Visual artists create their pieces from scratch and choose their subject matter. Songwriters write their own songs, writers their own words. Photographers are blessed to be able to point their camera at anything they want. But actors are one of the few breeds of artists that build off of someone else's creation. How then, when I move from script to script, director to director, do I summarize my work? I spent some time considering this question. And by "some time", I mean roughly five seconds. The answer hit me pretty suddenly.
Unity. Stories that unite audiences in a common goal or idea, that bring them together through laughter, or simply those that remind the audience that no one struggles through life alone.
I have a lot of hate in my heart. People, places, technological snafus fill me with contempt, but my acting is always joyous. It's the one chance I have to share with everyone and anyone in the audience -- and in the play -- a sort of weighted optimism, a belief that this existence is good once you dig through all the bullshit. And whether the outcome of the play is lightheartedly silly, or bittersweet, or downright tragic, the fact that we share it together is beautiful.
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"My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind; and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by the virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone." -- Arthur Miller.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, Mystery Chris!
ReplyDeleteIt is so interesting how acting and music have many things in common. As a pianist, I also have to take what is given and add my own interpretation to the piece. The performance is not fully based on my own inspiration and thoughts but mostly based on the composer's intention. It is just like how actors depend on the script but add their own spice to it. However, for me, it is not unity and common story that creates my music. My approach and goal is kind of different; I like to deliver various messages of the composer and myself to the people. In addition to finding the common things between the audience and myself, I also try to find an unique message that I only can deliver.
ReplyDeleteA very eloquently written statement. Thank you for writing something brief yet profound. These two qualities in conjunction I find to be quite elusive when writing an artist statement, or anything for that matter.
ReplyDeleteAs Christine alluded to above me, I feel a lot in common with the things you say. As performing musicians, we are always having to apply our own interpretations to pieces of music that are hundreds of years old. We perpetually are striving to create something new and something fresh and free of cliche when interpreting these works, yet it is so difficult!! I completely relate to your angst, and I agree that this incredibly mercurial artistic journey each of us experience is put in a different light when we consider that so many of us share the same anxiety, pain, and happiness in relationship to our respective fields.
Ian this was a great artist statement. It was brief and really got your point across.
ReplyDeleteI can totally relate to your ideas about how an actor's job is to realize somebody else's creative process- in fact it is part of what my a2 is about. I think in working with others to create what another person has led the groundwork for, there is such a beautiful opportunity for conversation and learning something more about ourselves and others in the process.
Also, it is really refreshing to hear someone talk about their work as an artist in terms of the simple joy it gives them. Rather than putting all of these pretenses on your artist-hood, you reminded me of why we are all doing what we're doing (hopefully) because it makes us happy.