When we make theatre we tell stories. Each time we tell a story it is different; the ancient myth changes each time we hear it. Even if we stick to precisely the same words and intonations, like an Irish bard with his harp, each retelling unfolds the high deeds with slight differences. The story changes because the tellers and hearers change; Time changes. It is one thing to tell a story, another to define what the story means. When we try to control all the meanings of a story, we invariably fail. An advertisement on behalf of a politician can convince us not to vote for his weak smile. Manipulation can reverse its desired effect.
Art never quite does as it’s told. St Peter’s was presumably intended to bray the confidence of the counter-reformation, but the Roman basilica also does the exact opposite. The more the edifice trumpets its strength of will, the more it also whimpers insecurity and doubt. Everything we make is ambivalent. We obscure this ambivalence with sentimentality.
To treat something sentimentally is to claim it has only one meaning. Sentimentality tries to divide the good guys from the bad guys, and wipe up the messy ambivalence of life. Seeking certainty, we shun ambiguity; and that is precisely when we become sentimental. A Viennese waltz insists that life is carefree, but remembering the historical context, those hectic strings can seem sinister.
A ship
Making lists of what the character wants may give provisional structure in the early days of rehearsal, but these structures will block us if we don’t ditch them in time. It helps to see these early rehearsal structures as the scaffolding used in shipyards. At the beginning there is an idea of a ship; then the scaffolding seems bigger than the idea. Soon tiny men with hammers bang away within the immense cradle. Bolts and sheets are hung on the structure until they find their own connections. Winches and pulleys swing from the cradle and carpenters clamber up and down. Slowly girders and cables and panels join together and the cradle swells with the vessel. But the time will come when the structure of scaffolding must fall away to let the ship slide into the waiting sea.
The story and freedom
At the beginning of rehearsal we may analyse the plot and its meaning. Agreeing the story we want to tell may provide a beginning, but ultimately we will not tell stories well until we are prepared to let them run free. The wise storyteller knows that the story will have many different meanings to different people at different times. Experienced storytellers intuit this mystery: not only are they telling the story, the story is also telling them. The story creates the storyteller; just as whenever we think we use a lie, the lie ends up using us.
The wise actor learns not to try to control what the audience sees. The target needs to be discovered and seen, that is all. The target generates the impulse to act. What the actor plays springs from seeing the target and not from the character’s inner will. The shape of the scene is living and mobile, its form is determined by the shifting nature of the targets. The wind and sea sculpt the sand; the beach does not shape itself alone.
The target and the source
What we see goes deeper than we may think. Approaching a normal staircase, our leg and feet muscles prepare to go up. But if we see an escalator we instruct these muscles to rest as we glide up past the adverts. However, a broken escalator is interesting. We may remark to our feet: ‘This is an escalator. It does not work at the moment as an escalator. So we will use it as an ordinary immobile staircase.’ But as we step on the ridged metal, our legs still give a small, but perceptible, jerk. We knew clearly not to expect a moving stairway. We were perfectly clear with our feet, and they have done something that we told them not to.
It was maintained earlier that the baby is born not only with an anticipation of parents and language, but also with an anticipation of performance. It is, however, exceptionally unlikely that a baby might be born with the expectation of an escalator.
Presumably what happens is this. Over the years the eyes have been communicating directly to an unconscious part of the brain, i.e. the part which controls learnt reflexes. This part of the brain has learnt that those ridged steps with the jagged edge move by themselves and that the feet must readjust otherwise we will fall over. Pavlov explored these conditioned reflexes, almost spontaneous reactions that are learned. It helps Irina to know that the senses can completely bypass the conscious mind. This unconscious learning is what motors the invisible work. The target can do more to us than we know.
We cannot equip the characters with a subconscious, but Irina can nourish herself with the invisible work. She can prepare herself so that in performance the images she sees are not superficial and simplistic, but rich and ambivalent. Although the actor can only act what is conscious, not all acting is conscious. The target is the only impetus for what is played both consciously and unconsciously.
Seeing specifically what is outside will send the actor deeper into the character than thinking what is inside.
The frame
A work of art is something with a frame around it. A photographer frames things, but so does the theatre. The applause is a kind of frame; so is the space where we see a performance. ‘This is where we perform, over there we don’t perform.’ The baby gurgling at the pillow feels safe only when it learns that the putting down of the pillow signals the end of the show. The baby needs a frame.
The world we see is also limited – by the arc of our vision. Rabbits can see more than we can in two dimensions, but less in three; nobody sees everything. We learn to see both less and more than what really happens in the world. But many forces shape what we see. For example, the identity has no intention of letting mere reality contradict its theories. When we see the world we create it; we never see what really is. Every time we open our eyes we have made a work of art. That is as near the truth as we get.
One of the reasons that babies make us feel so tender is that they pay us so much attention. A baby sees us so purely that we feel we exist that bit more. But as soon as the baby starts to wonder how it itself is seen, this omnivorous curiosity is blunted. Later in life the adult may have to retrace these steps. For the actor, nothing matters more than this reverse journey.
The backwards path
On this journey patience is vital. However, we can no more be patient by an effort of will than we can trust or be present by trying. Patience is a grace, and we are wise not to bar its visits. Of the great doors that we slam in its face, self-judgement is one of the mightiest. We can control our self-judgement, but we cannot control the free comings and goings of patience. When the answer can’t be found today, we may feel discouraged and failed. It is easier to punish ourselves than to be patient with ourselves.
However, the actor’s unending quest remains the retracing of this path from ‘How am I seen?’ to ‘What do I see?’
Guides
Companions on this path are the uncomfortable choices.
Concentration or attention
Independence or freedom
To show or to see
Certainty or faith
Creativity or curiosity
Originality or uniqueness
Excitement or life
However, our vitality, our capacity and urge to move and breathe, are guaranteed by the double rule of the stakes:
There is always something to be lost and something to be won.
The thing to be won must be precisely the same size as the thing to be lost.
And the rule of Time:
As the stakes increase, Time decreases.
The rules of the target hold good if we think about them when safe and hold on to them in danger. The target is there for us. We are not there for the target. The target has indestructible attributes that are stronger than our most violent doubts. Isolation is just another theory.
First: there is always a target.
Second: the target exists outside, and at a measurable distance.
Third: the target exists before you need it.
Fourth: the target is always specific.
Fifth: the target is always transforming.
Sixth: the target is always active.