Acting is Believing?
This quote is from the book Acting is Believing by McGaw, Stilson and Clark. These are three respected acting teachers. Acting is Believing. Is it?
When I read this – the very first words of the first chapter, I become white hot with anger. Why? Because they make it sound so plausible, and people buy in to this, but actually it’s based entirely on a series of unquestioned beliefs:
Acting is ‘the most complex of arts’ – UNQUESTIONED BELIEF.
Acting is ‘giving birth to an imaginary character’ –UNQUESTIONED BELIEF.
‘You must believe in everything that takes place onstage.’UNQUESTIONED BELIEF.
‘You must know how to find it at all times in your character’ UNQUESTIONED BELIEF.
And what is that they want you to believe in? They want you to believe in their special truth. Not the actual factual truth, but a fictional truth – what they might call ‘scenic’ truth or ‘dramatic’ truth. They say there are two types, factual and scenic.
No there isn’t. They made that up. They are regurgitating Stanislavski and accepting wholesale all the mumbo-jumbo crap about believing in a pretend sense of truth. You cannot make up a truth and then hope that other people will believe in it. Or you can, you can write a book, it can become famous and people will teach other people to do it, who also won’t be able to do it because it isn’t real and will pretend they are doing it to get a good grade, or avoid criticism from another acting teacher who thought this sounded like a good idea.
I would hate to be an actor – seriously, I would hate it. To have these bozos spouting about acting from their protected academic positions, complete nonsense that you have to swallow or you don’t pass the course, or you incur their wrath.
Acting isn’t believing. Acting isn’t about giving birth to anything. Acting isn’t believing in pretend circumstances until you delude yourself into making them true to you. Act is NOT knowing how to find the belief in the truth of your character.
I always think people see through this nonsense. But they don’t.
I’m offering a common sense solution in my acting classes and my book. Take it or leave it, but please, do not buy into this garbage about acting and believing.
Total crap. They call it legendary textbook. I call it toilet paper.