May 2007 Archives

Outils - that's French for "tools."
In this section of the site, I'll review the various "tools" I use to help me fly straight and true through the turbulent atmospherics of my life and the New York City Performing Arts Scene.

One of the most important things you need to know about a career in acting is that you need clearly defined goals, and a plan to go after those goals.

Let's say your goal is to get cast more consistently in off-Broadway productions. A couple of obvious goals would be 1) find and attend every audition for any roles you think are appropriate for you, 2) become better in your auditions. Pretty straightforward - but you need a plan, a consistent plan, a plan of action that will daily move you toward these goals.

While it's relatively easy to know what you want, and to set some goals - it's not so easy, at least for me, to know how to break those goals down into smaller goals, to come up with "action plans," i.e., to come up with specific things I can do to move towards my goals.

However, it's critical to do this: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

But it can be lonely when it's really just you and your goals. So what to do . . . ?

Almost 6 weeks ago, on an unseasonably chilly early spring evening on the lower east side, I attended a rare two hour open cattle call for a full length independent feature film. 60sec for a monologue -- and given the number of auditioners, the auditors were serious about cutting people off at 60sec, whether our monologues were finished or not.

I did my Vanya (only half this, and not exactly this but a great translation by Brian Friel).

So what happened ... ?

A question was asked on Helium, Should theatre be socially motivated, so I thought I'd try to work out my position on this . . .

3 critical acting skills to acquire/strengthen in this class

Listen closely -- all attention on the other

Respond w/out "thinking/planning:" learn to trust my instincts, and what ever I'm giving, sending out, pay attention to them -- make sure they're getting it. Are they hearing me? Am I having the intended effect? Don't worry about being cleaver or funny.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Catch myself ASAP if I stop breathing, and then just start again.

Soliloquies - Vanya is a soliloquy, i.e., he's talking to himself, but don't do it as it's done in life: there's an audience out there, so put myself out there and talk to me out there.

Tips & Hints:

Always use lots of air, words have colors, let the passion and emotion in the words out

Goal of a monologue -- no overt/endogenous attention, at all, should be on what I'm feeling/experiencing. My attention should be fully on the other, making sure everything is crystal-bell clear. Make sure they understand me, every word.

Stop extraneous movements when they're correlated with "thinking between the lines." Practice/rehearse moving nothing except what I need to use to breathe. Practice/rehearse by lying on my back, lots of air under each phase. Let myself be overly dramatic.

Anton Chekhov's The Seagull is a modern masterpiece. Short of seeing a great production, the best way to experience this beautiful play is to simply read it, as I did:

For Chekhov, traditionally a short story writer, The Seagull was his first full length dramatic work. Chekhov struggled with the dramatic form, and this beautifully naturalistic play does suffer from what one might expect from a writer traditionally well practiced in a short story narrative form: surprisingly large parts of the play are episodic and descriptive of the action and events.

What makes this a play are the main actions involving Nina, Konstantin, Trigorin, and Irina, with the two main characters being Nina and Konstantin - and who's story is it? Almost all the way through the play, through the 3rd act, it's a tossup, but given Chekhov's choice to narrate the critical turning point in Nina's and Trigorin's relationship, this is Konstantin's story, and he changes the most - literally going from life to death.

So what is the play about?

The best way to answer this question is to keep the answer short, 1 or 2 sentences, and tell it in a way that draws a person in, makes them want to know more. If you can do that, then you've understood a play. So here's my understanding of The Seagull: it is a play about people who are so pre-occupied (with themselves, with what they want, with what they don't have) that they can't seem to listen, empathize, or even begin to understand anyone else - until (presumably) one of them dies.

Elaboration:

The Seagull is almost totally character driven: the play lacks a strong plot, so much so that people accuse it have not having any "action." It's actually all action, but because a character's objectives are rarely achieved, the play has the feeling of "going nowhere" - on purpose (i.e., the characters feel they're going nowhere). The life of the play is in its microstructure, i.e., the dialog - each "beat" is (more or less) people wanting, pursuing objectives, and not listening, seeing, or connecting with anyone else, and - interestingly enough - failing to get what they want.

Almost all the characters have a sense of helplessness because they attribute their obstacles to forces or factors beyond their control, and because they feel they can never have what they so desperately want, they get (understandably) highly pre-occupied with their troubles - but then they fail, fail absolutely, to put all that aside when there's an opportunity to simply listen, take in, and understand someone else. Interestingly, why these characters are like this is completely unmotivated in the text: Chekhov provides no "psychological" explanation for their basic stance - but this is clearly who they are.

What the characters want, in the main, especially Nina and Konstantin, is fame and love (respectively). This is how they love: Irina & Nina love Trigorin while Konstantin loves Nina while Masha loves Konstantin and no one's love is reciprocated. Further, Konstantin wants to be an artist (a writer) and Nina wants to be an actress. Because the characters are so obsessively pre-occupied with what they don't have, to the exclusion of all else, to the exclusion of listening/connecting with others, by the time we meet them, their lives seem to have ground to a halt.

The world of characters in a play can be put into sharp relief by imagining what would happen if they choose differently, i.e., imagining what would happen if they choose instead to listen, to see, to attempt to understand one another: it would be a play about people helping each other achieve their dreams, perhaps by helping each other challenge their own perceptions.

The fact that they do not do this is what Chekhov was, in a sense, parodying. For example, Nina wants to be an actress (partly for not the best of reasons, i.e., fame), and in addition to being in love with Trigorin, she (a young girl) looks to him (a mature older man) for encouragement, guidance, and she's hidden none of this from Trigorin. She finally tells Trigorin:

Boris Alekseevich, I've finally decided, the die is cast, I'm going on the stage. By tomorrow, I'll be gone ... I'm starting a new life ... I'm going away, like you, to Moscow. We shall see each other there.

Trigorin is burned out. One almost gets the sense that this could be an opportunity to reinvigorate his own passion by helping/encouraging someone else to follow theirs. Instead - he takes advantage of Nina.

Trigirin only hears that's she's going to Moscow. He doesn't at all respond to the fact that she's just announced that she's taking a big chance with her life. He's completely oblivious to Nina's central concerns - with tragic results. Of course, Nina could be smarter - they could all be smarter - they could even go further and help challenge each other's myopia, mis-conceptions, and self-defeating behavior . . .

But of course, they don't -- it wouldn't be The Seagull if they did.

Production Challenges:

The main challenge is keeping these characters likeable -- because they are (for the most part) likable. While they're probably & understandably depressed, we never see them give into it. They struggle mightily, and they are strikingly, humanly rendered.

Chekhov's mastery of everyday, natural dialog is the real power and life of his work. These people are real, and there's great beauty in them. None of the characters are intentionally cruel - it's as if they can't help themselves; they don't really understand themselves. I root for these characters, willing them to "wake up," to choose differently, anything to avoid what it's probably going to take - a gunshot at the end of the play.

For the actor, there's a tendency to over-analyze the characters because they are so human, complex, real. However, the characters are simply pursuing, with each beat, simple objectives. We don't really have to "understand" these characters in some Freudian sense - we just have to see them, their actions, and their choices. Actors pursuing some carefully chosen, simple objectives will drive the plot, and with Chekhov's language, the audience will readily perceive all the richness, texture, and complexity in this beautiful play.

(Originally published on "Helium").

A great question to ask is: what killed Polonius?

Characters in plays are critically defined by one thing, what William Ball in a Sense of Direction calls the 'golden key' for actors: characters are defined by what they want all else follows.

Hamlet, when you come down to it, is a play about discovering the truth. This is almost every character's goal: it is what they spend a good part of their time doing. While they all have different ultimate objectives, they all seek out the truth as a means of archiving these ultimate objectives:

1) Claudius wants to know the truth behind Hamlet's recent strange behavior (because he fears Hamlet might have discovered his murder).
2) Gertrude and Ophelia want to know the truth about Hamlet's behavior (because they're concerned and want to help).
3) Hamlet wants to know the truth about Claudius (because he needs to be certain of Claudius' guilt before he can kill the King.)
4) Finally, Polonius wants to know the truth behind Hamlet's recent behavior in fact, he's almost desperate to find out . . . we'll get to the why in a moment.

'Ultimate objective', what the character wants, William Ball's 'golden key' this is where the actor first looks to find the heart and soul of a character. When preparing for a role, an actor can sometimes find insight into his character by understanding the wants of a character opposite of his. In "Hamlet", it's Polonius and Hamlet that makes the most interesting study in contrasts. Comparing Polonius with Hamlet helps draw out what is unique about Polonius:

Polonius and Hamlet are like night and day.

What is Polonius' ultimate objective? It's not easy to answer. However, a careful analysis of how Polonius goes about attempting to discover the truth (or in actor-speak, how he goes about "pursuing his main action") provides critical insight into his character, especially when comparing his main action with Hamlet's.

Around the time that Hamlet sees the ghost, Polonius has asked Ophelia to reject Hamlet's recent advances because he thinks Hamlet is trifling with her feelings. Hamlet then confronts Ophelia. His behavior alarms both her and Polonius. Polonius now fears that the rejection drove Hamlet mad. To Claudius and Gertrude, Polonius announces:

your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is't but to be nothing else but mad? (Polonius, 2.2).

Note that Polonius is not sure what "it" is, but whatever "it" is, Polonius is sure Hamlet has "it."

Hamlet, on the other hand, believes that Claudius may be guilty of fratricide, but this belief is only coming from the word of a . . . ghost.

They both have a problem: they have no proof, no hard evidence, to support their hypotheses. Both Polonius' and Hamlet's main action through most of the play is to acquire some sort of convincing support.

When one wants to find support for one's hypothesis, the thing to do is design a test, an experiment, if you will, where either the outcome of the experiment will provide support for the hypothesis or it will not. This is how scientists and researchers test their ideas. In this way, either one moves towards accepting the hypothesis or one moves towards dropping it.

This 'testing' sounds straightforward, even easy but it's not. This is where Polonius and Hamlet differ, and interestingly enough, this is where most of us resemble Polonius. Polonius seeks to CONFIRM his hypothesis; Hamlet seeks to TEST his.

What Shakespeare has amazingly dramatized in Polonius is a behavior that 21st century researchers call confirmation bias, a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to look for what confirms one's belief and to ignore or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts that belief.

A demonstration of this bias is the Wason Card Problem. Assume you have four cards lying on a table. You see each face printed with the following letters and numbers:

| A | | B | | 4 | | 7 |

There is also a letter or a number on the other side.

Now, imagine your hypothesis is: if a card has a vowel on one side, then it must have an even number on the other side. What cards or card would you turn over to 'test' this hypothesis? Decide now.

Most people turn over cards A and 4 presumably thinking, "I must turn over A to see if there is an even number and I must turn over the 4 to see if there is a vowel." However, if this were the case, would you believe your hypothesis?

In actual experiments, researchers have indeed put an even number on the other side of A and a vowel on the other side of 4. However, researchers always put a vowel on the other side of the 7 card making the hypothesis false. Only about 5% of us ever turn over the 7 card. This is because we seek to 'confirm' our hypothesis. Turning over the 7 card is a test to 'disconfirm' our hypothesis. If you turn over the A and 4 cards, you'll think you're right if you turn over the 7 card, you'll know you're wrong.

So how does Polonius attempt to find where truth is hid (Polonius, 2.2)? He confronts Hamlet and attempts by indirections, find directions out (Polonius, 2.1). In other words, he asks indirect questions looking for evidence that Hamlet is mad. What follows in 2.2 is a delicate and clever scene between Hamlet and Polonius where Hamlet does not come off 'crazy' rather he comes off as cleverly keeping Polonius off balance (presumably because he does not want to give anything away to the Claudius' closest adviser). However, while Polonius does seem to sense though this be madness, yet there is method in t. (Polonius, 2.2), the bizarre conversation 'confirms' Polonius' belief that Hamlet is mad. He has found Hamlet's "directions."

Contrast this with one of Hamlet's first reactions to the ghost. Hamlet entertains the possibly that he is wrong about Claudius:

The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. (Hamlet, 2.2).

Polonius, on the other hand, further seeks to confirm his hypothesis by spying on Hamlet & Ophelia:

. . . I'll loose my daughter to him:
Be you [Claudius] and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters. (Polonius, 2.2).

This is critical: much is at stake for Polonius. For Hamlet the stakes are clear: if he is wrong about Claudius, he kills an innocent man. For Polonius, it's almost as if it's his sense of self worth is at stake (at least in his role as assistant for a state) -- but there's no indication anywhere else in the play that anyone else perceives it this ways.

Contrary to Polonius's expectations, the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia is enough to convince Claudius that:

Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. (Claudius, 3.1).

And Polonius' response?

but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. (Polonius, 3.1).

Compare this with Hamlet.

He does not to try to confirm his belief. Instead, remarkably, Shakespeare dramatizes the modern scientific method: he has Hamlet devise a test that will either support or contradict his hypothesis. Hamlet decides to stage a play that dramatizes a man who murders his brother, a king. Hamlet's 15th century logic was that a guilty conscience would give itself away if presented with a dramatization of its crime (i.e., if the King reacts he supports the ghost's claim. If he doesn't, then Hamlet reasons the spirit that I have seen may be the devil. In short, Hamlet devised 'The Mousetrap':

the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king. (Hamlet, 2.2).

And catch a King he does, setting the stage for the final confrontation with Claudius.

Hamlet wanted 'the truth' and he achieved that objective.

And Polonius? After the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia, Polonius doesn't reject his hypothesis, he fatally decides have Gertrude talk to Hamlet while he hides and listens - more indirections to find directions out, his last -- and final action.

Had Polonius only dropped his hypothesis after the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia; had he for a moment seriously considered that he was wrong; had he only found and entertained an alternate hypothesis and devised some way to test between his hypotheses . . .

But of course, he didn't. He wouldn't be "Polonius" if he had.

So what killed Polonius? The thing Polonius most wanted in life:

. . . to be right.

(Originally published on "Helium").