Acting is NO joke. It's NOT Something You Just Do

All the problems of "going there," projection, keeping it real, "going there" without pushing, without undue tension -- the actor, if they're serious, must work to master the basics. There is a skill component that they must build else they will struggle, else all the director's talk about external circumstances, talk about the character's inner life, discussions about the moment before, all this will come to nothing because the physical foundation is not in place; all the director's work, as critical and necessary as it is, is cart before the horse if the actor has no real foundation, no real learned or (rarely) in-born technique.

Technique Will Hold You

Patsy Rodenburg, in the preface to her chapter Voice And Text Meet Rehearsal, effectively hammers this principle home:

I am sometimes alarmed at [the] complete ignorance of acting craft or just how fundamental it is for a successful show to have actors who know to work properly on themselves, with each other, and on a text.

Years ago I worked with a company where a young, beautiful and completely untrained girl was cast in a major [theater] role. At the first read through my heart sank. She was clearly in the dark, not only about her voice but about acting in general. She had been cast because of her naive charm and freshness . . . Yes, she had a lovely quality but only when you were within three feet of her. The personality which so captivated the director would not transmit further then the distance between the performer and a film lens.

As rehearsal drew to a close and the production was about to open, the director lost patience and became angrier and angrier with the young woman. She spent most of the final week of rehearsal in tears. In fact, she would cry through most of the run, dreading every performance. The rock face of the role was just too sheer and too high for her to climb. She became audible and was vocally free enough not to damage her voice, but she never could occupy organically the words of the text, or comfortably relate to the other actors or to the audience. The reviews were heartbreakingly bad.

One day I found myself alone in the lift with the director. Between floors he turned on me and demanded, 'Why can't you make her sound more interesting and spontaneous?' I replied as only I could, 'Why did you cast an untrained actress?'
~ Patsy Rodenburg, The Actor Speaks, Voice and the Performer.

I WILL TRAIN. I WILL better and better learn HOW TO WORK: acting is no joke -- it's not something you 'just do.' Good physical basic training in acting is like basic training in the army:

     You do battle in the rehearsal room. To survive, you need to be ready,

     conditioned,

     well trained,

     and that's just to survive to get experienced -- and experience is everything!

I am going to keep working at Word of Mouth @ A/C Studios, and I'm going to re-read The Actor Speaks, Voice and the Performer.