Wisdom: The Greatest Gift One Generation Can Give to Another (a) film(s) by Andrew Zuckerman
This is beautiful, disturbing, strange and familiar. I posted this on FB, but I wanted to share it here to because it is a very clear example of “doing truthfully in imaginary circumstances”. She is so precise and committed to the action (the doing) that you don’t see the dancer dancing the dance, you see the character living the dance. Look at the precise and clear beats – there is no general overall wash of emotion – no “performer” in the performance. The fact that she is a superb dancer is a given. I am agog at her commitment to and precision with the action from moment to moment and movement to movement. You see only the life. My acting students will understand this question: Do you see the OVARIOS!?!
My latest project is in the brainstorming phase so I thought I would toss it out here for your reaction. I would love to hear from you. I’ve decided I don’t want to do another traditional play for awhile. It’s time to explore something new. Enter – The Empty Chair Project. My hope is that this project will include many different kinds of performing and visual artists and give them the chance to explore working with a theme and making it their own
It is about time I posted again. All the reasons I haven’t – that’s about time too. I’m 45 years old and I am still confronting the lesson that I can’t do everything I want to do and I can’t be all things to all people all any of the time. That’s the negative side of the lesson. The positive side of the lesson is that I can be true to myself, revise my boundaries, and constantly re-invent the wheel of my own life. I have that power. And you do too. We all do
Creative audacity is a lifelong journey that begins with our relationship to ourselves. We have to give ourselves permission to create before we can begin. The permission granted can only come from within and the internal gatekeeper is the inner critic. How much easier would creating and performing be if our inner critic became our ally – or just kept her mouth shut for awhile? My inner critic doesn’t have a name yet like some you will meet in the following stories, but whatever her name is – she uses some heavy ammo and she has spot on aim. Some of her best shots focus on my body: You’re fat. You’re too old. You have bad hair
This is one of my favorite film monologues: “ometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything; that power and money…money and power mean nothing. That good always triumphs over evil. And I want you to remember this..that love…true love never dies. Remember that boy…remember that. Doesn’t matter if it is true or not, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in…got that?” Spoken by the character Hub McCann to his nephew, Walter, in the film Secondhand Lions written by Tim McCanlies
This is the basic numero uno prime and ultimate concept to master. Acting is doing. What does that mean? In the most obvious sense it means when your character is onstage searching for his blue sock, you the actor will be onstage searching for your blue sock. You aren’t pretending to search. You are searching. You aren’t demonstrating to the audience that your character is searching and you aren’t emoting about how much you love the blue sock. You are truthfully searching for the blue sock. Now, of course, you as the actor will know that the blue sock has been put under the center sofa cushion by the props master. (You know this because you always check your props before you go onstage, right?) So the question becomes how do I truthfully and purposefully search for the blue sock when I know that my character finds the blue sock under the sofa cushion in Act III because the last line of the play is, “How the hell did that get there?”
Something to ponder: how would you characterize your “drive” or your “purpose”? “My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.” ~Bette Davis I love the words in this quote: Passions: Desires, longings, mission, loves. Drive: Momentum, action, movement, pulse, breath. Purpose: Reason, Being, Living. Purpose without anything to prove. That sounds good. It feels like freedom. It’s more active than peaceful
Acting Concept: Acting is Doing This is the basic numero uno prime and ultimate concept to master. Acting is doing. What does that mean? In the most obvious sense it means when your character is onstage searching for his blue sock, you the actor will be onstage searching for your blue sock. You aren’t pretending to search. You are searching. You aren’t demonstrating to the audience that your character is searching and you aren’t emoting about how much you love the blue sock. You are truthfully searching for the blue sock
I am still Wonderfully Distracted by Happiness so this post will not be nearly as polished as I want it to be. You know I love art and I love artists because they are brave and soulful and they fill my life with beauty – even when the art isn’t “pretty” they still fill my life with beauty. Since I began blogging and twittering I have connected with some truly talented people and I want to share some of my favorite virtual galleries with you. Just click and browse and breathe in the inspiration. All of the sites will open in another window so you can easily come back here to continue your gallery crawl
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