Busking

Most of us are buskers, I say this with the greatest love for actors. Our training provided us with nothing of great value more than the experience of learning how to busk it. We’ve been to school, taken classes, maybe even attended exorbitantly priced workshops, where the secret of acting was revealed to us, but we were fucked if we could glean what it was from the instruction given, and after the fun ended, or the trauma subsided, you couldn’t make out what the point was. And so you learned to busk.

What do I mean by busk it? I mean play it by ear, improv what you were going to do in the moment, having no workable approach to rely upon, we simply busk it.

And those who are very good at busking make a career out of it and make it look easy on the camera. And they get paid the Elephant bucks, appear on Inside The Actors Studio, spout crap and look wise.

Busking is the actor’s counter-measure against the fear of screwing up. You’ve been doing it since school, since someone introduced you to an exercise you didn’t understand and guiltily, you complied and pretended it was ‘quite useful’.

There is no shame in busking if what you were taught was bullshit, nonsense and crap. And if you cannot apply what you were taught to the honest business of acting a scene, then either you didn’t listen, you didn’t understand, or more likely, it was bullshit to begin with.

So far, you’ve been busking. The problem is that sometimes you were lucky and sometimes you were not, for busking is hit and miss. But since you know no different, what could you do? You found a way that works for you -sort of – and why risk time, money or reputation on changing that.
That’s the main reason many good actors will never be great actors, because busking is always limited and limiting, because it’s a protective behaviour. And acting is about being in the zone of risk, the improvised spontaneity of the moment. No busker wants to be there because that’s actually what it is not, we want to do just enough to get us into the next scene, safely, and we will be as conservative as we can to get there to avoid harm.

So what do I think you should do. Well first off, don’t worry your secret is safe with me, I won’t tell the world you don’t really have a clue what you’re doing. Second, there are small things that you can be taught that will really help you to move away from reliance on busking, the question is…are you brave enough to learn them?