Blistering and Bloodletting
If you were ill in 1800 with a chest infection, doctors might reasonably offer you two of the best possible solutions. They could put scolding hot cups on your skin to draw out the impurities – blistering your skin OR, they might draw up to half a litre of blood from you in a process called blood letting.
These were both the established medical practises of the day. Qualified doctors assured the patients that it was good for them and the patient accepted that. One hurt like like hell and was entirely useless. The other often killed the patient.
When an acting coach is asked to make an intervention in an actor’s career, they must work very hard to offer the right tools, techniques, guidance and advice. But all too often, the actor receives the equivalent of blistering and bloodletting. They assure the client that it’s good for them, they acknowledge a certain amount of pain will be necessary and then engage in activities that are either useless, or do more harm than good.
The patients looked to the doctor’s expertise for help and trusted them. The doctors wanted to help and fully believed in their remedies. But they didn’t help and they did more harm than good. Sadly, those that survived became the proof that reinforced the belief that these techniques worked. And doctors built their reputations on the success of these survivors.
Actor training and coaching is exactly the same. Those wishing to become or become better actors, look to acting schools and acting coaches for help. Well-intentioned and experienced professionals then apply a range of techniques to the actor based on their experience of what worked in the past.
The problem is that just like patients of the 19th Century, some actors will receive no help, some will be damaged and some will survive nonetheless.
Of course, there are some acting coaches that don’t use useless or damaging techniques but since there is no accrediting body, there’s no way to know who can help or who will harm. Of course, credibility, experience, qualifications, reputation etc are all important factors, but those 19th Century doctors had those too.
And here’s a further problem:
Sometimes to make someone better, it does have to hurt. So it’s not like you can tell from how they try to help. A friend has systemic lupus, a lifelong incurable illness, in order to counteract the immune system treating her body like an outside attacker, she has to take a type of medication which is a form of low-dose chemotherapy. The side effects list runs to about a page. There’s a lot of pain and discomfort involved in countering systemic lupus. But when the medication starts working, she will start to feel better. Sometimes you have to make someone sick to heal them.
Actors should always look to the acting coach’s reputation, qualifications, testimonials, written output (blogs and books) and experience. But those things only influence credibility, they aren’t the end of the story. It is possible to have all of those things and for the coach like the 19th Century doctor, truly believing that they are helping. But just because most actors survive the encounter does not endorse the coach and/or their methods. The patient that survived bloodletting was very thankful to the doctor for saving them from their illness, unaware of the narrow escape they just had.
Modern medicine relies on results. Tangible results. Low dose chemo either works for you, or it doesn’t.
Coaching actors should be no different. Either the actor experiences tangible skill development and improved performance, or they don’t. Like my friend, they might have to endure a time when the treatment makes them worse before they get better, but in the end, they experience great improvement.
The aim of modern of medicine is not for the patient to survive the treatment, actors should be no different. Am I calling acting coaches quacks? No, not at all, but I am demonstrating how difficult it is to know if your coach is helping you or harming you.