Remembering What We Have Forgotten

“When my daughter was about 7 years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college – that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, “You mean they FORGET?” Howard Ikemoto

We can all act. We may not all have the precise combination to be Duse or Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, or Benedict Cumberbatch, but we can all act.

Usually, we have become disconnected from our sense of play, we have developed a self critical self-image and we cannot get out of our way long enough to have fun and enjoy ourselves.

Acting can be taught. But it is really about connecting the existing dots. An acting technique is not to teach acting, but to help the actor to channel and explore what is already present. If the training consists of mastering the technique, we accidentally miss the opportunity to master the self. That’s what acting really is. A tremendous mastery of self.

Of course, some people are luckier than others, some have more opportunities, some have a better network of connections, some have a better sense of play, or perhaps a more child like sense of self.

Successful actors remember what the child takes for granted.