The Green Room

Actors talk a lot about being present.  On stage or in rehearsal, it’s that sense of instinctive, responsive, in-the-moment existence as a character we’re taught to strive for–and once we grasp it: maintain.  It is almost universally accepted that being present is necessary to contribute anything of value (excepting, maybe, penicillin, which  happened on accident), particularly in the arts.  There is a sense of respect for an artist that inspires the observation: “They are always present in the room.”  It means they’re thinking about the work, processing it, without distraction, and therefore giving the piece and their fellow collaborators their full due.

It’s also almost universally accepted that functioning without a present state of mind has a debilitating effect on whatever we do, whether on our own or with others.  In the theatre, this can also equate to a Lapse In a Quality Performance (or LIQP, an acronym I have made up just now).  Such examples follow:

• An actor sounds like he’s speaking memorized text instead of discovering the words in the scene (“as if for the first time”) out of a sense of need.
• An actor takes two minutes to do a speech that should have been done in one–interjecting her text with “performing,” thus throwing off the pacing of the whole show. (We will assume the director did not ask her to do this.)
• An actor comes in and out of character on stage: sometimes he’s very grounded and living the part totally; in another scene you see him shifting in and out of paying attention to what is happening around him.

All of these instances have a similar problem unhinging these actors from what otherwise may have been a brilliant night at the theatre: a lack of focus.

Focus as we know it (and as Google has so kindly offered to define for us) is an “act of concentrating interest or activity on something.”  We pick a point, action, or intention, and we go at it with guns blazing.  We manifest and channel our energy through the character–or channel the character’s energy through us, depending on your own process and training of thought–to achieve whatever they need to achieve.  “This is all well and good,” you might say, “but if it is as simple as that, what is the problem here?  What results in a lack of focus?”  Well, just about everything else.  Blocking, lights, an unruly scene partner, a costume that alters how we move–all of these circumstances of performance can at times manifest or appear as obstacles to our focus on stage as the character.  How can one learn to cope?

I often think the true source in an unfocused stage life stems from a lack of ability to securely focus well in our life outside of our art form.  In this age of instant and readily available information, opportunities for the mind to venture off into several directions present themselves constantly.  Not only that: they find us.  Thanks to smart phone technology, we now have instant access to phone calls, texts, emails, the Internet, and specific Internet pages, including Twitter and the King of All Time Suck, Destroyer of Self-Worth and Source of Petty Jealousy: Facebook (or KATSDSWSPJ, another acronym I have made up just now).*

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love technology.  The Internet makes researching for a part and looking for work or common connections with people you want to work with so much easier than it was twenty, ten, or even five odd years ago.  And you will have to rip my smart phone from my cold, dead hand, following an intense cage match involving medieval weaponry (with dragon), and only after I have been beheaded will you have really succeeded in killing me dead, thus ending my attachment to this object.  However, I must acknowledge that the consistent bombardment of outside stimulus, asking me to look at the new photos I’ve been tagged in, or read the breaking news, or to check out the latest deal available from one of the four mass-purchasing websites I’ve signed up for, creates a state of mind that–while constantly alert–is not always the most steady.  And I think it is fair to say that other people experience this as well.

When this is the neutral we establish for our mind’s state of functioning everyday, how can it be possible to focus on creating fully conceived characters for a piece of theatre, as well as then being able to maintain the focus necessary to carry those lives over the course of around two hours at a time, 3-6 times a week, for a one month run?  How?  HOW?!

We must begin by working to create a steady and focused mind outside of our art form, in our day-to-day life.  To deal with the level and number of distractions that can enter our lives at any moment, we must do what we can to curb the amount of things we invest our focus in.  Put more simply, we need to stop multi-tasking.  In an interview with the New York Times about Rapt, a book concerned with showing how what we focus on directly impacts our lives, author Winifred Gallagher says, “Multitasking is a myth.  You cannot do two things at once.  The mechanism of attention is selection: it’s either this or it’s that.”  The article also mentions that if you are centering your attention on something and then take a break, it can take a whole twenty minutes to get back to that place of steady focus you were before.  Thinking about this fact and then taking into consideration the number of interruptions that can occur from outside sources or generated by ourselves when we’re working at one task, we can see the amount of time it takes to complete that task grow astronomically.

To illustrate this point, I will admit to you that while writing this post I have received two texts, one Facebook message, and over fourteen emails–of which only four where from people I actually knew, and out of that only one being a message directed solely to me that would require a response.  From the efforts of my own wandering mind, I have also spent a bit of time (let’s say fifteen minutes) finding out just how long one can and should infuse vodka for (I am planning some killer Bloody Marys for a brunch).  So having checked my phone five times (once for the texts, four other times to see if there had been any developments), my email three times, and my KATSDSWSPJ once (I bet you thought I’d forgotten that acronym by now), plus the time I’ve spent away seeing how best to stew alcohol, I have essentially racked up 200+ minutes of negative focus–200+ minutes I’ve been struggling to fully focus back into writing this post.  Therefore, composing this post with any kind of value and thought has taken, at minimum THREE HOURS LONGER to actually write.  What else could I have done with those three hours?  Worked on learning a new song?  Read one–or two!–whole plays?  Gone for a jog?  The possibilities are endless.

By stealing our focus, we also steal our own time.

Let’s come back to acting for a moment, though, shall we?  When the mind is so susceptible to outside stimulus as to be easily distracted (and we have already established most of us living our modern lives persist at existing in this place), it creates a lag in the ability to generate a state of solid focus.  Then once we gain that focus, we may also find it is difficult to keep it for very long.  We have been training the mind to switch on and off so frequently, that we can’t keep it steadily in that “on” position, considering one thing, for a lengthy period of time.  This habitual limited focus detracts from our ability to be fully present in the room or on stage, and indeed, severely reduces any chance of working to any great effect.

When in rehearsal, we need to be focused on learning our character and understanding the world they function in.  When learning our lines, we have to focus on the sound, texture, and meaning of the words and thoughts the writer has offered us.  In performance, we need to focus on listening actively and responding to what our scene partner–and at times what the audience–offers us so we can stay connected to what is happening in front of our character’s eyes.  None of these things can be done without concentration and steadiness of mind, and when we start with a mind that can function only erratically, veering off in other directions when something is amiss (someone drops a line, you hate your costume, a lighting cue is off), or was never there to begin with, it is impossible to offer the totality of your work–work you’ll only have managed to achieve if you stayed focused enough in rehearsal to have gotten that far.

As actors, we need to work to counteract the effects of a world that offers us too much stimulus, all at once, in order to help re-establish the ability to focus for long periods of time.  We need to take steps to create a habit of concentrating on one thing, and then move on to the next.  This means working consciously to acknowledge what pulls us from doing our work with the mindset of “one-step-at-a-time,” and learning how to cease those actions.  Once we stop giving into the habit of inattention, we should see our ability to focus strengthen, and our work will flourish from a more concentrated and deeper understanding of the world of the play and our character’s actions in it–an understanding that can only come from enveloping one’s self in the world, an envelopment only possible through true, uninterrupted focus.