"Respect for Acting" Uta Hagen (Part 1)

Hagen had constructed a mask behind which she would hide throughout the performance, using "tricks" which were representations used convey emotions. She lost the love of make believe. Harold Clurman was the one who refused the mask and demanded Hagen in the role. She felt this broke down the wall between her and the audience. (p.8)

Representational vs. Presentational - illustrating a characters behavior vs. complete human embodiment of the character. "Talent is an amalgam of high sensitivity; easy vulnerability; high sensory equipment (seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting-intensely); a vivid imagination as well as a grip on reality; the desire to communicate one's own experience and sensations, to make one's self heard and seen" (p.13).

What I don't understand about "Presentation Acting" is yes, it makes sense to embody the character, but people become who they are by living through their lives and developing traits and emotions and unconscious reactions to events that show in their face and their expressions and their mannerisms. How can someone who is attempting to believe they are someone else in order to act as them going to know all these mannerisms? They have, after all, only lived their own life and if they are copying someone else's mannerisms, no matter where their psyche is, that is still representational. Is it possible to develop these mannerisms accurately and in a short time so as to truly act Presentationally? Perhaps my Alex experiment will shed light on this dilemma.

Well fortunately for me, Hagen has described how this works in the remaining portion of Part 1. Chapter 2, titled Identity is about getting to know yourself as a person and a human being in order to use your own experiences to identify with the character you are playing as opposed to illustrating the character. Becoming self-aware does not mean understanding a pigeon-holed preconception of who we think we are, but understanding how we respond to all different sorts of emotions in all different sorts of situations. Like in David Antin's class when he talked about all of us as being actors because we all behave in different roles depending on who we are talking to. Our assignment was to explore what happens when this roles collided and fractured. I chose to do myself playing the role of the daughter back in Colorado meeting my new found self as an independent woman in college. It seemed pertinent at the time when I was struggle to break free and these 2 roles I played collided in a confrontation with my Mom. All part of growing up, but I didn't know so at the time. Hagen describes it the same. We may not consider ourselves as a person who would look down on others, but "if a drunken, bigoted doorman gives me a hard time, I appear snobbish and pull rank" (26). So it is important not only to recognize all facets of of our feelings, even ones like greed, selfishness, envy, panic, but also to connect these emotions to the "behavior which ensues...The continuing job of learning to find out who you really are, of learning to pinpoint your responses--and even more important, the myriad, consequent behaviorisms which result--will help you begin to fill your warehouse with sources upon which to draw for the construction of character" (26). Do not put ourself behind a mask of someone else's behaviors on stage. This is representation! People stare at a cat on stage because it is focused, strong-willed and spontaneous where an actor can be predictably busy. As adults we may not be vengeful people because we have learned to control desire for vengeance, but that doesn't mean we have not felt the need to be vengeful and this can help you play a vengeful character (Ingrid Bergman expl). If we are limited in our time and social standing we can imagine and be curious (as children do) and out ourselves into stories, other times, paintings and other people's shoes. Curiosity and imagination can go a long way in discovering who you are and in creating characters. --> I always do this so perhaps I'm as far behind as I thought thanks to my crazy imaginations scenarios.

Chapter 3, Substitution, is about how to take what you know from your own experiences and transfer them into what the character you are playing is feeling. She wants "to find herself" in the part. "Once we are on the track of self-discovery in terms of an enlargement of our sense of identity, and we now try yo apply this knowledge to an identification with the character in the play, we must make this transference, this finding of the character within ourselves, through a continuing and overlapping series of substitutions from our own experiences and remembrances, through the use of imaginative extension of realities, and put them in the place of the fiction of the play" (34). Example of the girl snatching her "soiled panties" and hiding them behind her back. The director cannot help you with your substitutions because she doesn't know your life experiences, but "(S)he will help you with the character elements she is after, dictate the place, the surroundings, the given circumstances, and define your relationship to other characters in the pay, but how you make things real to yourself, how you make them exist is totally private work" (37). Each object on stage or set needs to be made particular, with a history and a connection to your character so you react appropriately when you see it. Objects also need substitutions from your life, every moment on stage does. Perhaps you will have to combine a dozen different relationships with a dozen different people to create the relationship with your "sister" on stage if you do not have a sister or a single relationship to stand in for it. But you can combine different moments from different relationships for each moment in the play to build that relationship. Process is always in flux, from the beginning of the homework to the end of rehearsals. This is how you build a "sense of reality and faith in the character" but she has not yet connected this to actions, what the character will do (39).

Think about the meaning behind the words. Daniele always talked about this, and this is why the exercise we did with the same dialog, but different meanings was so important. Saying "I hate you" could actually be a cry for attention from someone you love. It is the directors job to dictate the relationship and meaning and the actors job to substitute and bring it to life. But ou must transfer the essence of the substitution to the play so you are using it to live he realities of the scene. You must take "the substituted psychological reality and transfer it to the existing circumstances and events of the play: transferring the essence of the experience (not the original event) to the scene" (40). Use your life to understand how the character is feeling in that moment and then make it real for that character and you. --> I believe we are all actors in everyday life and this awareness of self, substitutions and eventually actions, when we get to that part of the book, is an essential part of everyone's self awareness, not just an actor, but especially important for a director or writer to understand. I think experimenting with this in my everyday life as well as to an extreme through "Alex" can only make me a better creator/director.

In transferring the substitution, Hagen gives the example of swallowing a lie from her husband and then getting him a glass of water. She substituted dragging her insubordinate daughter to the sink and forcing her to drink and this made her realize that her husband, in that moment, was like a child to her. She did not need to substitute anymore, she had used the substitution to find the reality on stage (42).

She warns a director against using generalities or essences like colors, textures or music to describe what they want because those are very personal and likely mean something different to the director than they do to the actor because their life experiences differ. (Same thing when writing, be careful how you describe a character. She gave the example of "suggests a moth" which completely blocked her sense of who the character was, because she imagined too vividly the character as a moth.

Don't share your substitutions!

Chapters 4-10 continue t o discuss different kinds of substitutions and then how to take these substitutions and make them actions that the audience can see, since it is a visual medium we are discussing. I will give some highlights, but the meat of the book was in the aforementioned 2 chapters. Emotional memory is the recall of a psychological or emotional response to an event which produces sobbing, laughter, screaming etc. Sense memory is in dealing with physiological sensations (heat, cold, hunger pains, etc) (46). Both of which can be used for valid substitutions. Emotion in life happens when we momentarily suspend our reasoning and lose control because we are unable to cope with an event logically, but humans don't want to lose control and are constantly fighting to regain control of our emotions (as adults anyway). She says there are trigger objects to emotional pain, little things that you unconsciously associate with the pain of an event that will immediately recall that feeling for you and it's these little objects that will catapult you to extreme emotions on stage. They should never wear out for professionals because you have to make the object synonymous with on on stage, not anticipate when the emotion should come and not transferred it to the experience of the play or you are fearful that it won't come.

Sense memory: "the body has an innate sense of truth" and we must learn some "physiological facts to help us avoid the violation of the physical truth" (52). If you must be in a deep sleep then simulate how the body acts in a deep sleep, lie down, concentrate on your hips, or a specific body part, center your eyes under your eyelids, focus on an abstract object and then jump to thoughts as you wake, what time is it, have I over slept? Your body will be heavy and slow as if you just awoke from a deep sleep. Yawning to get oxygen to your brain, or shivering to increase circulation, know these things will help you to reproduce them. She believes sensations occur most fully at the "moment we are occupied with the attempt to overcome it" (56).

Be alert to all of your 5 senses. We don't actually listen to the words, but the intent behind them. We also listen with our eyes. We see someone's intent through their unconscious actions (if we aren't busy being insecure and looking away). But even when looking way, we are thinking about inner objects, what we will say next, how we feel. Think is much faster than talking ans much can go on throughout the course of a conversation. You can't write out your thoughts ahead of time because real thinking is active. It "precedes, is accompanied by and follows action" (65). Example of putting on her coat to go to the grocery, unless there is a problem with the coat she is compiling her grocery list in her mind or thinking about the friend coming to dinner tonight that she is cooking for. These inner thoughts have influenced her actions. If she is angry at the friend she might be aggressive with her coat. If she loves her, she might caress the coat. These are the actions the audiences sees, influenced by the thoughts in her head. I think it is the directors job then to tell her that she is thinking of and anticipating the friend's arrival in this moment, and also her current relation to the friend and then it is the actors job to think and make real the moment.

Hagen talks about what Daniele always talked about. All movement must be connected to a motivation. A person never moves without intent and so an actor should never move without an intent. Even if s/he is wandering aimlessly, it is because s/he is restless or nervous or anxious and trying to calm the feeling. There is always intent to movement. An actor is just an actor and his movements are affected when s/he moves without purpose. Clothing also influences character just as it influences our actions or confidence in everyday life. One outfit may make me fit right in to a given crowd so I will act comfortable and confident. The same outfit somewhere else might make me feel under dressed or like a child who wants to hide. Just as Daniele said, we must learn what a character wants out of any given situation and under what conditions s/he wants it so that the blocking can be organic because the actor/character is propelled into genuine verbal action that comes from the needs of the character. This is the subtext between the dialog!

Reality is often times unbelievable. Also we must not forget that what is on the stage or screen is an illusion of reality. Real snow will melt, real steam could scald you, and distract the audience. The actor must see past some realities of life and set to create the illusion of the stage reality. This is where my suspension of disbelief paper comes in. How does the illusion of reality presented on screen become reality in the minds of the spectator and at what point is the audience distracted by the "how did they do that" of the special effect or explosion? This is a balance in action films that I want to explore.

This book is incredible, not just for actors, but for living everyday life and self-awareness. The next section is about training yourself as an actor and I will attempt to implore these techniques in my everyday life and write about them throughout the summer.