound ambiguous and it’s difficult to explain how. Some may question that the personality traits of a weak person are out of my reach as I’m a strong person. Yes this may be true, but if I have compassion as another trait embedded within my self, I will be able to play a weak part. Confusing?
One possible explanation to the above stated, would be the explanation of ‘Evolution’. When in life we move up from entropy towards enlightenment, we move up only when we have gone past our share of negativities and challenges. Thus, when a person has reached 80% of where one has to reach, he knows what it’s like at 60%, whereas a person at 40% would not.
Thus a man with integrity can play a man of non-integrity, but not vice-versa. Or for that matter a compassionate woman can play an insensitive woman, but not vice-versa.
An honest person can play the part of a dishonest person but not the other way round.
Thus to attain and be the highest forms of, self discovered and acquired, ideals would be one of the most important jobs of becoming an Actor and thereby doing justice to as many and as varied parts that are available to be played. That is one of the elementary reasons why most Acting courses involve students performing monologues on parts of classical characters; playing parts that possess high idealistic character traits. What are these high idealistic characteristics? They are what we may find in preachy, dogmatic literature, but sometimes very befitting in what they preach.
An Actor would need to journey in his/her personal life to a stage where he/she is extremely strong, physically, emotionally and psychologically; a strong believer in his/her integral ideologies with guts and gumption to stand by, and exercise, them against all odds; very aware, compassionate and sensitized to proceedings within and without. So when you have treaded the most difficult paths the rest of the journey is somewhat downhill (only metaphorically speaking).
If you want to be a good/great Actor, first be a human being of high ideals.
The next question that arises is, “How does one do it”? The answer is an epic in itself. However the first step is to realize the need for truth and honesty in one’s life and then begin to experiment, move upward, constantly and rigorously.
The path is long, brutal, exhilarating, frustrating, desponding, nerve wracking, adventurous, lonely, very painful, very satiating and very individualistic.
But take the first step; it makes all the difference. . .
As someone said, ‘All of life is a journey from darkness to light’.
PS. Today is World Theatre Day, (March 27). So congratulations and best wishes so that we may all strive to the highest forms of ideals and explore the vast potentialities that Theatre can spring from its immense depths and horizons. . .
MORE PS.
I am also very excited to announce my independent theatre group. Of course I am the only member today, but today is a good day to begin. The group is named ‘APALAK’, literally meaning ‘without blinking the eyelashes’. Metaphorically for me it is constant awareness, constant work, constant evolution in the third ‘apalak’ eye, and hopefully someday reaching a stage when it is an ‘apalak’ mesmerizing, experience for the audience as well.
Upcoming writings…
I believe Acting cannot be taught, but it can be learnt…
One of the primary challenges in contemporary Life/Acting is to stick to your Honesty whilst living in a Dishonest World…
If you want to be a good Actor, don’t get obsessed with Acting, get obsessed with Life…
1 comment:
Oh boy ... such a beautiful piece of writing ... it is hard to believe that such a young man would know basics of 'acting' so well ... I am in complete confirmity with the statement that 'to be a good actor , one has to be a good human being first' n of course 'tools' n 'techniques' follow as help ... And yes , what a great day today ... heartiest Congratulations for 'Apalak' ... good planning n good execution often result in great success & I know , you will get it !!
P.S. : Dont know how but I am always there for you ... main hoon haan ...