Performers: Just have an objective - that's it

I have recently been reading "True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" by David Mamet.  This is a book that contradicts a lot of what I believe about acting and performance.  I didn't know it, but I think like a "method actor" in many ways - perhaps "the method" is so pervasive in my circles, I learned its assumptions without even being able to define it.  So in order to understand the Mamet book and why it seems so outrageous at first, you might need to understand The Method.  Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

Method acting is an acting technique in which actors try to replicate real life emotional conditions under which the character operates, in an effort to create a life-like, realistic performance. This can be contrasted with the technique of the actor putting him/herself into a strong "imaginary" circumstance which then induces an emotional reaction parallel to the amount of mental immersion the actor puts him/herself into.

And that's exactly what I have believed for many years!  In order to be convincing, one must experience the emotions.  I've learned that.  I've taught that!  And yet in practice I have achieved it only rarely, and not achieving it hasn't dimmed the audience response in any noticeable way.  I won't ruin the whole book for you because you absolutely should read it yourself, but here's a good summary quote:

The Stanislavsky "Method," and the technique of the schools derived from it, is nonsense.  It is not a technique out of the practice of which one develops a skill - it is a cult.  The organic demands made on the actor are much more compelling, and the potential accomplishments of the actor are much more important - the life and work, if I may say so, so much more heroic - than anything prescribed or foreseen by this or any other "method" of acting.

At some level I can buy that it's not necessary to feel the emotions in order to create them in the audience.  After all, they can not read minds.  Mamet suggests that the emotional responses are essentially created by the author of the play, and that the actor needs only "a clear voice, a supple body, and a rudimentary understanding of the play" in order to do their job to perfection.  He would also suggest that trying to create an emotional response in the audience is inappropriate for an actor, in that it is manipulative.  Just act the play, and the audience will feel what they feel.

And the "rudimentary understanding" is so that the actor can figure out what their objective is in each scene, with regard to the other actors on the stage, and say the lines with that objective in mind.  That's it - anything else is a waste of time.

How fascinating!

And how liberating!  No more worrying about whether you are or are not in the correct emotional state.  No more guilt about failing to be in it.  Without that, there is only the skill of delivering the lines, and performing physical actions on stage that are consistent with your well-chosen objective.

Realtime had an interesting discussion in Doug's Cessna yesterday about what simple objective might be associated with each "scene" in each of our songs.  And it really is a simpler way to think about it.  It's so simple, we might even remember to do it!  :)

That's one of the things I like about having an a cappella ensemble as my main artistic outlet - we get to be actors as well as musicians, and we get to sing for live audiences constantly, and grow from the feedback they give us.  Mamet would be proud.