Hypocrisy and the Actor

I cannot stand most stage acting performances that I see. I am not being snooty or snobby, it’s just there is an in-built hypocrisy that I cannot bear.

I remember watching these wonderfully well known actors in a play in Sydney and being totally repulsed by their performance.

Why?

Because nothing Actor A did was related to what Actor B was doing. And vice versa. Oh yes they were responding beautifully and articulately to what was being said. But since 93% of communication is non-verbal, then they are placing almost all of their focus onto just 7%, the words.

But you know what? I don’t blame the actors for this at all. They were not trained to acknowledge the behaviour of their scene partners.

They were trained with all sorts of bullshit techniques to really feel and use the space and connect without ever really being told how.

They were taught to talk AT each other and fake a connection and the appropriate response.

Well that’s unnecessary and the good news is that learning to acknowledge isn’t difficult, it’s actually very simple. It takes time to learn, that’s all.