The Deadly Theatre

I recently finished Peter Brook's The Empty Space. Mr. Brook is brilliant, and his insights are amazing. The text was written, I think, as a rant or thought experiment. As a practical text, I think it's not particularly useful. I couldn't help thinking that (as I was fist-pumping the air at some of the things he said), that many people who create what Brook refers to as "Deadly Theatre" would probably have the same reaction to the book, because their perception of their work is completely different.

A complaint I often have when I see a blockbuster action movie is that it looks like an excuse to string together a few action sequences. The fact that there is a much simpler solution to the problems set up in the film doesn't matter. Neither do story or character, for the most part. I've seen a lot of theatre that I think operates under a similar approach. People have schtick that they want to do as part of the play. Before long, the schtick devours the entire play. Somewhere along the line, what might have been funny once in rehearsal devours the entire show. The play ceases to be about the characters or the truth of the scene. It becomes about the gag. This reminds me of the scene from This Is Spinal Tap about the amps that go to eleven.  Marty DiBergi says, "Why don't you just make ten louder, and have THAT be the loudest?" I want to say to people, "Why don't you just make the PLAY funny? Make the situation written be the funny thing?"

I'm not one of those people that think Hamlet's advice to the players is a sacred acting treatise from Shakespeare to us. It's not intended that way. It's part of a play - it has context. Taking it out of context and holding it up as truth is risky. But that's a subject for another post. I don't mean to suggest that Hamlet's  advice doesn't contains some great stuff. It does. In a realistic theatre, holding the mirror up to nature is something to which we should all aspire. When making an acting choice, I think you should always ask yourself, "Is this true? Is what I'm doing motivated by the character, or am I doing this just because it'll get a laugh?" It has to come from inside the character, not from some meta-theatrical choice designed to provoke a reaction - unless you're approaching the text in a non-realistic way to begin with, which is something entirely different.

Taking this from a musical standpoint, when a student learns to play guitar, they will frequently learn a few licks - little phrases that commonly show up in blues. When the student starts to play a solo, they play these licks, and the licks sound good, because they're all in the right key. But they aren't music. They're building blocks, stuck together in sequence. You have to learn to stop playing licks and start playing melodies. Just my opinion, of course, but I feel like there are a lot of actors who just play licks.

Look for the truth, in the character, in the scene, and in the play. Keep in mind the BIG picture - the overall story you're telling. How does your character fit into that? You're a piece of a machine - one player on a team. Keep your focus on these things. That's my goal, and a piece of unsolicited advice.