January 21, 2008 by webmaster.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature nor do the children of man as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”

Helen Keller
1880-1968, Blind/Deaf Author

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January 21, 2008 by webmaster.

As storytellers our first mission is to make the incredible credible. If we want our audience to take the trip we have planned with us, we have to build as much credibility as possible into the tales we weave. As time goes by, many of our lesson plans are going to move in this direction. Sometimes leaning towards esoteric theory, sometimes-playable technique.

In this lesson I’d like to talk about a small but important detail I like to call, Opening Doors. It’s born from this dilemma: How do I create the details that knit together to make a character seem true, without getting bogged down in technical choices? Well … you Open Doors. A typical example that I see all the time of an actor that doesn’t do this is the guest star doing a day or two: The director gets his cast together for a blocking rehearsal and they take a run at the page and a half of dialogue they have to tackle. As so often happens the actors rest on the text; their arms lay limp at their sides, they never break eye contact with their scene partner, and the rhythms and hues of the scenes elude them. The director then has to use valuable time in his day to offer ideas, (usually second rate) to get the scene on its feet all the while making mental notes never to hire that guest actor again. Don’t expect any help from the regular on the show; he’s too busy’ just trying to stay awake. If the actor was trained in Opening Doors all this could be averted. The point of Opening Doors is to find the beats, inside beats, inside beats, without having to think about it. The first thing one does when opening doors is to examine context and circumstances the actor finds himself in. Remember that guest star? When he did the blocking rehearsal he was sitting at a table at a restaurant; our couple just settling down to dinner. Around him there are other diners, lights, music, maybe there are windows, maybe not. These are his environmental circumstances. Closer in he has napkins, silver wear, and glasses. These are his objects. By giving some awareness to his context he’s beginning to open a door. So let’s open the first door… he picks up the napkin as he sits. What often happens is the actor picks up the napkin and then just lays it right in his lap. He’s cracked open the door and left it to slam shut on his fingers. Before he just dumps it in his lap, what I like to say to the actor that picks up the napkin is, “You bought it - now you have to pay for it”. Where does the napkin go from here? What can you tell us about whom you’re playing with that napkin? So the actor can’t just lose the napkin in his lap, he’s got to do something with it. He looks around … ah; his hand is a little dirty. So he wipes it with the napkin. The actor opened a door by picking up the napkin, the door he opened led to a room filled with more doors, he wipes his hand and has opened a new door that leads to a room filled with… you guessed it … doors. Now what’s he going to do with that now soiled napkin? He’s got to crumple it up and throw it away? Or maybe it demands to be neatly folded and tucked on his lap? There are dozens of options, each one now leading to a room filled with doors.

When I started spouting this the other day in class someone asked, “Do the actions he plays, the doors he opens, have to be psychologically based on his character”? The answer is simple; they will be. The point of this line of thinking, and the exercises that train the actors intuition to respond by opening doors, is that the actor should never think past the first door. He may stumble and fall the first dozen or so times he tries to incorporate this into his work, but after living with it he’ll think into the first Door and never past it. Actions that illustrate the character perfectly will emerge without effort.
The more the actor can fill out the details without thinking about them the more the actor can free himself from the text and find the root of the relationship in the scene.

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