Acting is Breathing, Connecting and Presence

So, despite my fears, I'm been forcing myself to go no faster than I can speak.

I first noticed it's power in the Last Jew In Europe. There the first director, out of stylistics concerns, wanted us to speak as rapidly as we could -- which was fine -- but I, at least, found myself going faster than I could breath, i.e., my breath wasn't fully dropping in, so I was speaking more from my head and chest, never really tapping into the power that is at one's center.

By rushing to my lines, there was no time to take it in what the other actors were doing and to let it mix with my response. Without letting the breath drop, I was just spouting my line back with no real connection or power or truth behind what I was saying . . .

. . . until one night, I said the hell with my fears and resolved to not speak until my breath fully dropped. I found it hard to do this deliberately because it takes some attention away from my partner, away from what's going on (which is why I need to practice doing this until it becomes automatic), but nevertheless, it had some great effects, and the effects -- surprisingly enough -- were on my partner!

On just a few lines, on the few occasions when I could do this, it made me speak with "truth" and "power," and the person I was acting with was almost "captured" by what I said -- I could see it in their eyes: for just a moment, they were really paying attention to me because I had just really meant what I said, and they knew it.

They almost had to pay attention to me, and that automatically influenced their response.

I've been doing this more with the Cat and The Moon. During previews and rehearsals, the director's sharp eye was catching me pushing lines with my head (I play a man who can't walk, so I'm sitting on the stage most of the performance). I wasn't aware I was doing this -- but I was very aware of speaking before I was ready, i.e., rushing to my line, taking a quick gasp of air before I spoke.

Because the line had no real truth or power, I "pushed" or empathized with my head or hands. In short, the "intent" was mostly there, but I wasn't sending it to the other actor.

Deborah Carlson's Word Of Mouth Studios had me on the floor at home with a broomstick over my shoulders and my arms draped over the broomstick. I'm sitting as I would in the play, and I'm running lines by myself. This is to keep my head and hands still.

Her idea -- and it works! -- is that it'll keep my head and hands and body still and make it easier for me to speak from my center, i.e., let my breath drop down to my diaphragm and to speak from there. It's a great technique (for me) because unlike in rehearsal or performance, there's no pressure, and I can simply let myself do this to get used to doing this, to develop the habit.

I've also noticed something else -- I hold my stomach in (vanity). It's not like I have a significant tire around my middle, but I do have a slight tummy, and I hold that in.

I can't do that when I'm working -- it makes it harder for me to breathe freely, and it introduces extra tension in my body.

Judy Dench said (said apparently, because I can't find an online source) that she realized she was a serious and committed actor when during rehearsals one day, she realized she was holding her tummy in (for normal vanity reasons), but -- she found she couldn't act if she did that, so she just let it all hang out for the world to see.

During the last couple of nights, I've been taking all this into performance, and again -- the biggest effect I've noticed as been on the other actors.

At one point, I tell one character he never should have been born, and rather than push or "bark" that with a lot of tension in my throat and neck and face, I instead let my breath fully drop -- and I suddenly felt what I wanted to say to him really drop in me. Right from my center, with almost no tension anywhere but a lot of "dark" power, I said this to him, and I didn't (as I usually do) have to try to mean it -- I meant it: it just filled me and came out, and I swear there was almost a beat and his eyes opened a tiny bit wider, as if it I had taken him, the person, the actor himself, by surprise. HE, the person he is, responded to me, just for an instant, and in that instant, he looked hurt. He wasn't trying to act hurt, it just happened.

He really, for that instant, connected with me, eye to eye, and (to me) he looked taken aback, just for a moment.

The other night, in another scene with an actor, again, I didn't rush to my lines but really listened and let my breath drop, and I was aware of how different the my lines sounded that night. I wasn't tying to make them sound different, and I wasn't trying to listen to myself, but I was aware of more specificy, more color, more power or truth in my lines, and -- as a testament to how badly I must usually act -- this seemed to take the actor by surprise, so much much so, he went off his lines in a couple of places.

Again, I could see in his eyes him really connecting and listening to me, and -- that seem to throw him.

So, next time you complain that someone isn't listening or paying attention to you -- make sure first that you're giving them something to really listen and pay attention to: yourself, your presence.