Good evening!
This is a rare late in the day blog, due in large part to the fact that I left my laptop charger at work yesterday and my battery had given up the ghost! Indeed my mind is usually full of detail, over busy and with none of the quality reflection in the evening. So generally I much prefer the early hours of the morning. That old adage 'sleep on it' is probably one of the most used and most useful when it comes to sorting out a problem. It clears the mind and most often presents new questions and unexpected solutions.
In my experience if I ruminate for too long consciously, running a question over and over again, seeking an answer I often end up like one of those whirring rainbow coloured wheels that appear on the screen whilst the computer is thinking, or a website is loading - you know.
Sometimes I am supremely impatient, tapping my finger on the keyboard in the hope of hurrying up the possible answer. But if I let go of my compulsion for solutions and simply find the knack of letting go, the unexpected and mysterious has space to enter.
I now assume with some caution that if I have thought about a problem for a reasonable length of time, the chances are the ingredients are there for an answer, they just need to do their magic and hey presto an idea or solution pops up. It feels a bit like a muscle. But impatience or excitement can get in the way, and yet they too are essential ingredients. Bit of a paradox really. Feeding the mind with the question and then having faith that you are not being lazy or over-thinking is valuable here. It allows us to steer away from simplistic or formulaic responses most of the time.
Sleep is associated with better memory performance, and "slow-wave" sleep in particular has been shown to enhance our ability to make mental connections and integrate unassociated information. According to Unconscious Thought Theory, the conscious mind is good at arranging information in accordance with rules, and performing precision manoeuvres such as those involved in arithmetic. But compared to the unconscious, it is "low capacity" - we can only consciously think about a certain number of factors at any one time - and more likely to be bamboozled by irrelevant factors. In comparison, the unconscious is good at synthesising large amounts of information, and privileging important considerations over trivial ones.
The other thing is managing feelings and emotions which arise seemingly from nowhere, and are a response or reaction often to an external stimulus or to an internal imagining. Acting out of an emotional place can feel satisfying in some ways, but in my experience it often also blinds a reasoned response and can lead to rash and sometimes impulsive decisions.
Emotions are both wonderful and motivating, and simultaneously have the potential to run amok with us. Daniel Goleman's writing and work on Emotional Intelligence is a valuable non-theatre source for many ideas that have translated into my work in developing character and exploring action and subtext. Useful reading for any actor or director, and certainly a staple for many teachers.
Emotions are 'hot' and prone to infuse or hijack us when we least expect it. Love, desire, joy, rage, anger, revenge, fear, grief and more are all part of a wonderfully rich palette available to every human being. Shakespeare is the master of understanding human emotions. Out of the poetry of his plays he chimes with the dark and light of our madness and folly when in the grip of emotion. Human beings do the most extraordinary things driven as if powerless by the sea of feeling.
Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
She should have died hereafter
There would have been a time for such a word
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
This is a rare late in the day blog, due in large part to the fact that I left my laptop charger at work yesterday and my battery had given up the ghost! Indeed my mind is usually full of detail, over busy and with none of the quality reflection in the evening. So generally I much prefer the early hours of the morning. That old adage 'sleep on it' is probably one of the most used and most useful when it comes to sorting out a problem. It clears the mind and most often presents new questions and unexpected solutions.
In my experience if I ruminate for too long consciously, running a question over and over again, seeking an answer I often end up like one of those whirring rainbow coloured wheels that appear on the screen whilst the computer is thinking, or a website is loading - you know. Sometimes I am supremely impatient, tapping my finger on the keyboard in the hope of hurrying up the possible answer. But if I let go of my compulsion for solutions and simply find the knack of letting go, the unexpected and mysterious has space to enter.I now assume with some caution that if I have thought about a problem for a reasonable length of time, the chances are the ingredients are there for an answer, they just need to do their magic and hey presto an idea or solution pops up. It feels a bit like a muscle. But impatience or excitement can get in the way, and yet they too are essential ingredients. Bit of a paradox really. Feeding the mind with the question and then having faith that you are not being lazy or over-thinking is valuable here. It allows us to steer away from simplistic or formulaic responses most of the time.
Sleep is associated with better memory performance, and "slow-wave" sleep in particular has been shown to enhance our ability to make mental connections and integrate unassociated information. According to Unconscious Thought Theory, the conscious mind is good at arranging information in accordance with rules, and performing precision manoeuvres such as those involved in arithmetic. But compared to the unconscious, it is "low capacity" - we can only consciously think about a certain number of factors at any one time - and more likely to be bamboozled by irrelevant factors. In comparison, the unconscious is good at synthesising large amounts of information, and privileging important considerations over trivial ones.
The other thing is managing feelings and emotions which arise seemingly from nowhere, and are a response or reaction often to an external stimulus or to an internal imagining. Acting out of an emotional place can feel satisfying in some ways, but in my experience it often also blinds a reasoned response and can lead to rash and sometimes impulsive decisions.
Emotions are both wonderful and motivating, and simultaneously have the potential to run amok with us. Daniel Goleman's writing and work on Emotional Intelligence is a valuable non-theatre source for many ideas that have translated into my work in developing character and exploring action and subtext. Useful reading for any actor or director, and certainly a staple for many teachers.
Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities. A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
See here how Hippolyta yearns with desire for the time to pass swiftly until her marriage to Theseus.
And to Macbeth in his famous sollioquy where rage has led him to murderous deeds.
She should have died hereafterThere would have been a time for such a word
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Passions spent may leave behind a trail of chaos and disaster and might also move us beyond the daily structures to some new and unimagined territory. And there's the paradox. Without powerful emotion we might never act, and yet in powerful emotion we might find ourselves in uninvited alchemical transformation, for better or worse.
Every actor needs to get this, and every director have the temerity to plumb these depths if only to hold up that Shakespearian mirror to the black sun that illuminates each of us in its own unique way.
Get practising.
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