One of my friends, who actively blogs about her experiences pursuing an acting career, often posts about her insecurities about herself and her talent and feeling inadequate as an actor. Reading her posts, I have a desire to answer her back in the most affirming way I know how. I want to be helpful, encouraging, and lend perspective. I am no longer pursuing acting largely because I discovered along the way- on the other side of many self-revelations- that I don’t have the personality of an actor.
What I really want to do is direct.
Just kidding. (Though I’ve done that, too and really enjoyed it.)
Acting, to me, involves sacrificing yourself to an agent, a casting director, a director, a script, a character and an audience. And when I say this, I’m referring to the business of acting, not the craft of acting. I love the craft of acting and have really enjoyed it. But, to have a career as an actor, you cannot divorce the business of acting from the craft and this is precisely my beef with it. It doesn’t suit my independent nature. It ruffles my creative feathers far more often than it strokes them.
Anyhow…
When a person dreams of being an actor, they typically dream of being cast in roles that were practically written for them to explore all of the creative nuances of their talent range and all the world is able to watch and be amazed and formally recognize this. It’s a very romantic notion- one that I once aspired to. But, of actors, even successful Hollywood actors, how many have actually seen this precise dream come to fruition? Not many. And of those that have, even fewer found it independently of becoming a producer and making it happen for themselves. There’s a lot of sweat and poverty and putting your creative ego and relationships on the line for this and even then, the end payoff still may not justify the means. So, the acting dream is not mine. However, I do desire to be supportive of those who choose to go for it, to realize their dream of becoming an actor, because there’s just enough of a romantic in me to want every person I know (and don’t know) to realize their personal dream in their lifetime.
With this in mind, I will bring up something I’ve been thinking about recently regarding the way our perceived audience affects us as creators. When my friend Marcia, who teaches fiction writing at Columbia College, consults with her writing students, she likes to ask them where they are in the audience of their writing pieces. Are they in the front row? Are they in the middle or back row? She wants to know the physical location of where they are in the audience if their story was a performance. This, I think, is a very interesting way to gauge a person’s intimacy and connection with the story they are writing and to explore what filters exist. She goes on to ask about other members of the audience. Is your mom in the audience? Where is she sitting? The front row? Do you think the front row is a good place for a mother to sit for the story about your fist sexual experience? No? Well then let's kick her out and see where this goes. And so on…And this is how the line of questioning goes.
I was recently reminded of how applicable this is to our life story when I was reading Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being. In Chapter 23, Kundera divides people into four categories under the premise that “we all need someone to look at us.”
1. People who long for "the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes…the public.”
2. People who "have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes.”
3. People who "need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love.”
4. The dreamers, “rarest of all... who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present.”
Myself and several others I am close to seem to fall into this latter category. I find this concept intriguing. This idea, coupled with Marcia’s line of questioning to writers, has made me more acutely aware of my own perspective on my imaginary mind’s-eye audience (filters) moving through space day-to-day. Obviously this changes slightly from situation to situation, but when I think of who is in the audience when I am making a decision, the audience is very small, if it exists at all. It wasn’t always this way, though.
Around middle school, my imaginary audience filled a giant arena with nearly everyone I’d come into contact with and I was somewhere in a far mid-section, perhaps fifth row balcony. Needless to say, I was terribly insecure and probably awkward to be around. My guess is that this is to be expected for this age range. In high school, the audience got smaller yet still filled a large auditorium and I was seated on the aisle so that I could walk to the front or back depending on the situation and my comfort level. Somewhere during my freshman year of college, the audience shrunk significantly. Not only did it shrink, but I started turning people away at the door, deciding whose ticket was even valid. This is one of the most important things to occur in my life. Spiritually, emotionally…however you want to view it. A maturity and sense of ownership was taking place. I started taking my seat in the front row every now and then, though still on the aisle. Immediately upon college graduation I moved the production into a small black-box theatre and made it a VIP invitation. VIPs being people whose opinions matter most to me, people I have great admiration for. I admit, there were a few front-row folks who, in hindsight, should not have even made it into the parking lot and I’ve since revoked their parking privileges.
Today, as I mentioned, the imaginary audience is very small. They could fit in a small living room, sitting on a couch and arm chairs and sipping wine and coffee. It’s an intimate setting. I’m going to refrain from naming names, but I will tell you it’s a mix of people who I’ve known in person and people I’ve only read about, people I’ve known a long time and people I’ve known a short while, people living now and people long dead, folks geographically near and some far. And in this living-room stage I am the one sitting closest to the action of the story. And in the hallway, just outside the door, relaxing on a very comfortable bench are my parents. They can occasionally hear what’s going on in the living room and are genuinely happy when it sounds like everyone is having a good time. While aware of the occasional ear-to-the-wall, I choose not to invite them in. It has to be this way for me to have a greater sense of freedom.
When it comes to acting training, the infamous “Private Moment” scene is the exercise that requires the actor to become the only person in the audience of their craft allowing them a sense of complete freedom of expression. (My friend has recently performed this in acting class and it’s something I’ve done in my days of training, as well.) The goal is a worthy one, though easier said than done. But, the idea of this is effective far beyond acting class; it matters that we, as creative artists and human beings, are taking a front seat to the action of our own life’s story and that there is an audience of a very select few, if any (i.e. few filters). In fact, I attribute any success I’ve had as an actor to the careful selection of a small mind’s eye audience before I stepped onto the stage or in front of the camera. In life, this same practice works wonders for inner confidence. So, lately I’ve been trying to keep myself in check this way – thinking in terms of the real audience in my mind’s eye and making adjustments if I feel unnecessary filters exist.
To my friend, the actor, who is insecure about herself as a performer, I would pose the question: Who is in your imaginary audience in life day-to-day and where are you sitting? Are you in the front row? Is your mother or father in the front row? Is there a critic there that wasn’t invited? Your life audience (filters) will translate to your acting craft by way of influencing your sense of freedom and comfort and the really beautiful thing about it is that we get to select our patrons. So, regarding this imaginary gallery, I would suggest you instruct the parking-lot attendant that the casting directors, the agents, the instructors, the potential directors, the actor-peers, and all the critics get turned away at the lot’s entrance in both your life and the acting scenes/auditions. Let them go see some other show. After all, this one is your story and your career dream, and they won’t occupy a seat for the final curtain anyway. And, please, by all means, enjoy the show!
So….Who is in your audience? Where are you sitting?
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