Sloppy Repetition
Meisner believed actors do not listen. They are so focused on what they have to do that they rarely listen and connect with their partners truely. I would go one further and suggest this is not a problem for actors, this is a problem for the human race. Yesterday I had an experience on the telephone and it made me think about how we do not listen. We gloss over, we fill in the blanks, we presume, but we don’t listen…
CALLER: Hello, Mr Jones?
ME: No.
CALLER: Hello there Mr Jones, I’m calling from SOME COMPANY TRYING TO SELL YOU SOMETHING THAT YOU DON’T WANT.
Now how was this boy going to sell me something if he hadn’t listened to see if I was Mr Jones or not? He wasn’t listening, he was too focused on his task to actually care about the one person that could help him do his job better. It is the same for the actor.
Until now, I’ve resisted writing about the repetition exercise or game. Personally, I think talking about it dilutes it somewhat. Yet, there’s no better exercise for the actor that teaches them to listen, pay attention to their partner, see what changes in their partner and educates them in how to connect with their partner, whether their partner is connected to them or not.
To me, one of the big problems with students as they get better at the exercise is that they no longer focus on being precise about the repetition. In other words, they sort of gloss over the cracks, presuming, reading, fortune telling the response, and not allowing the moment to be true.
REPEAT WHAT YOU HEAR is one of the basic tenets of the exercise, yet people want to lead, they want to abuse, control, bully, compete with the other person. Just repeat what you hear with your own perspective.
Repetition becomes fake when you begin to try to take control. Do you see? It’s not ABOUT YOU. It’s about the OTHER person.
When you take control of the repetition, you are getting sloppy, you are no longer truly PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR PARTNER. You make assumption and presumptions. You can afford to neither.
How many times do we hear the same old predictable calls made when someone does something that you recognise. You say ‘ah yes, that’s this’, before you even look to see what it truly is. You must be on the ball, that’s what being in the moment is about, but you must also be exact, you must be precise, you must learn to see the difference between disagreement and surprise (for instance).
Challenge yourself to take your time next time you are up doing repetition. Challenge yourself to say what it is, not what you have gotten used to saying. When I was training, I remember that one of my classmates would also use ‘you’re stuck in your head’ or ‘you’re in your head’ whenever she couldn’t think of anything else to say. She was learning to lie and this exercise is about revealing the truth.
Repetition is about learning to see what behaviour your scene partner is exhibiting so that you can learn to address that behaviour with your actions.
Sloppy repetition improves no one. It simply allows you to lie to yourself, and to your scene partner.