More than twenty years ago, two young men came to my acting class in Los Angeles. One was the lead singer in a band, the other a roadie, a guy who traveled with the band and helped set up and break down for each performance. The singer was clearly used to getting attention. The other young man stood with stooped shoulders and his face usually faced the floor. I made the assumption that he was in my class only because his friend was, but within weeks, the singer was a consistent no show and the other young man was coming to class regularly.
Puzzled by his intensely shy demeanor, I asked him one day, “Why are you here?” and his softly spoken answer still rings in my ears. “I’ve experienced a lot of bad things in my life and I think if I learn to act I can turn them into something positive.” He had me. I was going to help this guy learn to express himself as an actor. In a relatively short amount of time he became a powerful presence onstage, tall, handsome, funny and surprisingly loud. We’ve been friends ever since.
I mention that he is tall because I didn’t see him as a tall man when I first met him. I was actually surprised to discover that he was a big guy with broad shoulders. People who meet him today would never recognize that shy quiet young man I first met twenty some odd years ago.
In his book, Shifting Point, the great director, Peter Brook speaks of an encounter with an actor in India who was one of two remaining masters of one of his country’s oldest dance traditions. After watching the man perform, Mr. Brook recounts, “…it was of such quality, of such depth, of such reality, that it was something one couldn’t have seen anywhere else.”
He then asked the very old actor, “I’d like to know, what do you imagine when you are performing?” Keep in mind; this was a very formalized dance technique. The old man said, “It’s very simple. I try to bring together all that I have experienced in my life, so as to make what I am doing a witness of what I have felt and what I have understood.”
There it is. Two men from different cultures both at different stages of life recognizing what the true opportunity is in performing. No matter what the medium, there is a truth of self that informs our work. I believe that for all of us there is a spiritual need to express our life experience. The act of expression adds to our psychological wellbeing.
I believe there is a deep psychic force that keeps us coming to the theatre, to the page, to the canvass, to the camera, to the dance studio, to the garden, to the stove, to the woodshop. We serve each other either as audience and performer, giver and receiver, artist and viewer, cook and dinner guest. In all these contexts there is a give and take, a conversation that makes something possible that otherwise might not occur. It matters not that we do it in the same ways, it matters only that we do it.
Everyone can. All we need is permission.
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