A Brief Acting Lesson

"The Representational actor deliberately chooses to imitate or illustrate the character's behavior. The Presentational actor attempts to reveal human behavior through a use of himself, through an understanding of himself and consequently an understanding of the character he is portraying. The Representational actor finds a form based on an objective result for the character, which he then carefully watches as he executes it. The Presentational actor trusts that a form will result from identification with the character and the discovery of his character's actions, and works on stage for a moment-to-moment subjective experience."

- Uta Hagen, Respect for Acting

I first read Uta Hagen's seminal text on acting as a sophomore at Davidson College. At the time, I loved her description of the Presentational actor; it seemed to promote a natural and spontaneous response on stage that I was often incapable of creating. Because of my love of organization, it was much easier for me to plan how to act rather than to live as a character. I strove to become Hagen's ideal actor--the one who would nightly respond to impulses and surprise myself with slight nuances in my performance.

Hagen's words have been coming back to me piece by piece in recent weeks, but never more strongly than in the past few days. As a result, I trekked down to the (somewhat still disorganized) basement family room Friday morning, pulled her book (off the neatly categorized and alphabetized) shelf, and found the words above. As I read, I was shocked to realize that the past eight weeks have changed me in a way that ten years of acting training never could; I have become a Presentational wife but a Representational teacher.

What I mean to say is this: while I would love to believe that I am a strong, mighty woman--and some days I truly am--I now do wear my emotions on my face and speak them in my voice. If I'm sad or angry or grumpy or tired, Jeff knows it. If I'm thinking about the baby or frustrated with a friend or anxious about a trip, I don't try to hide it from him. I admit when a negative home pregnancy test triggers a desire to exert control over my eating habits, and I spontaneously report "I feel pretty today" when I find that I do. As Hagen posits, in my personal life, I have started to understand myself and, in turn, to allow those discoveries to inform my behavior and actions. 

The classroom, though, is a different world for me; there I am the Representational teacher who decides to push through the day with a face crafted like a fragile porcelain vase, despite the tiny fissures just beneath the surface. It wasn't always like that; I used to bring my baggage into the classroom, allowing my own frustration and hurt to result in a short temper with my students. Now, though, being in the classroom is often a relief; it takes the focus off of me and allows me to assertively choose joy (at best) or normalcy (at worst)--at least on my exterior character.

This is the choice I made the day between learning of our lost Blueberry and entering the hospital for the D&C. I had every reason not to go to school that day, but I ignored them all. I cried between at least three different classes that day, with at least three different colleagues. And yet, in my classroom, watching the expectant faces of my students as they made new discoveries and as I reveled in their genuine exuberance, I found that Hagen, again, was correct when she asserted that "the Representational actor finds a form based on an objective result for the character, which he then carefully watches as he executes it." On that day, I watched joy come out of a choice to follow a form that I executed. I don't know what my students learned  on Thursday, January 12, but I am certain of what they taught me.

And so we come to the here and now. Just over eight weeks after my D&C, my body still not restored to rights, the game of Chutes and Ladders still precariously balanced, I am coming to learn that, as an actor chooses a new approach for each role, I can also choose a new approach for each day, each person, each situation. There is not a right and a wrong answer for all eternity; there is only today.

And today, I choose...