No Retreat, No Surrender

I thought the following correspondence between an actor and me might ring some bells with some of you. My responses are in italics.

Hi, Les. I’m having some rehearsal problems.  Can you help? 

• I wanted to play the scene one way, but I let my classmates talk me out of my choices. After that, I doubted all of my choices and then couldn’t make a move. I felt trapped and boxed in.  

Well, you do have to take the direction offered during rehearsal. You do have to say, “Yes, and?” And do it.  But this isn’t a big deal because a lot of the direction you’ll get in your acting career will be less than stellar, and you have to be able to do it and do it well so that you don’t get fired.  (The best way to show a director that his direction could be improved upon is to do exactly what he’s asked you to do, and do it brilliantly.) So yes, you do have to try it, but try it happily, not under duress!  Don’t be “talked out of” your ideas.  Just blissfully try theirs.  Then, after you’ve done that, you might say, i.e., “I’d like to try something else. What do you think of this?”  And do it your way.  If they say yay? Yay!  If they say nay? That’s good to know.  You can either agree or disagree.  But since they are your coaches, and not your director, you do not have to do what they suggest in performance or ever again.  It’s up to you.  But bear in mind that YOU cannot see YOU.  They might be seeing something you don’t know about.  What you cannot do is allow what anyone else says to you to destroy you psychologically.  We have to work on that, and it appears that you are in a group that would enable you to work the shit out of that issue.

• One of my classmates said, “I loved how you said that line, but the way you said the next line felt like a line read.'” That felt completely judgy, even if it was said in a nice tone.  

That’s why we work Socratically!  You say, i.e., “Thanks so much for your feedback, but I know Lesly wants us to work Socratically.  Could you restate your suggestion to me in the form of a question?” If she says, “Uch, that’s ridiculous, I’m not doing that,” then you get to say, “Ok, great.  Well, this has been fun, but I gotta go find some people who want to rehearse the way Lesly wants us to rehearse.  Have a nice day!”  And leave the rehearsal.  Yup.

•        When one actor was working, one person said she loved what that person was doing, but I didn’t feel that way. But I was afraid to say anything so I didn’t speak.

Speak.  Socratically.

• I get triggered by packs of younger women. When I feel like an outsider, I retreat.

Well, there you go.  We gotta work on that, because LA is nothing but packs of young women, and I want you to rule, not retreat!