Keep Your Thumbs Still When I Talk to You - discusses how we, as a society, are becoming quite rude due to technology. It is a sad truth, we tolerate more and more; losing the ability to connect on that most primitive, intimate level. In fact, as I observe in my classes, that kind of connection is not only uncomfortable, but now completely foreign.
There is a cost in the acting world as well...the artistic one, too. Imagine an actor in a general or audition, and in middle of his or her conversation with the CD or director, the actor checks his or her hand-held. Brave choice, I guess...think they got the part? It has happened. And we know it happens the other way - It was not long ago that a tweeting scandal broke out when a prominent New York casting director was found to be tweeting not only during actor auditions, but also was commenting on their performance. Remember the debates? How did you feel?
Don't get me wrong, technology is pretty amazing! We have unprecedented access to information and entertainment. I know my train rides have become less arduous thanks to the numerous podcasts that I listen to, Angry Birds, and YouTube vids on my iPhone. It's all pretty astounding!
But there is a flip-side to that coin, especially for the Actor/Artist. I am falling victim to it myself...
We are slowly becoming less and less engaged with the world around us. We, as actors are at risk of numbing those senses and instincts we have trained and worked so hard to hone. We need to be open vessels - making available all our senses to take in and interpret (later) the world around us.
What scares me as a teacher (at several universities), I see the attention spans of our youth becoming shorter and shorter to almost nothing. Yes, I realize that I must adapt as an educator - I won't dispute that. But when the youth of today can't sit still for more than 20 minutes, or retain a bit of information given to them 15 minutes prior....there's a problem. Technology, in addition to the "Mtv" nation are contributing to these issues. What do I mean by that?
Watch a network television show: count the seconds between cuts.
Now watch any of the great films to come out of the 70's (yes, the 70's were good for something!). Notice the long, static shots - agreed, they might not be as exciting as the latest Michael Bay film. But each of of them is rife with something those films can't sustain for a scene - humanity. I think of The Deer Hunter, Deliverance, All the President's Men, Klute -the humanity depicted in these films is immeasurable. It is impossible to be without it on the stage.
All that aside however, for the actor, the cost for such technology goes much, much deeper. As is the goal of Uta Hagen's, Object Exercises; we, the actor have to maintain and sustain our sense of awareness and observation, both inward AND outward. Art and Acting require us to maintain and sustain consistent levels of concentration and focus that is slowly becoming more and more extinct.
A set of earbuds constantly attached to us provides a great risk to those disciplines.
We as artists, and actors must be in-tune to the world around us - for better or worse. BUT also we cannot allow ourselves to be enslaved by it either.
No comments:
Post a Comment