The Third Point of Reference!

As a performer have you ever felt that you were not getting across the footlights? That you failed to communicate in some way? Or that the production you in which seemed a good idea to begin with, now feels flat and uninspiring? Now it would be only human to deny this has ever happened. To put on a brave face. The show must go on darling! Put in another context anyone who has ever tried stand-up comedy will know just how hard it is to make people laugh. Virtually impossible. These ‘professional’ comedians really do earn their money. So. Is the situation hopeless? Are we doomed to strut and fret our hour upon the stage and all to no avail? Well. My experience does confute this. I’ve learnt, through various means, that we can, how shall I say? Communicate better. Get more personal fulfilment from performance if. big IF, we know where to begin, or how to shift the focus on this issue. And this is crucial. So often we fight the wrong battles in life and get no result as a result! Think! If you have chosen wrong battle to fight, it does not matter how much effort you put in fighting it! It still won’t yield a result you can use. So where to begin is crucial. Another thing to realise before we chose or begin, is that most problems stem from accepting the conventional thinking on a given subject. We don’t think outside the box. We don’t recognise that if we are failing, and we following what we were taught at respectable institutes of learning, then we must have been taught wrong. Or maybe no entirely wrong, but still there was some lack, or a wrong emphasis, or something. We must acknowledge we have missed something.
Having said all that I’ll explain conclusions I have come to. In performance generally speaking, despite all the theory that now exists, still, no value is put on subjective states. The performer’s own inner experience is not valued. What we have is this.
Self Projection
Self Awareness
The outer, the technique, the projected part is valued over the inner; the performer’s awareness or subjective experience. So then the new starting point, the way to shift the focus on this issue is to start with self awareness.
SELF AWARENESS
If the performer has self awareness, and by this I mean in the ’depth psychology’ sense of himself, and not just as an actor in a play, this creates two distinct poles in performance. The doer, and the awareness of doing. When the audience supplies the third point of reference, this creates a dynamic which is essentially triangular. (See my diagram!) What do we get without self awareness in performer? Answer is a straight line, as it goes straight from performer to audience. No triangle! What this means scientifically is that with two poles you have stasis. The best example is earth and moon. A predictable relationship. If a third body could be added all three bodies would start to behave erratically. Chaos would be introduced! This real science! What it means though is that with the third point of reference you get a dynamic, which does possess change. It does get across the footlights. Now how does that fit with theatre as we know it? Now think. This situation already exists. The self awareness element in theatre is the writer. Think! Shakespeare! Pinter! Wilde! Moliere! Schiller! These are very self aware individuals. So the scripts they produce provide this dynamic. The third point of reference. Hoopla! The performer, without self awareness, really is just the will-less puppet of the writer. He cannot take from a performance anything for himself. It can only ever serve the writer’s purpose. Looking at the current theatre world I think actor’s beginning to realise this. Right now, the writer is out of vogue. I should know. I am one. Now the trend is for self devised stuff. Installation type stuff. Solo stuff. Writers if they are used, must cater to current trends by being relevant, or writing about specific issues.
This means of course, if your play is about the plight of the Scandinavian sausage-makers, it will have no sub text. It will be doing the literal job of informing people about something, so there won’t be room. Put another way writer’s cannot just create from their own imagination as Pinter of Beckett would have done. People would say, but it’s not relevant! Think of the Scandinavian sausage makers!
　
　
As regards the actors, what this means for them, is that they have realised, semi-consciously, what a poor deal they have been getting. But. BUT! just to dispense with the writer, is still not a solution! unless some new way to introduce self awareness into the equation is found!
Well. It bad for me to pick on actor’s. People in general do not possess self awareness. Not just actors. But still, the fact that there has been a change of sorts is progress. Now all that’s needed is for courageous people to go a bit further in dropping the outmoded agendas which still do largely run the performance universe. How?
Do not begin with how the audience will perceive a production or performance, begin with how you as a performer experience being in something. This may sound crazy and alienate audiences to certain extent but still. That is the way forward. With this shift of focus now it doesn’t matter if the work scripted, unscripted, devised, whatever, as now self awareness is definitely part of the equation.