I have been studying acting for about 14 years now -- full fledged devotion to the craft. I have improv training, mask training, commedia del’art training -- I have studied Stanislavski and Bolislavski’s methods. I have trained in Stasberg, Suzuki, Bogart, Linklader, Atlantic, Meisner, Adler, and many other approaches. I’ve done everything from Shakespeare and Moliere to Mamet and Bogosian. I’ve slept outside in the snow in order to get into the mind of a homeless character I was playing and I’ve appeared fully nude onstage. I can cry on cue and I’ve kept the show going despite nosebleeds (mine) and seizures (not mine). I’ve learned from some of the best acting teachers in the business from New York to LA to some of the best and worst regional theatres in the United States. I’ve been micro-directed, and I’ve ad-libbed iambic pentameter.
In 14 years of training, there’s only one thing I’ve learned about acting -- it requires absolutely no training.
An incredibly famous little green muppet once said, “you must unlearn what you have learned.”
Apparently, Yoda was with the Royal Shakespeare Company before he became a jedi master. Any acting teacher worth his salt will tell you that acting isn’t about learning anything -- it’s simply a matter of getting past yourself. To act, you must forget everything you’ve ever learned because, well...because you’ve learned a lot of crap over the course of your life.
Really, when you break it down...acting is just lying. It is the art of lying -- and we can ALL do that. I’m not sure if we’re born with the knowledge of how to lie convincingly or if it’s something we develop. Either way, most 5 year olds are experts. Learning to act is just a matter of getting all the junk out of the way -- untraining our minds to believe all the garbage we’ve learned over the years about acting.
“And what is all that junk?” you ask -- doubting my sincerity.
“Well,” I explain, “that’s kinda difficult to answer.”
“Mmmm hmmm,” you say. (Clearly I’m just trying to make a point...acting isn’t REALLY about unlearning)
But it is. Put someone on a stage and ask them to say a few lines. Ninety nine times out of a hundred nothing about their performance will seem realistic. Now, you might go up and make suggestions to them: “don’t stand so rigid” “say it like this” “speak up.” But you would only be exacerbating the problem. It’s a matter of your viewpoint -- if an acting performance is something to be perfected, a mechanical process where there is a perfect, ideal example that should be duplicated, then yes...additional information for the actor to take into account is helpful. But that’s not what acting is. Acting is an organic, artistic expression. The best thing you can do for the actor is figure out WHY he’s being rigid, why he’s saying it wrong, why he’s being quiet...and remove those inhibitions.
At one point in my acting training, I had to learn how to sing. One of the first things I discovered was that my breathing was wrong. Apparently, babies breathe correctly, but over the years, most people develop unhealthy breathing patterns which are not conducive to singing. It’s the result of posture, body image, yelling, and I’m sure many many other things. So the first thing one has to do to begin singing well is unlearn how to breathe.
In fact, most of the artforms are more about unlearning everything that gets in our way than it is about mastering every last little detail.
I’ve been trying to view faith as an artform lately. Not necessarily because I’m convinced that it is one, but because I wonder if I might learn something about faith by viewing it as an artform -- something to be practiced, to attempt to do with excellence, to find new and unconventional ways of expressing.
Is faith something we should be unlearning?
I’d wrestled with this idea for a few days, before...well, to be honest...totally forgetting about it. And then today I had a conversation with a man of prayer. I was complaining about the church, and all it’s many problems -- something I often do. And this man of prayer gets all riled up along with me and says something that catches my attention. He says that so much of our faith is a legacy passed down to us from the experiences of others. It becomes limiting because somebody sets down the “rules” by which God choses to manifest His love. God heals, but not amputees. So we adopt a faith that says God does this but not this. I could give you a hundred examples of this...but I think it would only end up being limiting in and of itself. Just understand, please, that your understanding of God is so frustratingly limited that you’re not even capable of faith the size of a mustard seed.
This man of prayer went on to say that maybe we should be unlearning everything we’ve learned in church.
The guy had my attention. This is the kind of anti-establishment, mystical, artistic mumbo-jumbo that gets me goose-stepping.
The more and more pastors teach us about the “rules” that God plays by the more they are limiting Him. This isn’t to say we should all shave our heads, put on potato sacks and move to the desert trying to clear our minds and think of nothing (stay puft marshmallow man). The best acting teachers will teach you how to remove the obstacles. Hopefully, the best pastors will teach you how to remove the obstacles too.
The trick may be finding a pastor that believes you should be unlearning instead of just piling on more and more “to do” and “don’t do” lists. You may want to check the Dagoba system.
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