First rule: observe!
If you are intent upon being a performance artist, dedicated to showing audiences the elegant truths of life, you must first become familiar with the life around you and, though they are cloaked when we first come out of the womb, all the tools to experience life emerge with us, ready for the life-long task set before them.
That task is to experience each sound, smell, taste, feeling, every
breath of air, every leaf in every tree, every butterfly, every sweet smelling rose and every putrid mound of decay….to experience it
all….become familiar with the life you’ve been given …become intimate partner with each and every pulse of your existence …in as close to a cellular level as possible.
How can you portray life- hell, how can you even appreciate it- if you don’t allow yourself to experience it? Taste it, see it and feel it as fully as you possibly can….?
So first and foremost, demand this one thing of yourself: notice it…..then notice it even more closely….become one with each and every thing you notice in order to eventually understand it…understand it in such an intimate way that you can recall it all into service for the sake of communicating it to your audience in a way that delivers this truth: isn’t Life wonderful…sad and loving…hateful..exciting…inspiring… isn’t Life worth its terrible journey?
It is an actor’s job to notice.
And I repeat: it’s our job as humans as well.
Then, as I require of all my acting students, write it down on the blank waiting pages of any and journals you can acquire…write it all down… details, reactions, colors, shapes, impressions, feelings engendered by all you observe…write it…rhapsodize about it all… watch, see, feel
And write….and use all your writings in creative and inspiring ways in your preparation work for roles you are given to play.
But above all, observe.
The way religious rites and ceremonies are observed, with intention and devotion…observes each moment as a ceremony of discovery, so that you train yourself to be surprised and thrilled by each new moment to moment discovering….John Caird , in directing a brush up rehearsal we all needed for our Broadway production of Les Miserables, asked us to renew our commitment to being astonished in each moment of our time onstage as we unfolded the famous story to each new audience….
And, I maintain that if we can allow ourselves to remain astonished, the joys in our life will never end.
Ergo, sharpen your senses and let yourself observe each passing glory and make note of it no matter what ….for therein, seeing-truly seeing- lies the delight and the necessary astonishment to keep afloat in a life that is always threatening to drown you.