We are starting to look at the concept of Purposelessness in class. It is such a simple concept, but it is so hard to get there. The idea came up as part of our examination of the book “Zen in the Art of Archery” and how that applies to the work we’re doing in class. In brief, the idea means that the student should start work from a place of simply being without a purpose.
When students start here or have this as an ideal (a paradox, admittedly) then the need to make something happen starts to drop a way. If you are truly coming from a place of purposelessness, then you will not feel the need to entertain or that you’re messing up or that you need to help your partner anything like that. You will drop all expectation of how the exercise is supposed to go and simply take in what actually is happening in the moment. By embracing purposelessness, actors gain real freedom of response as any response then is possible. Without the pressure of a purpose or a goal, actors can simply react to what is happening around them in the moment.
But what about when you’re doing a play and the scene needs to go a certain way? Surely actors must have a purpose then? The truth is that if you are doing a scene, or put another way, living out some situation that the author wrote with words that are set, then the words themselves and the way the other person is acting towards you and you are reacting to them naturally will bring you to the place you need to be quite organically. If there is some disconnect in some part of the text, then the actor should look at the meaning of what is happening and clarify for him or herself what the circumstance is before starting to do the scene. Once the scene has started (that means after the director has said action or you’ve walked onstage), then there is no organic way of making the circumstances more real or more meaningful to you. The only way to get “into” the scene is to give up control of what you’re doing to the other person in the scene (or to what physical actions you’re doing in the scene) and simply do them without purpose. If you’re trying to make yourself better while the camera is rolling or the audience is watching, then you’re in the wrong head-space. Put your attention on your partner or what it is you have to physically do and simply do that. The dialog of the scene will bring you to the right place if you’ve done your homework on the meaning of the circumstances!
And what about being boring?? You don’t expect me to get up in front of the group and just stand there, do you? This is often the question that gets asked by newer students. They haven’t experienced (either by watching it on others or by doing it themselves) how interesting and engaging two people up on stage who are giving themselves to the moment can be. Even without saying anything or really doing much physically the energy is captivating. And more often than not, if the two actors are being truthful about what is going on between them, then the moments that are more quiet where they are purposelessly putting their attention on their partner will quickly move into an observation and opinion about what their partner is doing in the moment. And those opinions and observations cause their partner to react and let out their own opinions and so on and so on! The only truly boring thing to watch on stage is two people who know exactly where everything is going and what’s about to happen or two people who simply refuse to let the other person have control.