What if…

 

What if I told you that those two simple words make up the foundation for the system that I and the vast majority of teachers of acting use to guide our students? Would you believe me?

 

Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski is a father of the Russian theatre and co-founder of the world famous Moscow Art Theatre. Respected as an actor and director, his largest influence on the performing arts is the development of his system of actor training, preparation, and rehearsal techniques. The Stanislavski System of acting developed out of his persistent efforts to remove the blocks that he encountered in his own performance. He rigorously investigated the actor’s process and developed actor-centric rehearsal and performance techniques that he called “psychological realism.” Simplified, the Stanislavski System is built on the core idea that an actor, with thorough script analysis, can identify a character’s objectives and obstacles within the given circumstances of the play and then, having done that, should consider “the magic if…”

 

Stanislavski did not think that an actor could honestly believe in the truth and reality of the events on the stage, but he did think that an actor can believe in the possibility of the events; therefore, an actor must always try to answer the question, “What would I do if I…” The Magic If carries the actor into imaginary circumstances and transforms the character’s aims into the actor’s. It becomes the stimulus for inner feelings, imagination, thought, and logical action. 

 

Have I lost you yet?

 

Let me try to simplify it one more time. Please excuse my obvious passion for the subject. An actor’s job is to figure out what a character wants, why they want it, and what is standing in their way. Through those discoveries they can identify what the character is thinking and feeling, and those thoughts and feelings lead them to doing, and that action is called…acting. The Magic If is what allows an actor to find the truth in situations they have never personally experienced. 

 

There…now you have passed the course…You are an actor…Please don’t forget me in your Oscar acceptance speech. 

 

There is an article currently floating around Facebook that has sent me into a minor tailspin. Actually, the article’s title is all it took. It’s from The New York Times. You have to pay to read that paper online, and while I don’t begrudge having to take out a subscription for high quality journalism, it’s not in the budget; so the title is all I got. 

 

“My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years. Does the World Need It Anymore?”

 

I do not, and won’t presume or claim to, know any of the contents of this article; but the title set off all kinds of “what ifs” in my brain and forced me down a dark rabbit hole of doubt. I imagine many of us are in that same rabbit hole. The coronavirus is claiming lives, real ones; and that is sudden and tragic and the thing to never lose focus on in this pandemic. But it is also claiming the metaphoric lives and dreams of artists and entrepreneurs. 

 

I made The Vintage Theatre Company, and all of its parts and programs, my life for the last almost eight years. I was dreaming about it and laying the foundations for years before that. It captivated all my time and my talents. It became my child, and as the company went, so went my mood and my emotions. For all intents and purposes, it’s closed. Right now, it’s temporary; but what if it turns out to be forever? What if the world doesn’t need it anymore? On the other hand, what if this is just another bump in the road? Trust me, VTC has seen a lot of them. Our road to prosperity is littered with West Virginia-sized potholes, and we have often been slowed down due to long stretches of construction. 

 

I don’t really know what happens next. None of us do. We don’t know if we are in the middle of this thing, about to come out on the other side, or if this is just the beginning. So, lacking all experience with living through a global pandemic, what remains is The Magic If. 

 

As I am sure many of you do, I get up every morning and go to bed every evening with all sorts of questions circling in my head. All of these questions lead to deep thoughts, big thinks, that I am simultaneously allowing and being forced into having. All the thoughts have accompanying emotions, complex and complicated; and all these feelings inevitably lead to doing. 

 

This is the stuff that Stanislavski must have wrestled with, the psychology that he investigated and studied that helped him systematize a process for the actor. Acting doesn’t have to be overly complicated and rigid. We try to understand our circumstances as deeply and specifically as we can, and then we let go and allow ourselves to feel and do…feel and do…feel and do. Every new feeling is brought on by a reaction to the previous doing, becoming an endless loop of acting and reacting over and over again until the end of the play.  

 

But here’s the thing of it, and this is the one major point that I left out of the acting lesson at the top. You may consider this extra credit, but it will most certainly be on the test later. 

 

We get to choose our actions. We don’t always get to determine our circumstances, we can’t always control our thoughts, and very rarely are we always capable of containing our emotions. But we always get to choose our actions. 

 

I really can’t tell you how many times I have heard a director say, “What’s the strongest choice?” Hell, I couldn’t tell you how many times I have said it. As humans, whether consciously or unconsciously, we choose every action. We do it with either great thought or by simply turning our brains off and allowing a conditioned response to happen. For an actor, we have the benefit of rehearsal; which means we get to contemplate and collaborate on every choice. Some choices are considered strong while others are considered weak. No choice is ever wrong though, as long as it is honest. 

 

I have made a lot of weak choices this last month. I have chosen to sleep when the stronger choice was to get up. I have chosen to eat when the stronger choice was to take a walk. I have chosen to talk when the stronger choice was to listen. I have chosen to dismiss when the stronger choice was to accept. And worst of all I have chosen to rage and whine and pity when the strongest choice of all right now is to appreciate. 

 

What if this pandemic changes the way I live my life and make my art? What if it differs some dreams and alters the path I think I’m on? I have air in my lungs, a roof over my head, and food in my belly. I have love in my life, thoughts in my brain, and a fire in my soul. I believe I was created to create and blessed to be a blessing. So today I choose to appreciate. I appreciate everything that has led me to this moment and all that I have within this moment. This is the action I am choosing, and I offer it up to the universe, anxiously awaiting a response.