EXPERIENCING
ARTHUR & JED, SEPTEMBER 3, 2024
It was a landmark morning. Both Arthur and Jed sent me an exercise.
Jed has decided to place this on his white board instead of getting a tattoo: “The that fact you say it doesn’t make it true!”
We are all aware that facts are death to the actor until they become the experience of the facts. Or at least we’ve heard this enough that it makes sense as a concept. I think what we have to do now is be really clear what the facts are. One of the problems is that we’re being too limited in our thinking. And because of this, we don’t really bother to experience the facts.
This was Jed's audition for Season 4 of Bridgerton.
The first line of dialogue is: “Alexander! Campbell finally dragged you to one of his little parties.”
We can go on forever gathering facts, but a few come to mind straight away.
They're at a party
It’s in ballroom
It’s in a private mansion
But more specifically useful for the scene:
Alexander is a friend
He never comes to parties
It’s a surprise he’s at this one
They have a mutual friend, Campbell, who got him to come
Let’s leave it there for now.
I accused Jed of having nothing going on at the beginning of the scene, no sense of the life and world of the scene until he started talking. This is a recurring problem with actors in auditions. There’s no scene until they start talking that there is a scene at all. Jed’s defense was that he was looking at Alexander, – and thinking how amusing it was to see him there.
This goes back to our initial concept of turning the facts of the scene into the experience of the facts. Two things to keep in mind here. First of all “looking at Alexander and thinking”. There are many facts at work here. What is your relationship with Arthur when you look at him? What is going through your mind? The leads us to the concept of “active looking”. I think we probably need to introduce the tern “active thinking” as well (and most certainly “active listening”).
One of the ways that helps us is to go back to talking out. And, look, talking out isn’t just saying things. We have to believe what we’re saying. We have to earn what we’re saying.
Off the top of my head, if I were building “I can’t believe he’s finally coming to one of Campbell’s parties,” I would have to build someone who never partied and I would probably hear Milton saying to me, “Like when?” And, if I really wanted to kick ass, I would specifically be aware of at least one party where Alexander refused to come. My point being you can’t say, “he never comes to parties” without earning that.
If I talk out what is going on or what I’m thinking or what I’m looking at, it will help me get both the experience of what’s happening and the truth of the circumstances. Otherwise it’s like I’m in one of those cartoons and there’s a bubble over my head that has written out, “I can’t believe he came.” In its simplest terms I can ask you, “What does the audience see that makes them know what you’re thinking?” And, no, it doesn’t mean that if you smile we’ll get it.
I’m convinced the problem is that we go to the damn words way too fast. And what I’m talking about is going to performing the words.
There was an obituary in today’s NY Times of a famous cellist (Antônio Meneses). One of the comments he made really hit me. He told his biographers, “I usually get close to the works long before I actually start learning them. It’s a kind of courtship, which for me is very important for an intellectual and spiritual familiarization with it.”
I really liked that. I think that is what we have to do with the material we work on. For us it’s a matter of wandering around in the world that the writer has given us. Sometimes (often) we are taking our research and letting it land on us. Letting it simmer. Perhaps we think about what that means in a cosmic sense. The idea. And then we begin to think about living in that world; and then we begin to see our character (our human being) in that world. As we begin to court it we know more ... and then we can begin to learn it.
Arthur’s problem was really one of massive plot points. And it was Arthur’s etude that really made me realize how easily we throw things out and accept them without really taking on board what they mean. The first fact was that he was talking to his cellmate’s son. That alone would make me stop. I have to build why I’m in jail and my relationship to the cellmate. And the son!!! Oh, my God! And this is never a matter of just answering the question. I have to own the experience of the answers to the questions.
In these very complex sides that we work on, there are always countless facts. That we just pass over them as if they are true and we have no relationship to them is where we get into trouble. It’s like you can hear Stella say, “There’s no cellmate. There’s no son. There was no person who told you to pass a message to the son.” On and on and on.
These are the issues that make us understand the idea of the experience of the facts. Without these we might as well pass out the text to the audience and have them read the words for themselves.
Thoughts on a Tuesday.
Hope to see you Thursday.
MJ