The Great Acting Blog: “Truly Great Actors Set The Audience Free”

The Great Acting Blog: “Truly Great Actors Set The Audience Free”

When we are with a true friend, a real friend, we are relaxed and open. We know that we are with someone who cares about us, who respects us, and who enjoys being in our company.  When we are with a true friend, we feel free – true friends do not try to control us, or try to extort something from us, or try to get us to do something. They do not judge us.  When we are with a true friend, we feel free. In a true friendship, there is space for the absence of power.

Similarly with the actor-audience relationship. Most actors don’t care about the audience, they just turn up, knock out the lines on cue then go home. Then there are some actors who want the audience to love them, and so try to dazzle them with charisma and technique and impressiveness.

Then there are the few truly great actors, who care about the audience but do not try to elicit something from them. Instead, they create the space for the absence of power within each individual viewer, thus setting him free, for at least the duration of the performance.

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