I’ve been teaching for almost 30 years now at the Barrow Group and I think the phrase that comes most often to my lips is, “Let it go.” I’m inviting my students to let go of all their ideas, their methodology, their harsh self-criticism, and their constant attempts to be perfect.
Letting go of ideas. Actors will come to class with all these great ideas of how they are going to play the scene—how they’ll say the lines, what they think the character is feeling, what they think the character should be thinking about, etc. When the actor starts to let go of their ideas, their acting becomes more spontaneous. Their behavior is more unpredictable, and the “acting” starts to disappear. The audience sees real people in real situations rather than actors performing. As the behavior becomes more real, the audience gets more sucked in to the story.
Letting go of methodology. I regularly encourage actors to let go of their system of acting. As far as I know, there is no single way to approach acting. Often, the things we feel we need to do are not necessary. Audiences don’t care how an actor is playing a scene. They just want to be moved, engaged, stimulated, and
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