Robert Cohen - Theatre, Brief Version-McGraw-Hill Education (2016)

Theatre 57
learns a great deal about acting and, ideally, about human
interactions in real life.
PERFORMANCE
Performance, finally, is what the theatre is about, and
it is before an audience in a live performance that the
actor’s mettle is put to the ultimate test.
Sometimes the results are quite startling. The actor
who has been brilliant in rehearsal can crumble before
an audience and completely lose the “edge” of his or her
performance in the face of stage fright and apprehension.
Or—and this is more likely—an actor who seemed fairly
unexciting in rehearsal can suddenly take fire in performance
and dazzle the audience with unexpected energy,
subtlety, and depth; a celebrated example of this latter process
was Lee J. Cobb in the original production of Arthur
Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which Cobb played the
title role. Actors never really know how their performances
will “come off” until they are performed before a live audience.
But while the changes that occur in front of a live
audience might seem electric to the actors, the structure
of the performance has largely been established. Sudden
and dramatic change is not the norm as the performance
phase replaces rehearsal, and most actors cross over from
final dress rehearsal to opening night with only the slightest
shifts in their behavior; indeed, this is generally thought
to be the goal of a disciplined and professional rehearsal
schedule. While an audience’s unexpected laughter or
silence might make it tempting to question choices made
in rehearsal, actors largely stand by their choices and commit
to their interpretation wholeheartedly.
Yet even when the audience is silent and unseen—
and, owing to the brightness of stage lights, the audience
is frequently invisible to the actor—the performer
feels its presence. There is nothing supernatural about
this: the absence of sound is itself a signal, for when
several hundred people sit without shuffling, coughing,
or muttering, their silence indicates a level of attention
for which the actor customarily strives. Laughter, gasps,
sighs, and applause similarly feed back into the actor’s
consciousness—and unconsciousness—and spur his
efforts. The veteran actor can determine quickly how to
ride the crest of audience laughter and how to hold the
next line just long enough that it will pierce the lingering
chuckles but not be overridden by them; she also
knows how to vary her pace or redouble her energy
when she senses restlessness or boredom on the other
side of the curtain line. The art of “reading” an audience
is more instinctual than learned. It is similar to the
technique achieved by the effective classroom lecturer or
TV talk-show host or even by the accomplished conversationalist.
The timing it requires is of such complexity that
no actor could master it rationally; he or she can develop
it only through experience—both on the stage and off.
Professional stage actors face a special problem
unknown to their film counterparts and seldom experienced
by amateurs in the theatre: the problem of maintaining
a high level of spontaneity through many, many
performances. Some professional play productions perform
continuously for years, and actors may find themselves
in the position of performing the same part eight
times a week, fifty-two weeks a year, with no end in sight.
Of course the routine can vary with vacations and cast
substitutions; and in fact very few actors ever play a role
continuously for more than a year or two, but the problem
can become intense even after only a few weeks. How, as
they say in the trade, does the actor “keep it fresh”? How
can something seem new if it occurs over and over?
Each actor has her or his own way of addressing this
problem. Some rely on their total immersion in the role
and contend that by “living the life of the character” they
can keep themselves equally alert from first performance
to last. Others turn to technical experiments—reworking
their delivery and trying constantly to find better
ways of saying their lines, expressing their characters,
and achieving their objectives. Still others concentrate
on the relationships within the play and try with every
performance to find something new in each relationship
as it unfolds onstage. A professional must find a way to
walk on stage as if it were a totally new experience—to
be “in the moment” and, ideally, to still find new aspects
of their character, even after hundreds of performances.
The actor’s performance does not end with the play,
for it certainly extends into the postplay moments of the
curtain call—in which the actor-audience communion
is direct and unmistakable—and it can even be said to
extend to the dressing-room postmortem in which the
actor reflects on what was done today and how it might
be done better tomorrow. Sometimes the postmortem of
a play is handled quite specifically by the director, who
may give notes to the cast. More typically, in professional
situations, the actor simply relies on self-criticism,
often measured against comments from friends and fellow
cast members, from the stage manager, and from
reviews in the press. If there has been a shift up from
the rehearsal phase to the performance phase, there is
now a shift down (or a letdown) that follows the curtain
call—a reentry into a world in which actions and reactions
are likely to be a little calmer. There would be no