Actors - how do you handle difficult emotional material?

Do you work through all the tear jerking stuff during rehearsals so that you don't react to it onstage?

Just curious because last night I attended a play and tonight a documentary that have both left me wrung out. I'm exhausted.

it never comes back up onstage to bite you?

Well when I did RAGTIME, we did all the sobbing during rehearsals. But when I was off stage watching certain scenes that involved Coalhouse I was all about the tears, as were the rest of us. Luckily, when you're performing the show onstage, you're so worried about making sure everything is going well. Obviously, I'm sure when you're in a dramatic scene that is really difficult you are focusing on that, making your job all the easier. I was Evelyn, so I didn't have that much tearing up to do, but I know the girl who played Mother would always cry onstage during BACK TO BEFORE and that only made it better.

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Well said, jrb.

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but do the actors get caught up in the emotion, too, or does the audience pick up on it more because it's new to them?

For me, it is 100% about affecting the audience, so what I'm feeling as an actor is less than secondary. i.e., make them cry instead of worrying if you cry.

It's about learning empathy. If you're too affected by something, it is because you aren't in the scene. If you stay in the scene, you won't need to bother with whether or not you'll get too affected by it.

Borstal, I remember that from Judi. I remember her as saying, "I shant do it like that at all..." when she finished. And, I remember thinking, "Good!" It's virtuosic, but not right for that moment -- and, Dench, being a British actor, has an end state of the audience, not the actor being involved.

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I would say that I don't try to make the audience do anything. I try to make the other character give me what I want. The director is responsible for what the audience gets. But that's just the philosopy I have been taught. And sometimes the other character IS the audience. :)

vmlinnie--you should always give your all--what you rehearse is what you will perform. That's the nature of habit. If it's stale, you are trying to recreate something instead of creating something new every time. You are never getting the exact same impulses from the other actor, therefore, you can never recreate the scene exactly the same.

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Jerby, I feel ya. And I 100% agree about rehearsing like you perform, and each time being different. For me, though, objective is less important than experience. Objective comes into play during the creation of a role, but the audience always completes that picture (as they are the main object of theatre). Meisner works wonders for many many actors, but for me, it created too flat a palate. The stuff the French and Brits teach is more my cup of tea -- I especially dig smart acting methods like Lecoq.

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I'm currently working on some scenes from "Angels in America" and I'm being emotionally torn up by it. Most of what's said is what I agree with, you just kind of have to learn to control the emotion, there are very few people that would fall on the ground in a screaming crying mess, and unless your character is one of those very few people then you really need to get a grip on how much you want to show the audience. I'm having a hard time finding that balance.

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Oh, one should def mark during tech rehearsals except when asked to play fully. As long as they know you are marking. You can't possibly get through 10 out of 12s (or even simpler tech rehearsals) otherwise.

My philosophy of acting has become fairly rooted in the David Mamet/Atlantic Theater Company (which is very Meisner influenced).

Thus, I recommend:

A Practical Handbook for the Actor by Melissa Bruder

True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor by David Mamet

The Monologue Audition: A Practical Guide for Actors by Karen Kohlhaas (The DVD of this is great stuff--to be honest, I haven't read the book yet)

Mamet is very controversial for being anti-Method/Stanislavski. But I believe that any actor can read Practical Handbook and/or take basic classes at the Atlantic and take away a truly brilliant way to analyze a scene/play to find your objectives--however you use them. And the repetition/Meisner aspect is all about learning how to truly live in the moment by acting off of what your acting partner is actually doing in any given performance--to not presuppose the energy of the scene.

I believe that whatever technique works for you is the one you should use--I just find this to be a particularly revelatory technique for me after having never connected with Method and feeling like a sham for not. Read those first two books and you may see into that same feeling. I think most all of us use a combination of techniques.

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Well the interesting difference between Method and Mamet's technique are in just that--in Method, an actor recalls an experiences that took place. In Mamet's, an actor imagines an experience that is never happened. In the former, you are likely to presuppose emotional state, the end result, the other person's actions and reactions. In the latter, anything can happen and you should be prepared for such.

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I should have said in my previous post that those are techniques for rehearsal only. Onstage, you play the realities of the scene. You just do those techniques when you are discovering.

Well, I should learn more about Lecoq, particularly in how they can be used in film/contemp drama.

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