Some of you may know already that I did a little acting in Los Angeles. I got a few commercials, an agent, a couple of co-starring roles and a SAG card. By the way co-star is pretty much a glorified extra in TV jargon....guest star is where the real money and roles are. I took acting classes and even met one of my favorite people in the world in acting class (Jenn Yale). I was in a few plays as well and even played Nurse Ratchet in a local Los Angeles production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. [I'm sure many of you will find it surprising but the director really got on me because I wasn't "menacing" enough and I even considered dropping out because I didn't think I could bring the "menace" enough to satisfy him at one point. Luckily I found my inner "menace" and the production was a success...although I felt really jerky and mean after every performance.]
I did enjoy working on most of the productions I was involved in so my mother sent me an e-mail about a Stanislavsky acting workshop last Saturday at a local Tucson theater company. It only cost $25 and was open to everyone so I thought, what the heck, and signed up. Maybe I would meet some local actors and get some information about maybe joining a local theater group or something -- or even get involved in classes again.
I show up at the theater and have to fill out a release form (?) because they're going to take photographs and videotape the workshop. ....ok...... I get a nametag with my name on it and am motioned toward the theater. The stage has a lot of odds and ends on it and there is this small, roly poly guy in the front who shakes my hand and tells me that his name is Phil. I notice how the theater smells a little like a thrift store...sort of musty with a hint of cat urine underlying it all. I sit down and everyone seems to know each other, I introduce myself to this older lady who's sitting near me. She asks whether I've taken any classes before and I tell her that I took some classes in Los Angeles at the Howard Fine Acting Studio. She gives me a blank stare. [That's actually one of the more famous acting studios in Los Angeles, by the way.] She tells me that she used to act and then she didn't act and then someone asked her to act and now she acts all the time. I give her a "you go girl" look and am about to snap my fingers when Phil tells us that class is about to begin.
Phil starts by telling us about Stanislavsky who is pretty much the guy who wrote THE book on acting. He founded the Theater Moscow and really put his heart and soul into what it takes to be a realistic actor. One of my acting teachers used to make us read from a translation of his book in every class. I went along with it for a while because I really wasn't going to argue with this method since Alfred Molina sometimes attended the class (when he wasn't working...which was rare) and if he was willing to do it, then who am I to argue? Now, I really admire "Fred" Molina -- (that's what he had us call him) and think he's a pretty amazing actor. If you don't think so, just check out the firecracker scene in Boogie Nights...nothing further your honor. Reading from Stanislavsky's three books got a little old, it often made the classes go beyond midnight and I rarely got a chance to perform so I found another class. But, as usual, I digress....
Phil goes into detail about Stanislavsky's life and tells us a lot of stuff about his own training and how it takes 7 years to master the Stanislavsky system. Phil tells us all how much he loves Tucson and how much different it is than Palm Springs, where he's from. Phil then tells us some joke involving Anita Bryant and then he tells us all how he came out to his mother. What does this have to do with Stanislavsky? Also, I don't think anyone here (besides me and the old chick beside me) knows who Anita Bryant is and that she's made statements against gay people. This seems to be a general affectation of acting teachers, they ALL like to tell us personal stuff about their sexual preference, their family problems (mother often comes into play) or their substance abuse problems. Actually, I've never taken an acting class from an instructor that hasn't felt the need to tell us a lot about all of those subjects. I also know way too much about one of my old acting teacher's dysfunctional relationship with her twin sister...yeesh.
He tells us that he's going to show us some exercises and has us bring chairs onto the stage and sit. He has us stamp our feet and tells us to do it different ways (i.e., you're happy, you're angry, you're anxious, etc.). What's funny is that I had run into my brother earlier that morning and he made fun of the fact that I was going to this workshop by saying that I was going to have to "feel like a piece of bacon" or "pretend snow is blowing in my face." Well...he was right. That's pretty much was Phil had us doing for the first two hours. I almost walked out two or three times but stayed because I was too interested in what absurdity he would come up with next. He then gave us each assignments and told us to take a break and he would call us up individually to "perform" the tasks he had assigned. He told me to not speak but come up with circumstances where I would look outside a window. Easy enough. He gave other people speaking and non-speaking assignments and some people were by themselves and others were in groups.
After the break, the first group went up and their assignment was to have one person waiting to hear whether they got the death penalty or not and the other two should come in and convey, without speaking, whether the sentence was death or not. Come on....really? Who couldn't do that? The two people come in practically dragging their lower lips [hmmmmm.....he got life?] and they come up to the waiting guy and they all start hugging and crying. Then Phil asks them to do it again and to say only three words this time, "I love you." [By the way, drama teachers ALWAYS have you go back and do the same thing over and over...it really stinks when you do something well because you can't stop thinking about what you did the first time and the second time is just a weak approximation because you're definitely not in the moment....in this case, they should have been really glad for any opportunity to do it over.] Its not much better the next time but, someone squeezes out some tears this time. Oh please. The next group also has three people and they were given the assignment of having one person accuse the other two of something and they're allowed to speak. They decide that one guy is going to accuse the other two ladies of stealing his dog. The two ladies start the scene by "chatting" and when the one guy pretends to knock on the imaginary door, she gives us the super fake, explanatory statement of "oh...someone's at the door...I wonder who that could be?" Is this a radio play where you need to describe what you're doing all the time? We can see you lady! She opens the door and proceeds to "indicate" her butt off. Indicating is when an actor "phones it in" and doesn't really have any internal basis for what he or she is saying or doing but, instead, is very obviously just going through the motions. [Sort of like Jennifer Aniston in every episode of Friends.] In turn, the guy starts over-acting and pretending to be crazy [which I've learned is never a good choice because crazy people never think they're crazy] and puts his hand through the plane of the pretend door a couple of times. This is some FINE acting. I would have been kicked off the stage with those kinds of amateur stunts in Los Angeles (after everyone, including the instructor, laughed and laughed at me). The funny thing is that all of these people consider themselves to be quite advanced and accomplished actors. Now, I KNOW that I'm not an advanced or accomplished actor by any stretch of the imagination but I know enough not to make these ridiculous mistakes. Oh well. The next group continuously mugs for us and cracks jokes. When Phil asks one particularly bad offender if he was trying to entertain us, he says that he wasn't consciously doing it but he may have been subconsciously doing so. WHAT? You need to go straight to the emergency room if you didn't consciously realize that you were acting like a complete idiot on stage just now! What is going on? I finally get up and it takes me about 45 seconds to go through the simple scenario I had planned. I imagined waiting for a blind date and hearing a car door slam and looking out the window.......AND SCENE (going down on one knee, lowering head and pumping fist). I didn't do the last part but the instructor seemed to like it a lot. He asked me how I felt and I told him that I felt a little self-conscious at the point where I got up to look out the window. He nodded. I didn't really care at this point though because I had already realized that this group wasn't for me.
Next this young fellow had the assignment of pretending a bottle of water held poison and he wasn't allowed to say anything. He slowly and weirdly walked across the room holding the water bottle (and by weirdly, I mean he walked as if he was on the moon or something) and stood for a long time with his back to us contemplating the kitchen set up (I think...his back was to us....) and then he opened this stage door and threw the water bottle out. He then moon-walked (not backwards but forwards) over to the bed on the stage and grabbed a pillow and smelled it. ?!? Then he walked off. What? Everyone applauded. I felt like I was in the movie Waiting For Guffman (without the awesome singing though).
At the very end Phil told us that he was going to start teaching a class and that we would all get e-mails about joining. He told us all that he was "astounded" at the amount of acting talent there was in Tucson. ??? Is saying "astounded" the same as telling someone that their baby is "breathtaking" when you really mean that the baby is ugly?
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