Meisner Comprehension #4

The first impression I have when reviewing the fourth class session is that the exercises or special techniques used in order to secure a working comprehension and ability to prove it in action are very graphic and without truly understanding their point they are quite absurdist and even ridiculous. They look and, especially, feel awkward. It is absolutely certain that acting imitates real life. But it is also true that bad acting or showing also imitates real life. Another way of putting it would be that in real life we can learn to manipulate our behavior in order to achieve a result and to do that quite well to the degree that we successfully convince our audience or targeted subject that we are sincerely behaving naturally in the moment responding to them. It is no small task for me to turn a deaf ear to what I refer to as my editor, which is the cerebral aspect of my Self. This inner-director vets all of my outward expression to a degree that, frankly I had no idea how invasive that influence is. When we perceive a person as disingenuous or fake, it is usually only because their motives are so obviously self-serving that the manipulation of their behavior somehow clearly shows that the selfish pursuit has been shaping what they do and say in order to influence the outcome in favor of their (selfish) goal. But here I learn that not only have I become alarmingly good at this fake behavior or the modification of my responses to the degree that my agenda is achieved while appearing to occur as a natural result or response to the flow of events and interactions with others, but that this contrived or edited behavior has become incorporated into all aspects of my expression.; that all of my behavior which will be observed by any other than myself has been and is being pre-vetted by the filter of cognitive decision. This occurrence so permeates my actions, expressions, vocabulary, etc. that I am confounded to discover that without its involvement in the process of responding and subsequent expression of the response is entirely uncomfortable, awkward, hell, its downright scary! So that, on the one hand I find myself to be shocked and dismayed at how contrived I truly am, whilst on the other, mortified to learn that I am indeed awkward and uncomfortable without the intercedance of my machinations. It is only upon understanding this fundamental truth that I can appreciate the blunt and absurd exercises for what they truly are: a way of bypassing the mind/editor in the process of response to expression. And the indications that this is occurring are not yet apparent in an obvious way, either. But until I figured out this bypass and how it applied to me and my response-expression process, it was not doing more than frustrating and annoying me. Frustration and annoyance are not constructive emotions; they actually position me against whatever concern is addressed. So the fear and awkwardness of successfully achieving an un-edited state caused the annoyance and frustration which built a self-perpetuating wall through which the only way to pass was with acceptance of a less-thanperfect expression or an unedited response-expression which was not putting me in the best considered light. So I then concluded that allowing myself to be less than optimal was required in order to achieve a success in this process which is really not so much a process as it is an un-process; to take the editor

out back and shoot him, thus taking him out of the equation and leaving the actor with a truthful moment and subsequent beat change. The actor, now divorced from his lifelong companion, the editor, is a weak and tenacious individual. Vulnerable and sensitive in this unfamiliar world of sharp and piercing input and unprotected from the affects they have upon him. Confidence is at a remarkable low and it is at this place that I feel the natural and unedited desire to avail myself of a psychotherapist. It is, after all, deep-seated aspects of the actors mind itself we are manipulating. It is the instrument and player itself that we are playing on. This is to say that it is confusing at times to separate the actor from the character and yet, necessary if the actor is to be able to shepherd the physical body into proper position for the character to make use of it yet all the while asking the actor or owner of the body that the character is borrowing to use it without the owners interference either physically or mentally. I am nervous loaning my car to an other imagine the physical self in other hands and beyond my control. It is not as much a catch-22 as it is a trust issue and an ability to truly permit oneself to fuck up and to look bad or awkward or less than what one would like to look. Yet I must remind myself that this is the condition of ALL efforts in their infancy. We must fail before we can repeatedly and assuredly succeed. True, success occurs upon the first attempt on occasion, but it is a fact that it must be realized fully by identifying what fails to make it so that we indeed learn how to make it right. So, back to the nutmeat of the Meisner Un-process: I have to be uncomfortably awkward before I can employ the bypass technique proposed and through which I will learn whether this will be an improvement in my performance as an actor. You see, I have not proven to myself that Meisner is the way for me to act. I can only know it when I can do it. Until then it is merely a logically great idea in theory to me. I am, nonetheless, thoroughly committed to succeeding in achieving a truthful natural unedited moment as an actor. And I am hopeful that I can do so without having to BE committed to an institution, so deep-seated are my actions and response-expressions influenced by cognition.