The Great Acting Blog: “Relax Until The Lights Come Up”

The Great Acting Blog: “Relax Until The Lights Come Up”

You can go over and over a performance in your head, you can practice a scene at home trying to compensate for the fact that the other actor isn’t there, a million times. But does that help you? Or does it get you over-wrought, too keyed up, so that you fail to fully express yourself in performance. It’s almost as though we become too focussed.

The trick is to rehearse the scene so that the lines and actions become habitual. And then forget about them. Relax. When you go into the production to do the scene proper, then focus your mind on the scene, and let the preparatory work come into effect. Everything else around that will just wear you out and grind you down. Relax. Enjoy the performance to come.

Of course, this over focussing, this running around worrying, really is just some kind of protection mechanism: “if I slam myself hard enough, then I will be insulated from the turbulence brought about by failure”. Or, is it self-punishment come early? That is, the self-punishment you will mete out after you’ve done the scene proper, and deemed that you have failed?.

None of that is useful or fun. Do the necessary prep. Then relax until the lights come up.

 

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