by Fr. Paul McCarren, SJ
Among Fr. McCarren's acting credits is the role of King Aegeus in a production of Medea at the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. He has been acting and directing plays in New York and D.C. since 1972.
Praying and acting are intensely personal acts of self-expression. What's happening inside a person during prayer is not perceivable. We remain similarly ignorant of what excites, supports, or disturbs actors as they work through a scene. But the inability to know the inner experiences of someone performing either of these activities is not the same thing as ignorance of the procedures of the activity itself. There are indeed techniques for the one who acts and the one who prays; once described, they appear surprisingly similar.
Many actors, playwrights, directors, and theater critics speak of remarkable acting technique as though it were some kind of miracle. They treat technique as though actors were shamans who worship the willful gods of inspiration, conjuring their powers from the murky, mystical realm of genius. But not everyone believes that acting is mysterious; some refuse to belittle the actor's craft by tracing it to inexplicable inspiration. Laurence Olivier, in his autobiography, says, "Genius, I think, is too unreal. You can apply the word to other forms of art, but theater deals primarily in practicability; there is no room for genius. . . . You take care of the play and let the genius take care of itself." The actor's technique is not the ability to create effects; it is the readiness to ask and answer the question "What if?"
When actors wonder what it would be like to be in a character's situation, they must recognize and explore their emotional reactions to it. This may seem to be an obvious process, but it is not. We do not ordinarily confront or savor our reactions that startle or dismay us, so we normally try to ignore them. Acting is difficult because, despite the natural resistance to candidness we all experience, actors must remain open to each response a script stimulates, an openness quite different from the self-possession at which we aim in daily life. Social interaction encourages us to restrain our impulses -- acting demands the opposite.
Actors must know how to explore all the emotions a scene stirs up. If they flee from startling or unpleasant feelings, probing only those that suit their prejudices, they will try to embody emotions they do not truly feel, becoming victims rather than masters of their feelings. A director's advice can also tempt actors into emotional straightjackets. However, even when a director asks actors to do something that strikes them as awkward, they can free themselves from resistance by reimagining the direction: "I don't see myself doing that, but what if I did?"
All sensible actors will say they want to explore completely the emotions that can be prompted by a script. They don't want merely to flesh out stock responses. But to remain open to the feelings that may be aroused or requested during rehearsal, they have to face the fact that most of us want to resist our emotions. How can actors confront and resolve this quandary? It may seem an unlikely place to look for this question's answer, but we can find one in Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises.
The Exercises is a handbook for spiritual directors to help guide others through exercises in prayer. Ignatius asserted that those who perform the Exercises would learn to communicate with God. A fundamental part of this process, he insisted, is overcoming obstacles to it: "Just as taking a walk, journeying on foot, and running are bodily exercises, so we call Spiritual Exercises every way of preparing and disposing the soul to rid itself of all inordinate attachments, and, after their removal, of seeking and finding the will of God."
Ignatius saw the Exercises as a technique for recognizing resistance and prejudices and freeing oneself from them to open a conversation with someone else -- God. One need not have strong religious convictions to share Ignatius's respect for the tenacity of prejudices and to be attracted to his invitation to free oneself from bias. According to Ignatius, it is only after we detach ourselves from obsessions that we can turn our attention to someone else's desires.
If we look at the Exercises with an actor's eye, we recognize in Ignatius's technique the same strategy needed in acting. In both cases, one deliberately opens oneself to suppositions that call for imagining "What if?"
The Exercises call on exercitants to ask God to affect their every desire. Implicit is the need to imagine interacting with another person: "What would it be like if I allowed all my impulses and actions to be motivated by a concern for God's desires?" This act of imagination, of asking "What if?" nudges exercitants away from habitual suppositions and toward focusing on someone else's desires.
Ignatius wants exercitants to use their imagination to explore concrete details. When he speaks of seeing a place, he is talking about sensing it physically, concentrating on matters that strike and captivate the senses. He wants this focus to be intense, not perfunctory. Exercitants are to take careful note of the details of whatever they imagine, lingering on the particulars that strike their senses and stepping away from assumptions to confront things from a fresh point of view.
If, say, they ask God for something, the request should not be mechanical. They should observe how God responds. What does God do when presented with a specific need? Because exercitants are to open themselves to the imagined feelings and intentions of another, they must be willing to experience reactions contrary to what they expect to feel. They must practice openness. Profound openness is essential to Ignatius's technique for praying. Because exercitants are expected to discover the effects of the Exercises by using them, not by analyzing them, they may not be fully aware that they are opening themselves to unpredictable stimuli. Despite clear instructions that urge exercitants to expose themselves to sensations generated by other persons and outside events, exercitants may nonetheless feel responsible for creating and controlling their impressions.
Part of one exercise consists in lingering over encounters imagined during earlier exercises that have brought great emotional comfort or disquiet. It's not difficult to imagine exercitants resisting this instruction. Which of us relishes reliving moments of discomfort? But Ignatius is clear in his directions. He also makes it clear that exercitants are not merely to analyze their reactions. When, for example, they petition Mary, Jesus, and the Father for three favors (knowledge of one's sins, realization of the disorder in one's life, and understanding of the world), the insights and their attendant emotions are matters for dialogue, not theological deliberation. "How might Mary respond if I brought this need to her?" Do they imagine her to be silent? Does that console or disturb them? Do they imagine her speaking? Is she persuasive? Through such dialogue the Exercises invite exercitants to be open to influences that can stir up profound, unpredictable emotions.
This invitation to openness underlies the Exercises. Exercitants are repeatedly directed to react to the situations and persons in each meditation with unrehearsed candor. They are to mull over whatever occurs, to savor details, to discover what they feel about the scene, to let themselves be consoled or disturbed by whatever they observe.
Ignatius takes for granted that we need a method for rejecting our biases and facing truths that can excite fear and undermine fixations. His method couldn't be clearer: to turn from our obsessions, we must let someone else entice us toward other concerns. Throughout the Exercises he directs exercitants to see things as someone else sees them, to be open to honest exploration. "Notice how little you understand. Notice your need to explore and listen. Now, listen. Keep listening. Note what others say and do, and note your reactions. Let your reactions return you to listening to the others in the scene." Whatever happens, exercitants should ask the person with whom they are having an imaginary dialogue: "What do you make of all this?" Exercitants are to be absorbed in the act of listening. Their responses to others' actions and reactions cannot be precisely anticipated, but these responses, provoked by the details and events that they are imagining and sensing, will seem natural even if unexpected.
Whoever is willing to explore imagined details with patience and to ask "What if?" can practice Ignatius's technique for praying. If you'd like to act, you can use a method that is quite similar: be willing to recognize your resistances; then, in the very face of those resistances, attend to the people and circumstances around you. Finally, savor your reactions as they take shape. And keep listening.
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| Fr. Paul McCarren, SJ, associate pastor at Holy Trinity in Washington, D.C., studied at the Circle in the Square Theater School and taught acting at Fordham and Georgetown universities. He has also written four plays, the latest, Jenny, produced last summer in D.C. |
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| Page maintained by R VandeVelde, vande@math.luc.edu. Updated: Mon., March 17 1997 | |
