Methodology

Tomorrow I have a job interview for an after school program for high school students. I've been attacking some strategies for presenting the art form to teens. I've been given fair warning- treat them as absolute beginners. Don't get too exciting or experimental. They won't follow you.

Perhaps not. But as I rifle around in my bag of tricks I find myself wondering how anyone can commit to a particular mode of artistic thought. For example, how does one do JUST Meisner? Or Michael Chekhov's psychological gesture? Or Adler? Strassberg? Or follow ANY of the myriad of great teachers our craft has known while ignoring all the others? To me, this seems preposterous. Maybe it is the Sagittarius in me. Look! Shiny new thought! Pretty! Oh look, horsey!

I am fairly random and I have circular logic. Eventually I do come back to where I started, but I always come back a little different from the way I started out.

I've taken a taste of a lot of different "methods" and I couldn't decide amongst them if you put a gun to my head. When it comes to explorations and exercises I never throw anything away. I've learned that if I don't understand a certain principle, exercise or what have you it doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. It simply means I don't fully understand the applications yet. I have patience with myself. I usually figure it out and I usually figure it out right when I need it.

And yet young actors can be so attached to their gurus that all else is absolute crap. What a mistake. As actors, I believe we should be receptive. After all, damn near anything can be justified. That's our job. I remember a seminar in which Harvey Keitel got up in a student's face and said, "Who told you you can't use your imagination? Huh? Who told you that?" It was Harvey Keitel, so that was a bit intimidating. And funny. Really, really funny. Of course we should use our imaginations. We should work outside in and inside out. We should adopt methods that allow us to be our most flexible and fill our bag of tricks with as many tools as we can find. Improvisation is as important as sense memory. Sense memory is as important as text analysis. The leg bone's connected to the knee bone.

Of course, I've spilled out all of these ideas and rearranged them and tinkered here and there to provide an outline of some ideas that I know will get blown apart the second I meet these kids and find out where they are REALLY coming from. My personal tragedy in the matter is just how excited I am about all the neat things I could do and teh little time I actually have. Oh! A little neutral mask here! A little Spolin there with a dash of sense memory and a pinch of personalization! This stew I am making may very well be completely inedible.

Or it could be a banquet.

Only time will tell.