Performance, Attention and Acing: Problems and Solutions

I'm in the final days of performance of Other People by Joel Shatzky.

One of the things Deborah's been hammering home during our work at Word Of Mouth Studios is that it's always about the other. Simple (and hitting-the-nail-on-the-head) advice, but -- exactly, in practice, in rehearsal, in performance, what did that really mean? How did one really do that?

To start -- what Is attention?

Everyone knows what attention is. It is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence. It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others, and is a condition which has a real opposite in the confused, dazed, scatterbrained state which in French is called distraction. (William James, The Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2).

Attention is a nice thing because once deployed on some object, additional brain resources (sensory, perceptual, cognitive) are automatically allocated to the object, i.e., you start to take it in, all of it, every aspects. There's obviously levels of intensity, i.e., the processes of paying attention to whether or not a street sign says walk or don't work are less intense then if someone is pointing a gun in your face and asking for all your money.

For actors, the issue is really concentration, and learning how to to fully concentrate on the other, growing one's powers of concentration, is a critical skill. I feel my ability to concentrate has improved though practice (i.e., simply reminding myself to pay full attention to the other) and meditation, especially the Holosync audio technology by Centerpoint.

An unsung benefit has been that if someone is paying full attention to me, I have a much much easier time acting, i.e., they are really listening to me, taking me in (apparently there is a story that I cannot verify where Russell Crowe head-butted another actor because that actor was not taking him in. True or not (hopefully the head-butting part is not true), the point was and is well taken). It's one critical way to really give to the other actor. I'm not sure why it makes it easier to "act," but it does.

I've recently incorporated this into my monologue rehearsals. I have a picture of a mask, similar to the one shown above (taken from Per Brahe site), and when I do a monologue, I just talk to the mask, and because it looks like it's paying attention to me, I'm able to pay more attention to it, to fully focus on it, and I'm not at all paying attention to any distracting aspect of myself, e.g., concerns if I'm doing the monologue right, am I feeling enough, etc. any form of watching or observing myself disappears and -- I'll be damned if that doesn't take my monologues to the next level.

Interestingly enough, this really came in handing during my work on Other People. My character, "Brother Daniel," was onstage though through half the first act, but with only a few lines: act I was more of a memory for the main character, "Paul," and has the memories play out, Brother Daniel is an observer of, a listener to those memories. Ted Mornel staged it so that I was on the stage but off to the side most of the time, and so while there at times many people on the stage, my total focus was on the Paul. This helped make it clear that I was not part of the scene -- I was only present with "Paul," and only in that most timeless of spaces called "now." It's what the staging and scenes demanded, and being able to fully concentrate only on "Paul" was a critical part of fulfilling those demands.

Concentration also helped me fulfill the demands of the character, Brother Daniel. Brother Daniel's role in Paul's life is as a surrogate father, a strong, firm, caring and unflappable. "Paul" was a teenager who in some sense excelled in giving people "attitude." It was clear in the text that Brother Daniel did not respond to Paul's attitude, but I had trouble doing so. The attitude was effective enough to cause a negative reaction in me, but that wasn't Brother Daniel's reaction, or at least, he didn't react to it.

So, I had to make a very interesting mental shift -- it wasn't acting: I really had to do this: I had to see everything that Paul said and did as OK. I couldn't match his negative attitude or come back with a negative response. I noticed it -- I saw it, but I just didn't respond to it. Instead I held onto the love and acceptance -- Brother Daniel needed Paul to do certain things, and showing only love and acceptance was the way he did that. Paul's negativity and teenage attitude had no effect on Brother Daniel and I just choose to not let it affect me. Keeping hold of what I (Brother Daniel) wanted, and putting full 100% attention on Paul to see if I was getting him to act and respond the way I (Brother Daniel) wanted him to respond helped keep me "in character:" Brother Daniel handled Paul much much better than I could have.

It was facinating to really really do that on stage: I would not have thought that acting could teach me something I could use in real life . . . that it could, in some small but significant way, change me, for the better . . . and it was another example of playing the solution rather than the "problem."

The Lessons (performance goals):

Breathe deep/let the breathe fully drop
100% full attention out to the other. This leads to listening which leads to reacting which leads to being fully "here and now."
"See" the other/be "The Mask" I work with. See solidly out, unwaveringly, no matter what, without flinching.