Let Down

The Day of Reckoning, when we face our class tutors and hear their comments, was more or less what we expected. It started with a minor diatribe from the Prince of Darkness about punctuality; he has a point, but there are reasons behind some people being late and other issues about the tutors' punctuality that could have been brought up, so let's leave that aside.

The comments were mostly positive and basically fair, with two or three exceptions where the tutors were too harsh, criticising students for where they were now rather than complimenting them on how far they had come. In my own case, Tracy was less than complimentary about my Roy in The Odd Couple; she wasn't wrong, but, as I pointed out to the PoD afterwards in the restaurant afterwards, it was a play I would never have auditioned for and would never have felt comfortable in. His argument was that a good actor would have overcome the various hurdles of accent and inappropriateness of casting to turn in a good performance. That led onto a discussion as to whether I would be a good actor, to which his response was basically, only after a two year course (preferably at his school); which didn't mean I would never get acting work, only that I wouldn't reach the standard of acting which he defined as good. It's a point that I'll keep in mind as time goes by and I get others' opinion of my work.

In the meantime, Brendan, who had come up with the most cogent criticism of the course one evening in the pub, and who turned up at the Reckoning an hour late, dishevelled, with a fierce expression, and then spent most of the time scribbling on a notepad instead of paying the other students the respect of focusing on them. After the tutors' accurate comments on his performance he made a short, difficult-to-hear pronouncement on each of them, which had the effect, not of making coherent points about the shortfalls of some of the teaching, but of shutting down any discussion because his input appeared so off-the wall. At the end, Matt the drama teacher and I raised a separate issue about the structure of the course, which might have led back to Brendan's points if other students had joined in, but which petered out. And when most of us traipsed off for lunch with the tutors, Brendan and a few others stayed away, which meant that the issues could never be raised. At the end of the day it was disappointing that an intelligent likeable man behaved in a way that prevented us making the very points that were important to him, me and others.

"It wasn't as bad as I expected"

That was Carl's comment on our performances last night. Which pretty much sums up how we all felt. The singing hovered between poor and passable; the energy levels in the acting were higher than ever, but - hampered by the short scenes, the characters in the play (The Odd Couple), the Noo Yoik accents and the lack of rehearsal time - none of us could only give one-note performances. My particular note was grumpy, sweaty  accountant.

I was, incidentally, the hero of the hour, because when silence fell and we all sat there for that awful second when someone has forgotten his words, and the person following can't come in because he hasn't had the cue, I was the one who leapt up and moved the action forward to a point where we could all come in again. But that was a minor moment and I was more concerned that the others acting with me - Brendan, Floyd, Sean, Milt, Matt - turned in good performances, and they all did. We may not be Laurence Oliviers, but between us we have the makings of an up-and-coming Carry On crowd and I'd be happy to work with them all again.

That leaves one more day, the Day of Reckoning, when the course leaders tell us what they think of us, followed by lunch (in a more modern restaurant than that depicted here by Bosch). That will be interesting. More interesting will be whether the students tell the course leaders what they think of them. Poor planning, disrespect, lack of coherency and irrelevance are some of the comments that have been bandied around in our evening get-togethers. Will they get aired today, and if they do, will it be before or after lunch?

You know what they say . . .

. . . a bad dress rehearsal means a good first night. That had better be true, because yesterday was a disaster. Scenes that had been coming together fell apart as every one of us fluffed lines and movements and cues. The more nervous we got, the worse the performances. Tracy the director's always severe expression turned volcanic, but the expected explosion never came; I think she realised it would make no difference.

Am I looking forward to tonight? Yes, but only the bit where we drown our sorrows in the bar . . .

To Be Or Not To Be Nice

We're in the pub at the end of the day and talk drifts round to the Prince of Darkness, the school principal, who watched and commented on our singing performances earlier in the day. Two or three of the group are highly critical of the way in which he picks on individuals, making disparaging comments. My sense is that this is his style of working, he is not consciously victimising anyone, and isn't this the stereotype of the director - a vicious, heartless bastard? (How would I know? I could count the number of directors I've worked with on the fingers of one foot...)

It appears I'm wrong. The consensus is that directors can and should always be critical in a sympathetic and supportive way. Of course I agree with that principle, but as an older, short-tempered, critical individual myself, I have a sneaking sympathy for those who say what they think and don't give a damn about people's opinions of them. To the surprise of Myfanwy, our Welsh songbird, I'd even be happy to have a drink in the pub with him.

That doesn't blind me to his faults. Even if the PoD turned into a cuddly bear, the course he runs is a mess which may give students a watered-down taste of full-term acting school, but which gives them almost no support in identifying strengths which can be built on, and weaknesses which can be corrected.

Looking forward . . . Today is the last rehearsal for tomorrow's performance. Some of us feel we've had too much of Tracy's time and others feel we've had too little. I'll be surprised if she manages to pull it all together into one coherent performance.

Counting down

It's the last week of the course and I'm not sure if I'm pleased about that or not. The upside is that I'll have more free time and that I won't be spending hours on activities that seem peripheral to my future acting career. The downside is that I may lose focus (will I really spend all that time working on my voice, getting my name out and pursuing all the opportunities I come across?) and the energy that comes from working with a group of supportive colleagues.

Monday was our second day of Elizabethan dance. I know that roles occasionally call for actors to dance, but the chances of my auditioning for a part where I have to cut a good pavane are pretty close to zero. Prancing around on my toes is something I'd prefer to see as an option in a two year course than as a requirement in basic acting. Which means that my heart is not in it - and my calves, already sore from Saturday's upping-and-downing - are still complaining two days later.

On Tuesday we are back to Voice - and this is the class we should have had much nearer the beginning of the course. No-one really understood the point of all the groaning and puffing that Cynthia made us do on earlier lessons, but today she has performed two miracles.

Firstly, her directing talents came to the fore when she made us perform our mini-scenes from Waiting for Godot in sequence. The play began to come alive and as a group we were acting rather than reciting words. Secondly, she took each of us in turn and, with startling accuracy, focused in on the physical sources of the weaknesses in our voices. She told Lloyd that his tension was in his legs - and Lloyd told her that he had been born with a deformed foot and that he still sometimes struggled to correct it. Brenda's problem was in the roof of her mouth - and Brenda had had a cleft palate. Sean's sibilants could be traced to thumb-sucking. Irina's strong personality was diverted into her mind and her dress rather than her body. My own fault was a laziness that let me speak from the head rather than use my body. And so on and so on.

If such comments had come early in the course, we could have used them, both in the scenes we are showing on Friday, and in our overall development. Subsequent Voice classes could have helped us resolve some of our problems through the course, instead of merely informing us near the end what our inadequacies are. Texan Jack, for example - who, it seems, on getting to know him, is less a potential axe murderer than a likable, nervous, intense young man - will probably forget what he has been told, but if he had been reminded two or three times during the course, his tense hunched body might have begun to uncurl into a confident upright figure.

Cynthia's comments had most of us paying attention. Sean, however, insisted on playing the clown. He has a good sense of humour and his comments are funny, but they detract from the focus of the class and make it more difficult for the rest of us to concentrate on what the teacher is saying. I like Sean, and he's a good companion in the pub. He has undoubted talent, but he is also unaware of or uninterested in the needs of others. In a short course it's only slightly irritating; in a longer course he'd be putting several people's backs up....

Today it's back to Singing. To get off book, I have two and half songs to learn in less than an hour. ♪ There is nothing like a dame..... ♪

Have Faith?

One of the names of possible schools that came up in Saturday's discussion was the Actors' Temple (I've added the apostrophe - it makes more sense) near Warren Street in London (actorstemple.com). It has a good reputation and the website is professional and attractive. But the website also says that their courses are coming to an end as the Temple transforms into a fully-fledged acting company, so if I want to take advantage of their expertise, I should get in there quick, particularly when there is only one introductory week available, for an astonishing low £50.

The Temple specialises in the [Sanford] Meisner Technique (that's him on the left, see Wikipedia for more on the Technique), using "an inter-dependent series of training exercises". According to Wikip, several actors I respect and enjoy, from Robert Duvall to Leslie Nielsen, reportedly trained in the Technique. So far, so good. Back to the Temple website, I start watching their 45 minute film showing extracts from the classes and discussions and comments from teachers and students giving their views on the Technique and its results.

Five minutes in, I have Questions about the course as I watch students wind each other up by continuously repeating short phrases about how they feel. By the twenty-minute mark, seeing a student first humiliated and then berated because he has not burst into tears (there appears to be a lot of crying in the Temple, as well as some laughter and rolling around the floor in ecstasy), those Questions have solidified into Doubts; by the end of the film, Doubts have become Certainty that this is not a line of training I want to follow. Why? Because the Technique, as applied by the Temple and presented in this documentary, comes across as something between a religious cult where each follower's personality must be broken in order to be moulded to the leader's bidding, and an intense therapy session where deeply wounded souls are encouraged to cry out their anguish.

The theory underlying the training - if I understand correctly - is that actors can only give a true performance if they are true to themselves. The only way to become true to oneself is to open up to every emotion. And to open up to every emotion one has to go through a series of exercises that - from the evidence of the film - rely heavily on endless repetition and regular humiliation. (I assume there is more to the course than that, and there is a point where students actually act, but the emphasis appears to be much more on the challenge of the Dragon than the prize of the Princess.)

There are certainly some plays and films, and styles of theatre, cinema and television which require extreme performances, and I am sure that such a Course would help some actors achieve that goal. But just as in Art the same scene can be portrayed with truth in many different styles (think of Art, and painters from Rembrandt to Picasso, Duchamp to Hopper and so on), so too can truth on the stage be portrayed by actors from many different traditions and training techniques. I don't believe the Meisner Technique is a prerequisite of good acting; it's simply a tool that some individuals may find useful.

It could be argued that my distaste for the Temple technique is because I'm unwilling to put myself through the various extremes that it requires. There may be some truth in that, but as an older man, I have already experienced most of the traumas and elations that the course would want to me relive. I believe I know myself well and there is little of my personality left to uncover. And while I'm willing to express profound rejection or celebration on stage to convey an emotion or message to an audience, I'm not interested in repeating emotions for the sake of an exercise.

The Technique, as demonstrated by the Temple, almost certainly has greater impact with young actors, who have less experience of the world and who are in many ways more defensive and insecure. It is more difficult for the young to express deep and complex emotions - which is why so few 14 and 15 year olds can give a good performance of Romeo and Juliet and so few 19 year-olds can convey the complexities of Hamlet, while older actors portraying Lear are so much more compelling. A young person who goes through the intense experience of this course, who gains a clearer understanding of the complex emotions that make up a human being, and who emerges from it with their personality intact will almost certainly benefit as an actor.

The young student who was humiliated in the film is shown later speaking happily about the benefits he has got from the course. And I doubt that those who enter the Temple are expected to give up all their possessions and cut off all contact with their family. But I am also sure that the name of the Temple was not chosen by chance; this is the place where acolytes must abase themselves before the God of Acting, where they must undergo Ordeals to be accepted as Initiates, and where some may one day become Priests. Such a place is not for me. As an atheist in the Real World, this is one place of worship I can easily pass by.

What Next?

The course ends in a week and discussion in our group naturally turns to what we do next. The problem is, there doesn't seem to be a clear path forward. Should we take lots more courses, spending money that we don't necessarily have? Even if we had the money, how many of these courses would be taking us forward and how many would simply take us the same ground as we had covered before? And would we know the difference between the courses before handing over our cash?

We exchange names of schools we have heard of or attended or known others who attend. The Actors' Centre seems to have the best reputation. The Bridge School next. But it seems there are dozens in London alone. Milt the Builder says the situation reminds him of his own trade - there are always plenty of people willing to take your money to teach you something - far more than people willing to pay you for doing something you have learnt. He himself is torn between doing a full-time course and going straight into auditions. Most of us, on the other hand, have to balance full-time jobs with developing an acting career - a task that may be impossible.

From there the discussion moves inevitably on to whether to work for free. Whether we know from hearsay or personal experience, none of us is surprised - although several of us are shocked - by the number of producers profiting from desperate actors who'll do anything to appear on stage or in front of the camera, even paying for their own travel and other expenses. Would I do it? Yes, occasionally, if I felt it was merited by the script -  of course it's more likely that I would not even get so far as being offered a part.

Reality is making itself felt. At the back of my mind I've always believed that one can either act or not act - and those who can act need only experience and self-awareness to develop the talent within them. If a role demands a special skill, such as fencing, then you either study that skill when offered the role, or you study the skill hoping to find a role that it needs. As a 59-year-old whose emotional and intellectual life has been wide and varied, I'm egoistical enough to consider I have the understanding and ability to portray a wide range of characters - and as 59-year-old I don't want to spend the next two to three years of my life, plus thousands of pounds that I cannot afford, doing training after training after training.

Of course I will do a few more classes. But I have a limited budget of £1,000 to spend on further training and £500 to put together headshots and voicereels and a website. Give me two months to put together a profile and I'll put myself out there online and in person. In the meantime I'll scout around for courses - I'm particularly interested in the £5 a lesson offered in this week's The Stage (see pic) - see what I come up with. By the end of the year, I'll know how difficult it really is for hope and egosim to overcome lack of experience in an overcrowded job market . . .