Life is too hard. I am at the end of my rope. I am alone. I will have a bottle of vodka and a loaded gun and I am determined to put an end to my misery. I have done bad things in my life. I have been hurt and I have hurt people. I have cheated and been cheated. I no longer feel like I have the capacity to love and be loved…
…But most importantly, I have played many a character, which is exactly what I am doing now. So please, put down the phone, don’t call for help…I, Tracy, am not going to kill myself. But tomorrow, “Maggie” is going to end it all.
Playing a character, otherwise known as “acting,” allows me to do all the things I just said. I can kill myself. I can kill someone else. I can cheat. I can be a sinner or a saint. I can be happy, sad, funny, and mad. I can be anyone else other than myself. And although I love myself, I do not exactly have the life I dreamed of. But on stage, I am no longer me. I am not in chronic pain. I do not feel like my life is passing me by and taking with it a thousand missed opportunities. I am not responsible for my actions, only my emotions. When I am on stage, I am someone else. And, when it comes to acting, I am pretty darn good, probably due to the fact that I have been pretending to be someone else for most of my life.
If you look at an acting class from a psychological perspective, it can be very beneficial for people who are in pain, be it physical or emotional. Acting is a safe haven, a place to express every emotion, reaction and feeling that is not acceptable in society. For example, I can’t scream, yell and cry in public without being looked at as crazy and possibly being locked up. I can’t express my anger, hurt or frustration by throwing things around or having a fist fight. I can’t have a laughing fit in the middle of a store. So many of the emotions I (and others in similar circumstances) have are socially unacceptable. The rules of our society dictate that it is not okay to express your every emotion…but on stage, I can let out every single emotion I have built up inside me…and it’s safe. There is no judgment. As a matter of fact it is the one place where the more emotion I bring to my character, the better I am!
Many local community theaters offer inexpensive classes. When I was a practicing social worker, I actually utilized some of the exercises we do in class as a way to help people get in touch with their real emotions and express them in a safe way. I also used improvisational comedy exercises to help people both release emotion and LAUGH. Laughter truly is the best medicine (not to mention the adrenaline of performing acts as a potent, temporary pain blocker). Try an acting class and I guarantee, you will not only find a healthy release for those pent-up emotions, but you will probably bust a gut doing so. It doesn’t matter if you do it as a psychological exercise, a hobby, or you are Broadway-bound, acting is a healthy, safe release.
My acting class is the one place where I can be someone else and at the same time, really be me.
Tracy, I love this blog and rather than just quote from it, I’d like to use it in my training and develop blog, where I use my background in theatre (performance criticism and training) to write commentary about the world of training. I like what you said and the way you said it.
If you don’t wish to comment here, that’s okay, please e-mail me at jshaw2040 at yahoo dot com and let me know let me know if it is okay and if you want a link back to this page or not. If you want to make it anonymous that’s okay, too. Here is the link for my international training and development site: http://managementhelp.org/blogs/training-and-development/.
There’s another way that psychology plays a role in acting. You are right about theatre and acting being a release of human tendencies to do “bad” things in a character. For me, I have always looked to psychology as a way to analyse scenes and characters. As a drama critic it is essential.
I’ve studied the Stanislavski’s system. Most of the other acting classes out have their roots from Stan, whoever they are, and of course, Improv. We practiced them all in my various acting classes, except when I worked with Richard Andersen who said what I had was built-in–that I didn’t need those methods to bring the characters out. I had the sensitivity I needed to interpret the text and character easily. What I needed, he said, was to use my knowledge of psychology to give the character logical choices and pick from there the most likely one to enhance the the play’s development. Obviously, if the director wants to go another way, you go; however, you may have already seen how that character develops.
BTW, we, actors, are all different what works for one may not work for others. For example, Improvisational games do nothing for me (at least nothing I’ve seen); however, they work great for others. I’ve been in shows where the great method actor doesn’t even get notice. I had an old psych professor who said this about dealing with mental illness (now don’t laugh, it works for crazy actors, too.): Do what works.
I sent you am email but I’d be thrilled to be included, just please credit me as author and put a link to my blog. Address is below 🙂
Tracy Don’t forget to follow my blog “Finding the ‘Method’ to my Madness: An Actress Prepares” at https://methodmadness2.wordpress.com Facebook: Tracy Rydzy-Galvez
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