HUNCHBACK IN THE PARK

IMPRO & SELF-DEVELOPMENT

Impro and Self Development

To begin with we must again look at our compartmentalised thinking. People do not feel that impro’ and ‘self-development’ have anything in common. We are not educated to know that there is really only one life, manifesting in a myriad of different forms or areas, so we discriminate against, rather than between.

This means we discriminate in favour of what we identify with, be it theatre, therapy, banking, or, whatever, and discriminate against what we don’t. The huge irony though is, that to become more successful or effective at some particular area, we must develop. Develop our abilities. Like it or not self-development is key to all our ambition.

Viewed another way, in terms of the normal prejudice, people will say, but isn’t self-development just for people who can’t function in the world? Unstable types? People with issues? In short, someone else and not me. Well think. If this is true, it means we are born with no hidden or latent potential that we need, in this particular lifetime, to materialise. To bring out. To ‘develop’. We are just realised, as we are. Everything contradicts this though. Think of how if people lose a faculty, through illness or the like, how they will then develop in another area to compensate. They will develop an ability they never had before.



It might help as well to ask yourself, when did I feel most in touch with the world? Answer is; probably as a child, for as a child, we in process of constant development. That is what it is, to be a child.

Having said all this, and hopefully having decided in favour of development, we must ask ourselves what it is we are developing???? What is it within us that needs to be more comprehensive or effective? That we need greater control over. More awareness of?

Well, this has to be our perception of what is taking place in our lives, for if we do have a false perception of something, some area we need to work in, which persuades us say that we don’t need to work in it, or not as much as we should, then, definitely then, we are not helping ourselves! We are fighting a battle that is of no use to us, and that is not yielding any reward of true knowledge.

(Notice I say ‘true’. There’s a big difference between gathering information and true knowledge.)

In fact, it is simply keeping us stuck in our view of the world, and it must be remembered, at a very fundamental level, happiness a product of our ability to flow with things. To be ‘un-stuck’. Fluid. An analogy could be that of train and car. The train running on a fixed track is perhaps less work to drive, whereas the car is more work to drive, but the car does have the ability to avoid objects in its path, a thing the train doesn’t.

But of course, because our view of the world being fixed, most people will say their perception is right. Correct. They will say it feels right, and they are comfortable with it. If you point out that they are being inflexible, they will disagree and say flexibility is not an issue, if you are right. (The self-sustaining argument.)

In other words, this not something where words can really bridge the gap of understanding. It like story of the man who parachutes into an enclosed valley, where a tribe has lived totally cut off from rest of world, for a long long long time, and man says, “Hey, outside this valley is a world of giant skyscrapers! jet air travel! virtual reality, made by machines that go inside your briefcase! Ocean Liners! Disney Land! engines that spontaneously combust!!!!!!!!!!” And they would say, (Disgusted expression,) “Yeah. Right. And the clouds are made of candy floss.” And they lock him up, and throw away the key. “He’s just some harmless nutter. Ignore him.”

And this is because we are dealing with perception. And perception is one of those quantum things. What we are convinced of something one minute, but we can become unconvinced of it the next. And this is uncomfortable, when it happens, for it does not yield to analysis. It is just annoying. Unpleasant. Confusing. The world is not what we were convinced it was. HEERRRRRUMPH!!!!!!!! It not surprising this makes us more dogmatic and not less. More convinced of the rightness of our judgements.

So in what context does impro tackle this? Well, in impro, we willingly embrace the quantum option. Instead of saying I know, we say I don’t know. Let’s try it now.

ALL: I don’t know.

(Louder.)

ALL: I DON’T KNOW!!!

(Louder.)

ALL: I DON’T KNOW!!!

We suspend our belief in the fixed nature of things. We allow an area of doubt. We say, I don’t know, but I will get a better idea of what I don’t know, by flowing with what I feel, and not with what I think or ‘believe’ in. In this way I am practising a ‘not-doing’, by working with the negative, which in this case is my uncertainty. My lack of knowledge. In this way I am also working with our terrible habit of reaching closure on everything.

EXAMPLE. (We decide we need to be more spiritual. We shop around for a brand. Say Buddhism. We learn that system. Then we are finished, and we go around telling everyone we are now a Buddhist, with a smug expression on our faces.)

What has happened here is, that we made a good choice, but quickly reached closure, thus nullifying that good choice. And in doing this we are simply reproducing something we have been taught. Namely that closure is necessary and right. We must ask ourselves, is the goal of life, simply to reproduce this moment, keeping it exactly the same, endlessly, for ever, if, big if, this moment has given us what we want???? Would it be enough to be happy, if that is still just exactly how we were before, an exact copy and a reproduction of the previous moment? Would it? Now in conventional wisdom, or the thoughtlessness that passes for that, the answer would be YES! Party on dude! Bring on the dancing girls! Which is all fine and dandy except, that there is no development.

NO DEVELOPMENT

No forward movement. Nothing has changed if this moment is the exact copy of the last one. It needs to be different, even if it means a moment of happiness is followed by, heaven forbid, a moment of unhappiness. GULP! And this is essentially what happens in impro. Scenes continually don’t go where they should. There is a lack of reproduction simply in the amount of failure! And this is a beautiful thing for it is about newness!! Think of yourself in a new set of clothes. Brand spanking new just off the peg. Now, does that thought feel good? Answer is yes. Newness feels good. Inherently good. Looked at another way we can ask ourselves what boredom truly is? Is it some one particular thing, or is it simply the same thing, over and over again?

BOREDOM

We could also view life as a kind of addiction. An addiction to reproduction or to finding the ‘right’ way to do something and then endlessly repeating it, because that is the way that works. (“Trust me. I’m an expert.”) Put in more prosaic (Prozac?) terms, self-development is a greater awareness of the areas in which we lack awareness. It is the unknown self. And do we encounter that self in impro? Well, we do if we are prepared to honour our own feelings, value them without prejudice as guides to what is hidden. But not if we insist on keeping it mental and within our prejudices. Then of course impro is not about self-development at all, it is simply about you, and your view of the world, in relation to your talents.

So in final analysis, the question I set at beginning was really anundecided-able question. It belongs with Russell’s famous barber, for impro is simply an empty vessel, and we can fill it with what we like. There is no one static right answer.

DON’T REPRO THAT MO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IMPRO ARCHETYPES

Judee Sill, the genius 60’s folk singer/songwriter, called an archetype, ‘that universal mould from which we are all poured.' In other words, something pre-programmed, at a deep level, in all of us. And these archetypes often surface in impro. I’ll look at three of them.

ARCHETYPE NUMBER 1 The Futility Scene.

The first is a scene you see again and again. People are engaged in some kind of activity, but no one knows why they are doing it. The number of people may grow, doing the activity, but no matter how many people doing it, no one knows why they are doing it. People make huge efforts to make scene go somewhere, or find out what activity is for, but it just carries on.

So what is happening? To answer this we must ask ourselves the question, what does development in our lives spring from? And the answer here, is acknowledging the reality of things. Not until we say that, for example, the reality is, I am no good at say, being sensitive to what others are feeling, can I possibly develop in that area. How could we work with some issue, if we don’t first acknowledge it? We can’t.

Translated to impro this then, is about acknowledging the reality of the scene you have created! Often the space is named, a dentist’s office, but this reality not acknowledged, accepted, or agreed upon. What happens then is that scene floats off into nowhere. It is set in a Dentist’s Office, and yet people play a scene about Egyptians building a pyramid! And no one really knows where they are with that scene, for it is not grounded in a truth. So. When people invent something, and then fail to acknowledge what they have invented, that’s when the futility scene can begin. So. How can we work with this?

The answer is to acknowledge the reality of what you create! If it decided that scene happens in a Hairdressing Salon, then someone must have a hair do!!!!! If it a shop, someone must buy something!!!!!!!!!! If at a funeral, someone must get buried!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But don’t misinterpret my ‘must’. It is really, ‘must until you have enough experience to stay with the reality of a scene, even when you don’t directly stay with it. You can develop the way you work with the truth of a scene, but that comes with time and experience!! Wanting to run before you can walk, is a common thing, but we need to have FOREBEARANCE. Take it slowly, and be patient in our learning. Suspend our judgement, and just follow the guidelines given to you. If you by-pass these early stages, because you find them too boring, you will not get the grounding that you need to build on, to become good solid improviser.

ARCHETYPE NUMBER 2 Appearance of the Monster!

Often when scenes are not really developing in a useful way, a monster of some kind will appear. It will then be necessary to fight it, and the scene will end. In relation to this, it would be a good idea not just to fight the monster and get rid of it, but to try and find out what it is. What it wants. Where it came from. But still, it’s a monster and it probably just wants to eat you, and not sit chatting. So what is this archetype?

Well. This is really just the monster of our stupidity or lack of awareness. What happens is that on some other level, people realise they are being stupid, or lacking in some fundamental awareness, that would help scene to be more effective, and the monster appears to corroborate this. It’s just saying STOP! THINK! So what is this lack of awareness? Well it is just obvious stuff like lack of intelligent co-operation. Lack of trust. Inability to shift the focus. Failure to acknowledge reality, as we said earlier. Basic stuff that requires we do have awareness about what impro is. That we don’t take it at face value, but do make a serious effort to see that it has deeper levels.

ACHETYPE NUMBER 3 failure to make someTHING HAPPEN!!!!

Why is it so hard to make things happen? To do things. Go places. Fight the dragon? Example. A man wakes up. Goes out of his house. There is a big dragon in the road. He notices he is holding a lance. He goes back in his house and makes a cup of tea. Does a bit of dusting. Reads the paper. Goes out again. Notices dragon still there, and lance still in his hand. Goes back in house. Sorts his stamp collection. Eats a sand-which. Watches T.V. Goes out again. DRAGON STILL THERE!!! Lance still in his hand. He goes back in the ….etcetera. Now this is really not going anywhere. Nothing is happening. Our story exists somewhere down the road, but to get there, we must fight the dragon. But somehow that is just not, going to happen. What it all means is, we must engage with things. We must. People act as if there is a choice, but in impro terms there isn’t. You must fight that f***ing dragon!!! Now what this does is mirror a truth that belongs rightly to the self-development world. And that is that for a client to make progress with their issue or neurosis, they must submit to change. CHANGE! They must let go of a rigid position. They must surrender to something greater than themselves. Read Irvin D Yalom, if you don’t believe me. Here change is symbolised by the dragon. Why? Because to fight it would involve pain. Think. Pain. And pain is what is being avoided. The pain of learning. Now there is no intrinsic value in pain as such, and yet still if pain avoidance is dictating all your choices, it will completely inhibit the learning of life’s deeper truths. But pain avoidance is so deeply internalised in all of us, that even in an impro scene, which is not part of actual life, it will still be the most influential thing”!!!

But put more broadly, we fall into the trap of thinking we can have things on our own terms. We want impro to be just good fun. A way to perform and express ourselves. A way to impress people. We do not want it to be anything else, or relate to anything else. Unfortunately life’s deeper levels exist whether we acknowledge them or not. So if you intent is set, on avoiding change, it will be mirrored in the scene you create, and no amount of clever technique will eradicate that. And because things work on more than one level, it would also be possible to internalise the rule, ‘I must always engage with change,’ which means you will fight the dragon and travel down that road, and create stories which do appear to go somewhere, and yet these stories will still only stay on the surface. They will have the appearance of stories, but lack that deeper magical element, which makes a story uplifting, worthwhile and truly satisfying. Which is of course what impro is at the moment. It is like a ready meal you buy in a supermarket. It looks good on the shelf. It looks good on your plate. But when you eat it, it is not quite as satisfying as you thought it would be.

So again we can see, it is a mistake to take impro at face value. Or to think impro is just about impro. This is the typical compartmentalised, polarised way of looking at things, and if you want to make progress, to develop your abilities as an improviser, you would do well to see beyond that way of seeing!!! But if you say, but change is too much! I’m not that type! You should consider the sometimes deceptive nature of words. For here we are too fixated on the word ‘change’ itself. Shift the focus and we can redefine change as a state of fluidity. The ability to flow with. Not a definite stopping being one thing and then becoming the absolute opposite of it. No. Change can be just a small and very gentle shift. We do not need to take such an extreme or extremist view, and then reject change out of hand. Instead we can put it in perspective. It’s also true that change at another level is an illusion, for although we can change our behaviour, we cannot change our essence. This, for good or ill, will always remain the same. The wise course here is to embrace change, the unknown, safe in the knowledge it may broaden your view of the world, whilst leaving you at the same time, the same, at a deeper level! Of course this is a truth that in the interests of marketing impro, to would be workshop goers, is ignored. Passed over, or perhaps simply not understood at all. Teachers will not, NOT, point out these deeper levels which imply deeper responsibilities, because they do not want to alienate would be students and improvisers. However, as Mouldy and Scullery know, the truth is out there, and we are all on a journey to meet that truth, or destiny, and we can put that off till tomorrow, or we can work to understand it today. A much more satisfying option.

ARCHETYPE NUMBER 4 the 'poo' archetype

If exercises are connecting on a deeper level, then the poo archetype will appear. Mountains of the stuff. In this connection I think of De Sade, who does a much more literary and negative version of this in his book, ‘120 Days of Sodom’. Here people do with innocent poo, every conceivable thing imaginable and some things quite unimaginable. What this indicates is the deep power and truth of this archetype. As Mouldy and Scully would say, ‘The poo is out there!’ But why? What is the symbolic significance of poo? Well, in symbolic terms it represents a combination of something prohibited from view and waste. Pooing is a private or secret thing and it is done to expel waste matter. Now we know waste matter can be recycled. Put to good use. So over all, we are looking at something which is pushed away from us, hidden from our awareness and that could be put to better use. Now in the impro context the thing we work with is emotions and feelings. So if the poo archetype does appear it is saying symbolically that we need to look at how we use emotions and feelings. How aware of the way we use them are we? Do we ever waste them? Do, for example, we see our anger as just waste, and something to be got rid of, or could it be seen more positively, and then re-cycled? Could feelings and emotions indeed be used like a compost in order to make new things grow?

Now this way of looking at things, you might complain, is too abstract. Too esoteric. In response to this all I can say is that we are very conditioned to only valuing the ‘real’. The ‘concrete’. The ‘material world’. A truth that is borne out in impro when we see players not respecting their imaginative creations. Not investing those creations with value. So it is not that this way of looking too esoteric, it is just that this imbalance exists and the appearance of this archetype is really seeking to redress that. It is jus saying, ‘Look! There is something you ignore, which you could be more conscious of, and I will keep drowning you in poo, until you realise that!!!!!!!!!!



ARCHETYPE NUMBER 5 the 'psycho' archetype


Well, we’ve all enjoyed Norman and his Motel. In impro he will often turn up particularly in games where we use stream of consciousness techniques like the one word story. And when the psycho appears he is allied to our previous archetype. It is of course simply a thing or entity which is completely devoid of feeling or emotion. It exists simply to sabotage or do harm. It is the cipher of our robotic desensitised selves and again when it appears we have to look at this area and ask ourselves just how versatile we are in regard to that? Do we empathise?  Do we simply identify with a feeling state, or are we conscious of the way we use that feeling state creatively? Remember. You put that archetype in front of yourself. It was something the group channelled for its own benefit, so it is pointless to complain and deny its existence.

It would also be useful to acknowledge that ‘The Psycho’ became perhaps the favourite character or plot mechanism in last 100 years. proof positive of the need for us lal to wake up to the significance of his existence!!!

THE NATURALISATION

I feel I have done something wrong, which sets me apart from others. I walk through the dream corridors of some vast corporation, looking for an office in which someone will validate my papers. Make me a naturalised citizen. I read the doors carefully. ‘Internal Affairs’. ‘Human Resources’. ‘Nazi Experiments’. I pause at this door and listen carefully. I can hear laughter and the chinking of glasses. I go on. ‘Conflict Avoidance’. ‘Personal Hygiene’. ‘Papers Validation.’ Ah ha! I knock. “Enter.” Inside the room an Admiral sits in an extremely high chair looking down. His Admiral’s Hat seems to reflect the light in some strange way. “The gift of life is a precious gift,” he says. “Do you wash behind the foreskin?” I feel his question is unfair and invasive. “Certainly I wash behind the foreskin! Don’t you?” he eyes me with suspicion. I go and grab the legs of his high chair and shake them violently. “In fact,” I shout, “ I am an absolute stickler for washing behind the foreskin!!!” He has clutched the sides of his chair, his hat almost vibrating with alarm. I stop and turn away in disgust. I look around. The floor is a crudely drawn map of Europe. The walls are covered in strange arcane diagrams. The ceiling is Perspex. I can see Simpson-esque blue sky and white clouds above me! The General’s high chair is painted red. “Papers,” he says. He would appear to have recovered. I take them out and hand them up. He reaches down. Our eyes meet. He takes hold of them. I hold defiantly on too. A tug of war. I suddenly let go. He sways backwards almost falling out of his chair! I smirk. He examines my papers. Iridescent rainbows glinting off his hat, which is very elaborate with 6 distinct tiers! “It says here that you are a slave of passion. Is that the case?” “That’s a damn lie!” I say. “A detestable and defaming calumny of the first water! I am not, nor never have been, a slave of passion, in any way, shape or form!!!” I have gone rather red in the face. I feel a kind of breathless tightening of my chest. “How dare they suggest I am a slave of passion?!” As I hear this coming out of my mouth, I see an image in my mind of a rose, wrapped in barbed wire, held by a monk, who’s bright red habit, appears to be in flames! “PASSION! Don’t make me laugh!” …..

But then I am suddenly overcome by a deep well of repentance. I fall to my knees. “Yes! Yes! Of course I am! When I was a child I tried to keep guinea pigs, but they always died. I can smell the cage again. See the straw that I forgot to change. Their tiny blue snouts.” And then that horrible awful shape, rises up inside me. That great un-screamed scream made of lice, cast iron, Eaton Boating Songs and the frost on the meadow, and of course, nothing at all. “We’re not interested in your record with guinea pigs!” He intones disdainfully. “Only with your ability to fit in. Be one of the boys. Fill in crosswords and generally do your bit. Do you think you can do that?” “Yes!,” I say. “Yes! I can play on your side. I can bat left field. I can bowl a googly. Hit a home run. Do the secret hand shake. Stay within my profit margin. And generally be a good team player. I can! I can!” As I am saying this a voice inside my head is saying, “No. You’ll never play on their side. Bat left field. Bowl a googly. Or any of that crap. No! NO! NO!” But the Archbishop appears mollified. “You can? You’ll agree to insider trading. The death of Hope. And wax onions?” “Yes! Yes! Wax trading. Hopeless onions, anything!” “Very well then.” He reaches inside his voluminous pocket, for his stamp of approval. He takes it out. It is an unwieldy cumbersome object, imbued with the ‘….’ Of ages, and the ‘….’ Of eons. “Ink!” I see an ink bowl in the corner of the room. I get it. Left it up. He dips. “Stamp pole!” I see a stamp pole lying against the opposite wall. It has a flat surface attached to one end. I lift it up. He puts the papers against it. With great difficulty he stamps. I put down the pole. He carefully hands the stamped papers down. I take them. It is like Joseph of Arimathea being given the Holy Graal! Somewhat stunned, I turn to leave. “Wait!! Before you go,” says the Colonel, “Remember this.” “Yes?”

He struggles to remember. Fails. “Oh nothing.” I leave. In the dream corridor, once more, of the vast corporation, I float along on clouds of gossamer clutching, my papers!!! Stamped and approved by the Admiral/General/Archbishop/Colonel, himself! Me. A fully naturalised citizen. I hear voices in a room. I put my ear against the door and listen. Inside I can her someone say. “Excuse me, is this the right room for an argument?”

the 'yes' rule in impro

The rule in impro is to always say yes. For the beginner particularly, this is an inflexible rule, for when we say no, we are not accepting what is offered us, and therefore the time is simply wasted finding a new direction to go in. So this rule greatly facilitates scene and narrative development. Now. Thinking people will often object by saying quite rightly, but life is not always positive, affirmative, accepting. So how can I be real if I say yes? And this certainly appears to be a good point. In real life, people do say no. They do reject and block. Surely we must mirror that truth? Also the objection occurs that there is no freedom in it. It is to totalitarian. You MUST say yes. No choice. And I agree. This is true. The rule is inflexible. So why is it necessary?


Well the answer is not to do with truth or freedom. The answer is to do with something that sort of precedes those issues, and is largely, quite invisible or ignored. Something already in place when those concepts materialise. And that is, the properties of words. The nature of words. The way words work. And the word yes, is a word. First and foremost, that’s what it is. And like it or not, as a culture, we have put far too much emphasis on language and talking and everything to do with words being important and influential. In reality, a word is simply a symbol for something else. Therefore a word has no actual existence itself! So when we use a word, not much has really happened, if anything at all! And yet we live in a world where once a thing is said, or written down, we act as if it has actually happened! Think! If a newspaper has the headline, MAN HAS TWO BRAINS! If we were honest, we would admit that we would believe it. And this is why the rule exists. Not because people must always be positive or follow rules, but because we need to remind people that saying words does not change very much. If in a scene I say, “Tree!” People are forced to ask, “But what about the tree?” i.e. give us more. Something real. Something that is not just words. So I would be forced to say, “The tree attacked me!” And then they would say, “Ah ha! Thank God. Something we can work with. Well then. Attacked you did it? Let’s go outside and chop it down!!!” So the yes rule simply points to the fact that a large part of reality is feelings, emotions, atmospheres, the unknown, objects, et cetera... And only a small part is words.
And let’s stop and think about actors. Coming to the theatre the first thing an actor introduced to is a play script which is, in effect, just lots and lot of words. That’s what play scripts are. You can have a silent film, but a silent play, a full length play, is almost impossible. Could you do a silent version of Macbeth? As people know the story you probably could. But Uncle Vanya? That would be ridiculous. Vanya being a good example of our word obsessed modern world. I say word obsessed. Maybe a better way to put it would be to say a culture that is infected with ‘word-faith’. Or as William Burroughs calls it, a word-virus. Another aspect of this is that of people internalising a negative attitude. An automatic negative response. I once entered a scene and the other performer said,      “ Come any nearer and I’ll shoot myself!” The

ultimate negative blocking offer!!! To flow with  things you need to embrace them. And to embrace them, you need to feel positive or

good about them. Often people simply don’t,

and the yes rule here corrects this self

sabotaging behaviour, in performance terms,

but does not change this conditioned negative

 response at a deeper level. There it still very

much exists, despite the constant positive

YES SAYING!!!

Now having said all this I’m going to contradict myself. Oh bugger! Words are magical. Words do contain power. The power of a thing said in the right way, with the right words, like in say Shakespeare or something, cannot be gainsaid. When Oscar Wilde said, ‘A Handbag!?’ the world changed. Forever. But this is poetry. And poetry relates to the individual. And impro is a group exercise. So having a purist pious attitude to the use of words in impro is rather misplaced, wonderful as words are!!!!!!!!

So. I hope all this encourages you to flow with the yes rule, and feel happy about it, and not feel you have signed away your soul to some smirking devil, who just wanted you to mindlessly say yes. YES!

ACTING- A TOLTEC PERSPECTIVE

For actors and performers one issue must be dealt with at the very outset. What should an actor do as regards getting guidance on his chosen field??? Considering the vast number of acting gurus out there, from Stanislavski to Hagen, this is indeed a fraught question. Which school/guru is best? How do they differ? Who is authentic? Who isn’t? These questions are bound to go through any dedicated actor’s mind. Now what I have learned through long experience, and having gone the usual route of following and struggling with methods and techniques, and trying to understand what the gurus were trying to tell me, is, that there is a bottom line. And that this is that acting is a magical thing, and as such, cannot really be analysed, quantified or made rational and comprehensible to the analytical mind. It is really not theoretical. You cannot think your way to a result with acting. And though it is always useful and interesting to know what other people have said on this subject, and familiarise yourself with the different schools of thought, at the end of the day, when you go on stage, you need to drop all that. Drop it completely. Forget it. Forget completely you know anything. And then you must trust in that power that rules over us, and guides us, to provide whatever it is you need, to make a particular scene or character come to life. TRUST. For when it comes to the theoretical approach, I always feel it a bit like that story ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. The apprentice tries to appropriate the Sorcerer/Guru’s power, but his literal approach to this, simply gets him into endless complications, for the truth is, he is not the guru/sorcerer. He is, himself. In the story he ends up chopping the mop, which only means he has two mops to chop. And chopping those four. And then eight. And then so on, ad-infinitum. And the moral is you cannot just mimic the Guru’s power. You must go on the same journey as him. Find it for yourself. There are no short cuts. So.

THE RIGHT GUIDANCE!!!!!

I am not an acting guru, and that is why I can give you the right guidance on this. And my guidance is not a theory, or a method. My guidance is simply a description, in order to help you see something more clearly; for if we get clarity, we will make progress. And here it is.

Acting is about double-ness. It is about having a split-focus. It is about being yourself, and not yourself, both at once. We forget, the potential to be a character, exists when we are not a character. And when we are on stage playing a character, we are still ourselves, playing a character! In other words, on entering a scene, you must claim your space, by knowing who you are, i.e. what role you are playing, be self orientated, and self justified, and at the same time, you must be focussed outside yourself, on who the other actors are, what roles they are playing, and what their reasons are for being there, and doing what they do. You must do both these things at once. Split the focus!!!! Put in terms of the Toltec teachings, you must believe without believing! Know a thing is both true and false, at the same time. And this is of course theoretically impossible!!!! Your rational mind will never flatten this out to make it reasonable and understandable, for it simply isn’t reasonable and understandable, and yet, at the same time, it is simplicity itself, for we can be double. We can simply feel it! Now to say acting is about double-ness, may seem tad obvious. We may think, but I knew that! Of course it is about double-ness! But I am putting the focus back on this simple thing, to remind people of the essence of acting. Something that has been rather lost with the ‘progress’ that has been made in acting theory. And in order to show you a new way to work, with becoming a better actor, and how we can do this without resorting to gurus, methods, schools and the like, which, in the end, often hinder rather than help the would be actor. So, having understood that all we really need to do in acting, is split the focus, we can ask ourselves, how can I practice that? Well the answer is the place to practice this is in real life. Day to day life. Nuts and bolts life. We can practice having a split focus, within our normal world. We don’t have to be in an acting class, or be on stage, to do it. So let’s look at life.

1. You pay a bill

2. You meet friends.

3. You go to church.

4. You catch a bus.

5. You do a night class.

Here is ‘real life’ in all its majestic wonderfulness! Now. How can we split the focus in theses areas. In broad terms we can intend to be more aware of the inner and the outer in all these activities. There’s subjective, you doing it. And the objective. the place and the people you do it with/in. We find 2 ways to look at same thing.

Taken singly.

1. (The bill.) Past financial history. Present attitude. Your need to pay, and your attitude to paying.

2. (Friends.) Your perception of yourself. Their perception of you.

3. (Church.) Atmosphere inside church. Atmosphere outside church.

4. (Bus.) Focus on destination or journey.

5. (Night class.) Learning and socialising. How do they feel different.

So a lot of it boils down to inner and outer. What is the inner way to look at tieing your shoelace. And what is the outer way? It is 2 ways of seeing the same thing. Now this is the right guidance for it will yield a result, in that you will become more versed in shifting the focus. You will! However, your rational mind may well reject this saying “But I can’t do that! I can’t hold 2 contradictory positions at once.”

It may, your rational mind, even fight back against this threatening activity,
by making you go to sleep. Feel angry and confused.
Making you lose your pen. Notebook. Or trip over the cat.

Nevertheless. This is the right guidance. To act you do need a split focus, and this exercise in awareness will foster it.

Now, we live in an extremely sophisticated civilisation. Something commented on by Shakespeare in King Lear when Lear says:

“For thou are the thing itself, a bare forked animal.”

Simple attitudes to things and simple solutions are frowned upon and laughed at. And this is a shame for in doing this, man cheats himself out of the sublime joy inherent in this child-like truth of simplicity. Obviousness. Un-pretentiousness. A child knows what acting is. A child needs no theory. Acting is just pretending. And what great fun it is! (“Just pretending darling! Are you crazy? Have you seen my Lear???”)

BECKETT TYPE SKETCH FOR 2 ACTORS

(A field. Midnight. Full moon. Hatter, an old clown, still in his clown make up and costume, from the show, sits on a tree stump looking depressed. Enter Hare, another old clown, looking depressed as well.)


Hatt. You got here.

Hare. Yes.

Hatt. Did you manage to slip out undetected?



(Hare nods dejectedly.)



Hatt. Who was on?

Hare. Mario and his dancing penguins.

Hatt. I thought they got sick.

Hare. He gave them anti-biotics. In their pilchards.

Hatt. I thought they liked herring?

Hare. No. Pilchards.



(Hare looks up despondently.)



The moon is full. They say starring at it can drive you mad.

Hatt. Well don’t stare!



(Hatt gets up and paces around annoyed.)



You did it again you know. (Miming.) I blow in my saxophone. Your trousers fall down. I drop the baby in surprise, and when we both bend over, bingo! Our heads bang together, but yours was miles away. Miles away.

Hare. I can’t concentrate.

Hatt. Miles away.

Hare. I feel confused.

Hatt. Miles away.

Hare. My mind wanders.

Hatt. Miles away.

Hare. I’m bored with it.

Hatt. (Superior and knowing.) Look. They’re not paying us to be ordinary people who manage to preserve their dignity by rigidly controlling every single aspect of their behaviour and keeping it all within a small and undemonstrative framework.



(Pause.)



Hare. What are you? Some kind of therapist?

Hatt. No. I’m a clown.

Hare. You are a clown.

Hatt. And what are you then. Winston bloody Churchill?

Hare. I told you before that the head banging bizznizz was old hat but you wouldn’t listen, would you?

Hatt. Well. What did you come up with. The fucking squirting flower! Who hasn’t seen that before?

Hare. The kids like the squirting flower! It has class!

Hatt. It’s got about as much class as my arse!



(They square up to each other. Turn away. Hare sits on the tree stump.)



Hare. Oh what difference does it make? It’s not what we want to do.

Hatt. No.

Hare. It’s not like it’s our act.

Hatt. No.

Hare. It’s not the act we wrote.

Hatt. All those years ago.

Hare. In the boarding house.

Hatt. In Brighton.

Hare. When we first met.

Hatt. (Laughing.) Mrs troubshaw.

Hare. (Laughing.) She said her husband’s car had a catholic converter.

Hatt. She had that stick to measure the bathwater.

Hare. In case you took too much.

Hatt. When you farted she said.

Hare. I fear someone has had an extraneous eruction!



(They both laugh.)



Hatt. Priceless. And what about mr Troubshaw.

Hare. The mysterious Mr T.

Hatt. Yeah. You hardly ever saw him.

Hare. Always in the other part of the house.

Hatt. Locked away.

Hare. Doing his stuff.

Hatt. But when he did come out.

Hare. His skin.

Hatt. Like it was covered in a fine white powder.

Hare. Sort of desiccated.

H&H. UUUrrgghh.

Hatt. You know what he was doing back there.

Hatt. I can imagine.

Hare. Holidaymaker’s mysterious disappearance.

Hatt. Torso found by side of dual carriageway.

Hare. Local iron mongers sells out of industrial acid.

H&H. UUUgghhhrrrgh. DESSICATED!

Hatt. I didn’t like being in the same room as him.

Hare. Me nie-ther.

Hatt. Nee-ther.

Hare. Niether. (Pause.) So you know. Why the hell aren’t we doing our OUR act? That was the act we wrote. That’s why we got together. The act. It’s us. Isn’t it? And do we do it? No we don’t.

Hatt. It aint that simple.

Hare. Yes it is.

Hatt. No it isn’t! And we’ve discussed this a million times.

Hare. So?

Hatt. You just can’t do your own act. Nobodies going to pay you for that. Not in this post-modern world.

Hare. Fucking post-modern world.

Hatt. It just isn’t going to happen.

Hare. But our act is good!

Hatt. That isn’t the point. You have to entertain.

Hare. (Disgust.) Entertain. Where’s the artistic element in that?

Hatt. Art isn’t an issue. Only entertainment.

Hare. Bloody philistines.

Hatt. That may well be. But that’s how it is. In this culture, at this point in time, all they want is trouser dropping…

Hare. Head banging…

Hatt. Baby losing…

Hare. Fire engine bell ringing…

Hatt. Custard pie receiving…

Hare. Saxophone bubble blowing…

Hatt. Flower squirting…

Hare. BOLLOX! (Pause.) But our act is good. (Pause.) Let’s do it now.

Hatt. What?

Hare. Let’s do it now. Here.

Hatt. Why? No one’s watching.

Hare. Does there have to be an audience?

Hatt. Yes. Of course. I’m an artist.

Hare. You’re a tosser. Look. I’m the audience, and you’re the audience.



(Hatt is not convinced.)



Percy mate! For the love of Gawd! Let’s do it. Our act. For one last time, here, in a field, under a full moon, at midnight, (Indicating audience.) for the cows, if no one else! It’s our act fer Kristsakes!!!!!!!



(Hatt struggles and at last capitulates. He nods. They turn round and reach into hold-all, that Hare brought on with him. Turn back wearing some kind of nazi uniform with Hitler moustaches. German accents.)



Hare. Hello children.

Hatt. Are you feeling unhappy.

Hare. Are you feeling depressed.

Hatt. Are you tired of zee know-it-all adults?

Hare. Telling you to sit down?

Hatt. To shut up.

Hare. To behave like them?

Hatt. To be boring unhappy robots.

Hare. In a boring unhappy universe?

Hatt. And giving you zee potty training.

Hare. Poop poop poop.

Hatt. Zee etiquette training.

Hare. Zee fork, zee spoon, zee k-niff.

Hatt. Zee brain training.

Hare. (Singing.) I am zee very model of a modern major general, with informations animal, zee vegetable and mineral.

Hatt. Zen fear no more.

Hare. For we are here.



Song



Everybody needs to be

A nazi now and then

What will make zee world go round

A final prog-err-ah-ham!!!

So it’s time to get your parents

Take them far away

Conduct some fun experiments

It’s time for you to play.

They acted like nazis to poor you

Now you can be a nazi to them

It’s only fair

Do you think they care?

How much must you bear?

(March type music.)

So children unite!

You know you must fight.

This parental blight!

For we are the Hitler clowns

And we are fucking right!





Hare. It’s a fantastic act!

Hatt. It certainly hits the spot.

Hare. The Hitler clowns. What a genius we had when we came up with that!!!

Hatt. Yeah. Genius.

Hare. The moon’s gone behind a cloud.

Hatt. Yeah. (Pause.) Well. That’s that then. We did it.

Hare. Yeah. One last time.

Hatt. One last time.

Hare. The last post.

Hatt. The end of the road.

Hare. The final …

Hatt. Curtain?

Hare. Encore.

(Pause.)

Hatt. Did you bring it?

Hare. You mean the rope? The rope to hang ourselves with?

Hatt. (Sarcastic.) No. The bleedin clockwork stirrup pump.

Hare. (Despondent.) Yeah.



(Mime. Takes it out of bag. Everything with rope is mimed.)



Hatt. What are you looking at me like that for? We agreed. We painstakingly went through all the pros and cons, the ifs and buts, the yeas and nays. Are we going to carry on being a couple of sad old clowns, going through the same stale routines, just to make a mindless bunch of kids, scream pointlessly with mindless bloody laughter? Are we? Are we? Where’s are dignity? Where’s our integrity? Where’s our true clown spirit? I’ll tell you. Here. Here, in this here rope. Rope. (Pause.) So come on. Tie the bloody noose and let’s get it over with.

(Hare starts to tie rope to tree bough above head.)

Hare. But one of us will have to go first and then suppose the other one changes his mind. Loses his nerve.

Hatt. We discussed that. Memory like a sieve. We go together.

Hare. Two heads in one noose? That’s a bit unorthodox.

Hatt. Yes. Well. We’re clowns not merchant bankers.

Hare. (Worried.) But will it work? Surely the noose is a one person piece of equipment?

Hatt. (Thinking.) Alright then. We go one at a time.

Hare. But who goes first?

Hatt. I will. There. Problem solved.

(Hare organises rope and moves tree stump to stand on. Hatt stands on it. Noose mime.

Hare. Ready?

Hatt. Ready. (Pause.) I hereby renounce life for being the painful godless sham it is, Samuel Beckett. Like a mental patient receiving an award for playing William Shakespeare, yadda yadda yadda, the end.



(Hatt sways on the tree stump. Screws eyes shut. Tension.)



Hare. Wait!

Hatt. What?

Hare. I’ve had a strange kind of epiphany or mystical realisation!

Hatt. Oh bollox! What?

Hare. I’ve realised. If I looked in my heart. If I was honest with myself, really honest, not pretend honest, I’d have to admit, I’ve only one real friend in the world. And that’s you Hatt. And when you stepped up there on the stump, I saw it all. All we have shared. All the struggle. All the heartache. All the times we died on our arses. The boredom. The rejections. All of it. And I realised. There’s still one thing that’s important to me. And that’s not, NOT, letting you down. So that’s why I’m making this confession. Because once you’ve gone, I don’t think I’ll be able to go through with it. Without you here, to egg me on, my nerve will go. And I don’t want to let you down. That would make me fell worse than what I normally feel even. So I’m asking you. (Kneeling like in prayer.)Hatt. Give it another go. Maybe there is a point to it all. Maybe there is a purpose. Maybe there’s,(Like a sacrilege.) even a God. Who knows. Who really knows. Please.



(Hatt takes off noose and steps down off tree stump.


They awkwardly embrace. Take down rope and put it in hold-all.)



Hatt. So. A happy ending.

Hare. (Despondent.) Yeah. Happy.

Hatt. Come on.



(They start to leave.)



And remember. Tomorrow night. When I drop the baby.

Hare. Yeah yeah yeah.



(They exit. Curtain.)