Wednesday, September 3, 2008

acting and reacting

I'm not an actor, but I play one on the stage.

*percussion indicating punchline**Some might say "Badum-chhh!" but not I*

This may seem merely a clever and ironic reworking of an advertising tactic that has become something of a cliche, but it's so much more. Specifically it is a brilliantly clever and devastatingly ironic reworking of an advertising tactic that has become something of a cliche. Also a reflection of true sentiment on my part, but that's almost beside the point.

Actually it is the point. I'll explain, and try from now on to refrain from the obvious jokes. Instead I will employ unobvious...er, never mind. In my experience there are three types of actors, separated by level of skill. The talent trio, if you will. And you will.

The first is the person who thinks theatre would be a neat thing to do, but for whatever reason isn't passionate about it. Maybe this character is too self-conscious to get into it or maybe the talent is just lacking. Regardless, the result is the same - an unconvincing 'performance' that never comes across as anything more than a person who's just speaking a memorized speech. There's no energy and no real acting. This is the sort of 'actor,' directors settle for when there's nobody else. I have no objection to those who do care about theatre getting involved in some capacity whatever their levels of talent, but there's just no excuse for anyone giving what should be an emotion-laden line in a weak monotone. Suspension of disbelief doesn't cease to become a factor just because you're embarrassed to commit to a role, people. Take a hit for the team.

The second acting type is probably the most common - those individuals who have sufficient skill to play their roles convincingly and give a real, perhaps even exemplary, performance...but they cannot achieve the true transformation that distinguishes the best actors. I mean that, however good they are, they cannot let go their own personality completely and give themselves to the role. Why not? No doubt for a variety of reasons - self-consciousness is as frequent an offender against this type as it is against the first, for example (heaven forbid they get cast against character). But I believe that other skills essential to the best actors are the sort that one must be born with. It's an unfortunate reality that in acting, as elsewhere, determination alone is not enough to reach the top. Luck is a factor as well, and genius can no more be bought here than elsewhere. Lest anyone think I am getting caught up in excessive elitism and watching my head inflate, I place myself squarely in this second, non-genius category, and not near the top of its personal spectrum, either.

The third type is of course the true actors, those who are capable of abandoning themselves and transforming into a completely different person whenever they step on stage. These are the people who study their role for weeks or months before rehearsals even begin, trying to get into the head of their respective characters, each figuring out how he or she would think, feel and react to any given situation. Then after they've figured that out they make it happen in front of the audience or camera, changing everything from the way they speak (obvious) to the way they walk (not so obvious) to their manner of facial expression (hardcore). Sometimes it's hard when watching a play or movie to forget that you're watching actors, but not with these superhumans.

Everyone knows it's difficult to act strong emotions for the millionth time, to pretend surprise or fear or rage and ignorance of what the next line is, but you know what's harder? To keep up the facade when the spotlight's not on you. It's so tempting, so very tempting, when watching instead of facilitating a dramatic confrontation, to drop the persona and wink at the audience, letting them in on the big acting joke. Of course you can't do that. There's probably nothing more damaging to the illusion than someone changing their costume, however metaphorical, while everybody's watching. So you've got to keep in character and simulate sometimes the same reactions that you'd give naturally during a regular conversation, and it's incredibly difficult to do convincingly. It should be obvious that class three brings it off with aplomb, which is why they're the real actors, because truth be told acting is more about the seemingly insignificant details and small moments than it is about the dramatic confrontations.

On a related note, Google's come out with a new web browser, called Chrome. Their argument seems to be that all of the other browsers were designed for an Internet that was text-based and focused on static pages, instead of the image-, video-, audio-, and instant-communication-heavy mutant hybrid that we know and feed with our souls (this might not be verbatim), and that a new browser is required for new times. It has nothing to do with money, they $wear. I'm trying it out; it's too early to tell how much of an edge it offers in terms of multimedia, and there are lots of features I haven't touched yet. One that sounds promising is sort of a "one engine per tab" claim, meaning that if one tab gets overloaded trying to do too much and freezes up, any other tabs will still function normally, as opposed to the epic crash sensation that is my otherwise-beloved Firefox under the same circumstances. We'll see if they deliver. One thing that they have already delivered on is the promised speed - Chrome loads pages quickly and, more importantly, opens very quickly from the desktop, which is one up over its competitors already. Since it's only in beta we can probably count on even more speed to come. Its interface is neat and clean to the point of spartan, and there's a nice and easy option for importing all the settings and bookmarks and such from your browser of choice, Firefox for example. Let's see where they go with this.

Wait...that wasn't related at all...

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