Snow lightly falling in Bryan Park, New Yorkers ice skating under a transluent Christmas tree, a magically lit Empire State Building rising over a bright nightime cityscape down from 34th street . . . it's Christmas in the City.
The showcase closed tonight. Once again, can't remember too many personal projects where I put in more time and energy -- and having agents and casting directors in the audience each night is certainty motivating. Much of my effort this time focused, more than it ever has before -- not on "analysis," really (I'm not sure what that is now) -- but on these imaginative forages into the world of Howard and Rosemary and Independence KS, c. 1953. More of the forage was into Howard's world, who he was around the time to the scene, his larger life, his deeper concerns. And I loved doing it, loved intuitively discovering him and his world.
Two things seems to happen that I don't fully understand -- I had very clear images of Howard, yet they seemed to come from an idea of him, a spontaneous idea of him, but an idea nevertheless, and surprisingly, it was not that helpful. While my writings -- at least I tried to do this -- stayed firmly grounded in the emotional terrain of Howard (where the writing really did help), the images of him nevertheless had an effect, i.e., a nice guy, and mid-west 40 year boyish businessman, a boy at heart . . . and from these strong images came strong inferences (for lack of a better word) of what he was like, his behaviors, his attitudes . . . and, as beautiful and as wonderful as they were, they -- at least at times -- got in the way of some deeper and wholly unexpected aspects of Howard, aspects found deep within myself . . . parts of me I didn't ever really see or experience . . . and it's where truth lay.
If I give into that . . . I don't know where I'll go . . . but in the end -- I'll find Howard, and I guess I don't know what I'll find, but I have absolute unshakeable faith that it will be him . . . it has to be . . . there's nothing else to guide me.
This, I think, is the trust in myself that I'm looking for. The images are almost predictable, familiar, safe. I need to move away from that and into this space where I'm almost blind . . .where I don't know where I'm going. It's where astonishment is . . . and where I cross into eternity. It's way more than just acting for me . . . it's reaching into this eternal space which seems to hold absolutely nothing for me . . . and then I discover myself.
Anyway . . . ah yes, I almost forgot. I did something quite controversial -- actually, it's not controversial: it's suppose to be an outright bad idea, and there is, as far as I can tell, uniform agreement on this, and while I understand and appreciate the rational . . . it's never, really, made a lot of sense to me. The advice is:
never watch an actor do a performance that you're going to do . . .
The rational, the danger, is that one will try to "do" what that actor is doing at the expense of one's own unique contribution, that it will unduly influence you. These are real concerns, but I think they are overblown, or at least more of a concern for professional accomplished actors rather than the student or the beginner, and even then I'm not so sure . . .
The power of example
Albert Bandura thinks that classical learning theory's preoccupation with trial-and-error learning is shortsighted. "Coping with the demands of everyday life would be exceedingly trying if one could arrive at solutions to problems only by actually performing possible options and suffering the consequences. Bandura says it's fortunate that people learn from vicarious observation, since mistakes could prove costly or fatal.
- SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY of Albert Bandura
Despite these dangers, I felt that the power of example outweighed all other factors, and so . . . I was very curious to see how a professional tackled the role of Howard, and so before the opening, I rented and watched the 1995 production of Picnic where Howard is played by Arthur O'Connell (there's been more recent productions, and I'm going to try to watch those as well).
What I learned.
Frankly, before I hit the play button, I was worried about consciously or unconsciously trying to imitate Arthur O'Connell (who did the original stage play of Picnic, and then won an Oscar-nomination for "best supporting actor" for role), but once the scene started, it was amazing -- I was immediately drawn into what he was doing as an actor -- Howard, his take on him, just fell away, and I observed the craft, i.e.,
- He was, at all times, listening closely to Rosemary, and I could see him reacting to her -- I was not doing this. I just knew when I saw this that I was not listening that closely, and that was a source of so many of my difficulties
- Many times Howard has one word responses, e.g., "well," and each time I packed so much into that one word, but ... I didn't get it, and it never felt right. Often these one word responses were in sections where R is doing much of the talking. I saw Arthur listening intensely, I could see the reaction inside, a thought or feeling building and then, when R paused, H would utter this one word, and I saw that it was the start of some thought he wanted to express, but then R would cut him off. One entire beat in the scene was completely decode for me when I saw this (i.e., at the end of the beat, that thought was finally expressed, but it built throughout the beat, so simply, so beautifully) -- I wasn't listening and letting myself react nearly to the extent that Arthur was.
- Every line -- it had a specific, clear meaning. Again, I simply wasn't being specific enough in many places . . .
It was the best experience watching him. It was like a dream, like a window opening and light pouring into a room that was shrouded in fuzzy shadows and vague shapes. Suddenly it was 1000% more clear to me what I need to do. While I guess I'll never know for sure, I feel that seeing this improved by own performance by 200% . . . or more. When I dream of being an actor, this is what I dream about: what I saw him do.
And did I imitate? I think if I put my performance up side by side next to Arthur O'Connell (though I would NOT want to see that comparison), Ithink I'd find my choices, in many cases, where quite different from his. I loved his Howard, but I could never imitate what he did -- it just wouldn't be who I am, what I saw as Howard's needs and wants, and it just would not have been what I was able to give to the part.
Someday, someday . . . I would love to be a great actor (& I don't, really, even know what means . . . but god . . . I'd love to find out)
