*Killing John Wayne

For those of you who don’t know who John Wayne was- see his movies. 

 He plays the same character in every movie, much like anumber of today’s “actors”.  I consider these people not actors, but personalities.  A true actor finds a way of getting out of their own way and becoming the character.   Ultimately, they join with the playwright in creating this character from the human “archetypes” that exist to reflect our own life.  John is one “archetype” played endlessly in every character he portrays.  I say kill John Wayne in our art.

I find the following excerpt most clearly describes what actors should be reaching for, which is, finding the character within themselves not themselves in the character.

“Chekhov’s technique is a completely imaginative approach to experiencing the truth of the moment. According to Chekhov the work of the actor is to create an inner event which is an actual experience occurring in real time within the actor. This inner event as it is being experienced by the actor is witnessed by the audience as an outward expression related to the contextual moment of the play. This event and the ability to create it belong to what Michael Chekhov calls the Creative Individuality of the actor, and is not directly tied to his personality. This Creative Individuality allows the artist actor to use parts of himself that are not just the smaller meaner more banal elements that make up his daily life, but rather parts of his unconscious, where dwell more universal and archetypal images. In Chekhov’s own words:

“All you experience in the course of your life, all you observe and think, all that makes you happy or unhappy, all your regrets or satisfactions, all your love or hate, all you long for or avoid, all your achievements and failures, all you brought with you into this life at birth -your temperament, abilities, inclinations etc., all are part of the region of your so called subconscious depths. There being forgotten by you, or never known to you they undergo the process of being purified of all egotism. They become feelings per se. Thus purged and transformed, they become part of the material from which your Individuality creates the psychology, the illusory “soul” of the character.”

(To The Actor by Michael Chekhov)

In this way the ego of the character is not subjected to the ego of the actor, because the Individuality seeks a creative union with the character, and will not allow the smaller personality to invade the character thereby distorting this character into one more representation of the actor’s personality. The actor’s work continually becomes an artistic creation.”

Lenard Petit    The Michael Chekhov Handbook; For the Actor published by Routledge Press

Barbara Kite is a professional acting coach and executive speaking coach as well as a keynote speaker based in Portland Oregon.  For more information see www.barbarakite.com

Advertisement