A friend of mine, Lina Graner, created a 'blog advent calendar'. This was my contribution about (parts of) my journey as an actress.
I ran away with the ‘circus’.
I couldn’t help it.
The lure was too great; the limelight, the colourful costumes, the magical
world of illusion. What I didn’t realise at the time was that, in fact, I was
embarking on a quest for truth, a journey of discovery of how to act and how to
be.
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| Jerzy Grotowski |
It wasn’t a circus, of course, but an obscure
little theatre company. Director Giorgio Gorini (a pseudonym, I later
discovered) took me to Poland to do a workshop with a couple of lanky, bearded,
theatre makers, who supposedly were former students of Jerzy Grotowski. The
first thing they had us do was the ‘spider exercise’: hands and feet on the
ground as if to prepare for push-ups, then flip over, so you’re facing upwards,
then flip over again, and again, turning and turning, your bum never touching
the ground. A good warm-up exercise, you might think. Except it lasted for three
hours! In the afternoon they had us endlessly spinning like whirling dervishes.
By the end of the day I burst into tears with exhaustion and misery. The
workshop leaders were delighted. The whole point had been to break down our
barriers, our egos, to make room for something deeper, something more truthful,
which would ultimately help us with our acting. The fact that I ‘broke’ so soon
was extraordinary! Later I realised similar methods are used in torture.
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| Rufus Collins |
I was fortunate to work with Rufus Collins, once a
member of the legendary experimental Living Theatre. Rufus was into The Method,
which draws on the actor’s own memories and emotions. An object, smell or
movement can be used to recall a certain event or feeling, which the actor then
applies to his performance. Rufus demonstrated this himself. The movement of
sliding open a window somehow connected to a tragic event in his life and he
got very emotional. But while most of the actors were nearly fainting with
admiration, all I could think of was how one would mime the window slamming
down on one’s fingers. I’m a big fan of many Method actors, but I did find it a
bit worrying that Marlon Brando had to see a shrink every day while shooting
‘On the Waterfront”.
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| Saidi Lassaad |
A ‘Neutral Mask’ workshop with Saidi Lassaad was a
real eye-opener that made me aware of how each movement, each gesture tells a
story. “Presque juste’ (almost right), Saidi kept saying kindly, really meaning
‘total rubbish’. To our credit, neutral mask is exceptionally difficult. Very
few people are completely aware of their every move and the message it might be
carrying. One evening we gave a short performance. Three of us were sitting on
bar stools. We were not wearing masks, but our only assignment was to be as
neutral as we could possibly be. A fourth actor then introduced us to the
audience, giving details about our (invented) lives. We did absolutely nothing,
but afterwards the audience said they could really see us living those lives.
They even said that one of us was more ‘into the story’ than the others. That
was an amazing lesson.
I once saw an interview with Sir John Gielgud, in
which he confessed that he didn’t get all that ‘psychological’ stuff. “I move
to my position and say my lines,” he more-or-less said. I’m sure there was much
more to it, but I found his comment very refreshing.
After all, theatre is illusion - and all the
world’s a stage. So, how do we bring truth and illusion together? I’m still on
that quest. However, I’m beginning to see why Lina is so interested in the
Meisner technique. Because it’s about being real in the moment, reacting
in a genuine way to the situation at hand. It sounds simple, but it requires
concentration, relaxation, openness and confidence all at the same time. This
is as hard on stage as it is in real life.
The better I get at ‘just being’, the better I
become as an actor. And ‘old’ age and experience, of course, nothing can beat
those!
- - - - -
P.S. Just as I finished writing this, I discovered
that some of my ancestors were, in fact, circus artists. I guess one can’t
escape one’s destiny!
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| My circus relatives, living in a gypsy caravan in the 1940s |
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