I survived Russia. I beat the system. The Stanislavski system that is. And when I say beat it, I don't mean mastered it in anyway; I only mean that I broke through whatever barriers of difficulty it has around it, and touched on it, really achieving a good, honest performance.
There wasn't any culture shock, really. Moscow reminded me a lot of Poland, so in a way, it felt like going to my second home (my mother is Polish, and really, I could have been just walking around her hometown)! The metro stations were beautiful, there was colour everywhere--I'd say to cheer up the crowd during their harsh winters-- and once you got used to the fact that strangers generally don't smile, you can just easily get lost and enjoy that crisp, it's-going-to-snow-any-minute air. I loved it, really. On the weekends, I would pick a train station, get off and just walk around. Most of the time I didn't even know what I was seeing! First I had to decipher the cyrillic alphabet, and then I had to hope that the word I translated was something close enough to English or Polish that I could just guess. When it came to theatre related sites though, I geeked out and knew exactly what I was looking at. The statues of Stanislavski, Nemirovich and Chekhov right outside the Moscow Arts Theatre? Yea, I knew who they were. The Bolshoi Theatre? Could identify it from down the block. GITIS itself as a building... well ok, that one was new. But as soon as I walked through the doors that first day, I came to know it intimately.
I would walk up the marble stairs everyday under the watchful eyes of the portraits that hang: Stanislavski and Meyerhold among them. I would turn left, walk through two sets of tall, double doors, and into our classroom. Wooden floors, hung lights, and a small stage were all our own. After the first couple of introductory days, we abandoned our circle and knew to the set the straight back chairs behind the director's table, with a few out on the stage to create our set. And we would work. For three hours, people were yelled at ("NIET!" was a phrase that we all became familiar with very quickly) and broken down emotionally. It was awesome.
There were 19 of us in our group. I was set to get up and act somewhere in the middle of the line up, so for the first week and half, I sat on the sidelines taking furious notes. I still felt as though I learned a lot, just on those sidelines. Certain phrases became very popular, and I tried my best to inhabit them so that when it was my turn, I could just get up and do it. "You say one thing, do another and mean another." Each character works on so many levels, and you have to know what they are. Even if you're eating a meal and telling the person across from you that you love them, you might hate them. The meaning comes through the eyes, that's what I found. I was privy to the discussions of what these characters were thinking, but I'm convinced that if I were sitting in the audience, I could read a person with what they said in their eyes. And you can't fake that. It has to be real to the character and so to the actor as well. "You can't be a little bit pregnant." Haha, good LORD I couldn't stop laughing when I first heard this one. You either are pregnant or you aren't. You either hate the person or you don't. You either are an alcoholic or you're not! It's that simple. I'm not sure I agree with that--I do believe in grey areas, but I understand what they meant. If you're an alcoholic, you're going to have that drink, even if you don't want it. You either really live it, or you fake it. It's real or it's not. And my personal favourite saying: "It's all about love." Everything we do in life and so onstage is for love of someone or something in some way to different degrees. And as soon as you acknowledge that, the stakes will be high and you're going to deliver a helluva performance.
It all comes from the heart. Your heart. In the character. I still don't quite understand it and this was the biggest obstacle that I had to overcome. The character is you and vice versa. But how is that safe?? I've always been under the impression that to blur those lines is dangerous. What if you're playing a psychopath and you begin to put yourself into that character? And then the character goes home with you because whatever psychological gap that's supposed to be there is blurred? And it kind of happened to some of the people in my class. Platonov, the lead in the play we were working on, is a very dark character. All of the characters are, really. Full of suffering but determined to hide their suffering but sometimes not being able to and lashing out. I'll never get the image out of my head of one of the boys standing on a bench with a bottle of vodka in his hand, shouting "I don't want to feel real things anymore!!" It was funny... but in all seriousness, I understand where the problem lay. He was going to a very dark places, places that would lead a character to attempt rape, and he couldn't shake the feeling. That's not ok by me.
We had many discussions in class about this actually. Our director wasn't an advocate for bringing that stuff home with you. The psychological gap must be in place, and at the end of the day, you need to be able to just walk away. As soon as you step into the wings, you shake it off and you're you again. You can move on. And it's not a bad thing to discover these things in you as long as they don't become you. Recognize how uncomfortable you are, and so know that these feelings are not you. But it's necessary to bring these real feelings into a character to create a reality. What we do can't be imitation. That doesn't move anybody, and after all, theatre is about moving the audience; we make an impression on people, show them reality, and that stirs something in them. An audience knows when it's fake. They will call you out on it using some kind of sixth sense. So you dig out these emotions by recognizing that you've felt the way your character feels in whatever circumstances they are in. And if you can't relate, you just have no sense of the thing, then you use your imagination.
So ok, I don't put myself as the character, I just find something in myself to relate to them? Yes, I think so. And that becomes some sort of combination of sense memory and just living the moment. "Don't act, just live," was another phrase I heard often.
My scene was between Platonov and Sasha, his wife. She is waiting for him to come home. He does, and he's drunk. She's all over him, like a child, and seems to have the mind of a child; she's not very smart. And this stupidity of hers plus all of the events from his night cause Platonov to snap and yell or become physical... depending on the actor playing him. Because there were 19 of us, we had to repeat scenes. I was the third version of the scene. We were told to make it our own... but I didn't know what that meant! Just to be ourselves, and that would inevitably make it different? So I tried. I just played the scene, not thinking about it too much. Some of the other Sashas cried, but I didn't because I didn't feel like and thought it would be wrong to push. Right move; Vera, our director, said it was very good. But she had a problem with my beginning. The other Sashas did their monologue, waiting for their husband, under a blanket, lying down, reading a book. I did the same, delivering the lines however they came out. But Vera said it wasn't right for me. She could sense that there was some kind of crazy energy in me. So she told me to imagine that I was a kid, alone at home, waiting for my parents to come home. I had homework to do, and yes, I was going to do the homework, but I was going to relish having the house to myself. So I put myself there. And I just went a little crazy. I was walking on the furniture, pretending my blanket was a cape. On one jump I tried to make from chair to chair, I slipped and fell on my ass, bursting into laughter. I wasn't hurt at all, so all I could do was laugh!
Knowing what it was like to be that kid, and then re-becoming that kid, created an absolute free-spirit onstage. That's how I was different from the other Sashas, one being a dependent child and the other being a little more mature. And because I was so free at the beginning, an energy was created in me that made the turn of the scene--when Platonov loses patience--all the more intense. And then I did cry. Real tears. Matt, my scene partner, felt the same kind of change I think. His turn became very violent. He wiped the stupid grin off of my face by picking me up and throwing me on the floor. Literally. It was terrifying... good god that man is scary when pushed. And more tears came. And I couldn't look at him anymore. But somehow we did shake it off after. A hug, a quick kiss, and we were Sam and Matt again... even if my heart was still beating at a crazy pace.
We got great feedback from Vera. Even though we were the third version of the scene to perform, it still felt fresh and original. It felt different. And real. That's all I could ask. That means we did it! But, she said, she wished that for my opening monologue, where I'm waiting and fooling around, I would have used the text rather than my own words. We were speaking to one another through a translator, so I asked for a clarification. I need to find reality in the text at the end of the day, I can't be using my own words. But I didn't, I explained. I did use the text. I looked to my classmates in case I said something I didn't mean to, but they were all nodding in support of me. Chekhov only, no Sam Kamras. Vera just slowly nodded her head and said something like, "Very good. It was just so natural." SCORE.
So how did I beat the system? I found a reality in my senses, and used it to create a character rather than become a character. I get it! You can use sense memory like an access pass, but don't rely on it to live the scene. I can understand being humiliated by the man that you love, so I know how Sasha feels, but at the end of the day, it's Sasha. I have to listen to my partner and react to whatever intensity he gives me. I have to be present... but I, as Sam, know how Sasha feels.
I'm thinking of my past performances, and I think I've been doing this unconsciously. I've been present, I've never forced tears, and I do always try to simply make it about my partner by listening to them. Another phrase: "If you walk offstage and think you did a good job, you've done a bad job. If you walk onstage and think your partner did a good job, you've done a great job." I do do that! But now I want to do it consciously. I'm wondering what Tuesdays and Sundays, maybe the most intense journey I've taken as a character, would be like if I consciously applied this technique.
Unfortunately, now I'm doing a kid's show. Not that there isn't real acting involved, but our director is asking for a lot more demonstrating. Or, as Vera would say, I'm acting my parts and not living them. We're told to use the text to its fullest, saying mad in an angry way or glad with a smile; in Russia we were told the text was just incidental and that our feelings were the focus. So I guess putting this method into real practice will just have to wait... or maybe I still don't get it after all.
There wasn't any culture shock, really. Moscow reminded me a lot of Poland, so in a way, it felt like going to my second home (my mother is Polish, and really, I could have been just walking around her hometown)! The metro stations were beautiful, there was colour everywhere--I'd say to cheer up the crowd during their harsh winters-- and once you got used to the fact that strangers generally don't smile, you can just easily get lost and enjoy that crisp, it's-going-to-snow-any-minute air. I loved it, really. On the weekends, I would pick a train station, get off and just walk around. Most of the time I didn't even know what I was seeing! First I had to decipher the cyrillic alphabet, and then I had to hope that the word I translated was something close enough to English or Polish that I could just guess. When it came to theatre related sites though, I geeked out and knew exactly what I was looking at. The statues of Stanislavski, Nemirovich and Chekhov right outside the Moscow Arts Theatre? Yea, I knew who they were. The Bolshoi Theatre? Could identify it from down the block. GITIS itself as a building... well ok, that one was new. But as soon as I walked through the doors that first day, I came to know it intimately.
I would walk up the marble stairs everyday under the watchful eyes of the portraits that hang: Stanislavski and Meyerhold among them. I would turn left, walk through two sets of tall, double doors, and into our classroom. Wooden floors, hung lights, and a small stage were all our own. After the first couple of introductory days, we abandoned our circle and knew to the set the straight back chairs behind the director's table, with a few out on the stage to create our set. And we would work. For three hours, people were yelled at ("NIET!" was a phrase that we all became familiar with very quickly) and broken down emotionally. It was awesome.
There were 19 of us in our group. I was set to get up and act somewhere in the middle of the line up, so for the first week and half, I sat on the sidelines taking furious notes. I still felt as though I learned a lot, just on those sidelines. Certain phrases became very popular, and I tried my best to inhabit them so that when it was my turn, I could just get up and do it. "You say one thing, do another and mean another." Each character works on so many levels, and you have to know what they are. Even if you're eating a meal and telling the person across from you that you love them, you might hate them. The meaning comes through the eyes, that's what I found. I was privy to the discussions of what these characters were thinking, but I'm convinced that if I were sitting in the audience, I could read a person with what they said in their eyes. And you can't fake that. It has to be real to the character and so to the actor as well. "You can't be a little bit pregnant." Haha, good LORD I couldn't stop laughing when I first heard this one. You either are pregnant or you aren't. You either hate the person or you don't. You either are an alcoholic or you're not! It's that simple. I'm not sure I agree with that--I do believe in grey areas, but I understand what they meant. If you're an alcoholic, you're going to have that drink, even if you don't want it. You either really live it, or you fake it. It's real or it's not. And my personal favourite saying: "It's all about love." Everything we do in life and so onstage is for love of someone or something in some way to different degrees. And as soon as you acknowledge that, the stakes will be high and you're going to deliver a helluva performance.
It all comes from the heart. Your heart. In the character. I still don't quite understand it and this was the biggest obstacle that I had to overcome. The character is you and vice versa. But how is that safe?? I've always been under the impression that to blur those lines is dangerous. What if you're playing a psychopath and you begin to put yourself into that character? And then the character goes home with you because whatever psychological gap that's supposed to be there is blurred? And it kind of happened to some of the people in my class. Platonov, the lead in the play we were working on, is a very dark character. All of the characters are, really. Full of suffering but determined to hide their suffering but sometimes not being able to and lashing out. I'll never get the image out of my head of one of the boys standing on a bench with a bottle of vodka in his hand, shouting "I don't want to feel real things anymore!!" It was funny... but in all seriousness, I understand where the problem lay. He was going to a very dark places, places that would lead a character to attempt rape, and he couldn't shake the feeling. That's not ok by me.
We had many discussions in class about this actually. Our director wasn't an advocate for bringing that stuff home with you. The psychological gap must be in place, and at the end of the day, you need to be able to just walk away. As soon as you step into the wings, you shake it off and you're you again. You can move on. And it's not a bad thing to discover these things in you as long as they don't become you. Recognize how uncomfortable you are, and so know that these feelings are not you. But it's necessary to bring these real feelings into a character to create a reality. What we do can't be imitation. That doesn't move anybody, and after all, theatre is about moving the audience; we make an impression on people, show them reality, and that stirs something in them. An audience knows when it's fake. They will call you out on it using some kind of sixth sense. So you dig out these emotions by recognizing that you've felt the way your character feels in whatever circumstances they are in. And if you can't relate, you just have no sense of the thing, then you use your imagination.
So ok, I don't put myself as the character, I just find something in myself to relate to them? Yes, I think so. And that becomes some sort of combination of sense memory and just living the moment. "Don't act, just live," was another phrase I heard often.
My scene was between Platonov and Sasha, his wife. She is waiting for him to come home. He does, and he's drunk. She's all over him, like a child, and seems to have the mind of a child; she's not very smart. And this stupidity of hers plus all of the events from his night cause Platonov to snap and yell or become physical... depending on the actor playing him. Because there were 19 of us, we had to repeat scenes. I was the third version of the scene. We were told to make it our own... but I didn't know what that meant! Just to be ourselves, and that would inevitably make it different? So I tried. I just played the scene, not thinking about it too much. Some of the other Sashas cried, but I didn't because I didn't feel like and thought it would be wrong to push. Right move; Vera, our director, said it was very good. But she had a problem with my beginning. The other Sashas did their monologue, waiting for their husband, under a blanket, lying down, reading a book. I did the same, delivering the lines however they came out. But Vera said it wasn't right for me. She could sense that there was some kind of crazy energy in me. So she told me to imagine that I was a kid, alone at home, waiting for my parents to come home. I had homework to do, and yes, I was going to do the homework, but I was going to relish having the house to myself. So I put myself there. And I just went a little crazy. I was walking on the furniture, pretending my blanket was a cape. On one jump I tried to make from chair to chair, I slipped and fell on my ass, bursting into laughter. I wasn't hurt at all, so all I could do was laugh!
Knowing what it was like to be that kid, and then re-becoming that kid, created an absolute free-spirit onstage. That's how I was different from the other Sashas, one being a dependent child and the other being a little more mature. And because I was so free at the beginning, an energy was created in me that made the turn of the scene--when Platonov loses patience--all the more intense. And then I did cry. Real tears. Matt, my scene partner, felt the same kind of change I think. His turn became very violent. He wiped the stupid grin off of my face by picking me up and throwing me on the floor. Literally. It was terrifying... good god that man is scary when pushed. And more tears came. And I couldn't look at him anymore. But somehow we did shake it off after. A hug, a quick kiss, and we were Sam and Matt again... even if my heart was still beating at a crazy pace.
We got great feedback from Vera. Even though we were the third version of the scene to perform, it still felt fresh and original. It felt different. And real. That's all I could ask. That means we did it! But, she said, she wished that for my opening monologue, where I'm waiting and fooling around, I would have used the text rather than my own words. We were speaking to one another through a translator, so I asked for a clarification. I need to find reality in the text at the end of the day, I can't be using my own words. But I didn't, I explained. I did use the text. I looked to my classmates in case I said something I didn't mean to, but they were all nodding in support of me. Chekhov only, no Sam Kamras. Vera just slowly nodded her head and said something like, "Very good. It was just so natural." SCORE.
So how did I beat the system? I found a reality in my senses, and used it to create a character rather than become a character. I get it! You can use sense memory like an access pass, but don't rely on it to live the scene. I can understand being humiliated by the man that you love, so I know how Sasha feels, but at the end of the day, it's Sasha. I have to listen to my partner and react to whatever intensity he gives me. I have to be present... but I, as Sam, know how Sasha feels.
I'm thinking of my past performances, and I think I've been doing this unconsciously. I've been present, I've never forced tears, and I do always try to simply make it about my partner by listening to them. Another phrase: "If you walk offstage and think you did a good job, you've done a bad job. If you walk onstage and think your partner did a good job, you've done a great job." I do do that! But now I want to do it consciously. I'm wondering what Tuesdays and Sundays, maybe the most intense journey I've taken as a character, would be like if I consciously applied this technique.
Unfortunately, now I'm doing a kid's show. Not that there isn't real acting involved, but our director is asking for a lot more demonstrating. Or, as Vera would say, I'm acting my parts and not living them. We're told to use the text to its fullest, saying mad in an angry way or glad with a smile; in Russia we were told the text was just incidental and that our feelings were the focus. So I guess putting this method into real practice will just have to wait... or maybe I still don't get it after all.