Your Goal Is Not To Stay On The Ladder!
As a professional acting coach, I have developed my own approach to acting called The Mindset Acting Technique. It is a powerful set of tools born out of our no bullsh*t philosophy at Acting Coach Scotland.
I believe in the power of technique to lift an actor’s performance. I believe that technique offers the tools to deliver exceptional performance.
But what place does instinct or natural ability have when it comes to technique?
Stanislavski encouraged actors to apply themselves to technique when he says in his book My Life in Art:
“There can be no art without virtuosity, without practice, without technique and the greater the talent, the more they are needed.”
Along the same lines, Stella Adler used to say: “You gotta have a talent for your talent.” You have to have a way of focusing all of that ability and using it on demand.
Technique is there to help support and build on what you already have.
One day I noticed how often my students’ goal seemed to be to “get good at the technique.” I was horrified. Yes, we spend time in class teaching them the techniques and tools that will help them to get the best out of themselves, but what have we created? We do not need actors who are ‘good at the technique’. We need actors that are exceptional performers. The tools and techniques will help, but they are only a part of the individual performer.
Renowned voice coach and director Barbara Housemanexplains why technique is necessary:
“Technique does not have to lead to work that is artificial and studied. Technique does not need to be the enemy of truth. Technique can help you fly. When you have a role you are happy with, in a play you believe in, working with a director and fellow actors you feel at ease with and stimulated by, your voice and body; imagination and creativity work wonderfully well together. However, when all these elements are not in place and you feel less secure, that is when technique comes into its own.”
Technique supports your own instincts, your own ideas, it helps give clarity to the energy of you bring to rehearsal, performance or the shoot.
We spend so much time in the studio helping people learn the technique that they start to believe that’s what they are there to learn. Quite the opposite. They are there to learn to be free, spontaneous performers.
Technique for technique’s sake is a straitjacket for all the good you have inside you.
I often now explain it like this. If you need to get on the roof, what are your options? You have some of your own ideas don’t you? That’s your own instincts. But I have a ladder, a way to get on the roof. That’s technique. Now you may choose a rickety old broken wooden ladder, or a shiny new aluminium ladder, but your goal is not to get and stand on that ladder, your goal is to use the ladder to get to the roof. The goal is exceptional performance for actors, not exceptional use of the technique. And when you are worried about getting down again, you’re going to use the ladder, you’re going to trust that ladder. The ladder is there when you need it. Technique is there when you need it.
Alongside Technique, the individual character of the actor makes a huge impact on success. If they have the motivation, the belief and the focus, they are more likely to succeed. At the same time as developing a phenomenal technique alongside your instincts is to build on your instincts by exploring what Tim Gallwey called the Inner Game.
The techniques of the Inner Game are not instructional at all, they are about building awareness so that your own self-attention, in a self aware and not self critical way develops your own inner technique. Awareness is the most effective way to discover technique. It’s like bringing your own ladder with you everywhere you go.
All technique means obsessing about how to get on the roof but staying on the ladder.
All instinct has you full of ideas of getting onto the roof, but you never get there.
The balance between technique and instinct is the hallmark of the exceptional performer.