WANTED: Live Theatre

When was the last time you saw Live Theatre?

I would suggest you’ve rarely if ever seen live theatre. 

I know you’ve seen and even been in live performances, but I would suggest that they were actually lacking the real essence of liveness. By liveness, I mean the sense that something is happening before you for the first time. Real Immediacy.

Now most actors, directors and companies believe they are delivering this, because they don’t know the difference.

They call it this, they convince themselves that the actors work ‘in the moment’ and change in every performance, but they don’t.  They attempt to fulfil the template established in rehearsal.

Rarely if ever do you see live, spontaneous and impulsive performance. If you do, it was an Improv Show, where it really was LIVE.  Live in the sense that the actors were living moment to moment in front of you, not just carrying out prescribed moves.

At ACS we say ‘Acting is Ping Pong, and not Chess’. The actor’s performance should be like a ping pong match, a spontaneous and unplanned moment to moment, action and reaction event. Most are like the chess game, planned moment to moment and performed after much consideration.

How can you tell the difference? It’s easy. Plug your ears up with your fingers. Look to see if what one actor is doing is responded to by what the other actor is doing. It won’t be. Even better, just look to see if the tone of voice, posture, or body language of one actor is affected by what the other actor just did to them – not said – DID.  I’m 99% sure that it won’t.
Live Theatre is rarely seen.

Live Theatre occurs only in the moment.

Live Theatre is ephemeral.

Live Theatre surprises the actors and the audience.

Live Theatre lets the script speak for itself, by never imposing upon it. Letting it remain fluid in its meaning until the final word is spoken.

Live Theatre cannot be rehearsed like traditional theatre, as this makes repeatable habits out of the lines, emotions and tones.

Live Theatre cannot be directed like traditional theatre, because it requires that the director trusts the actors to stay on task but at the same time improvise (their actions, not their lines) from moment to moment.

Live Theatre cannot be taught like traditional acting, because the aim is not to express, not to convey, not to emote, not to do an ‘action’, but rather a moment to moment reaction to what is actually happening – played under prescribed conditions.

Live Theatre is living truthfully under certain conditions prescribed by the script.

But everyone thinks they are already doing this.

And they’re not.

So what do we do?

We learn to make a different kind of theatre. We train differently, we rehearse differently, we direct differently and we perform differently. And in the end, we have a live, spontaneous performance, and not a dead, lifeless shell that’s been rehearsed until it’s ‘right’.