One of my theatre professors told those of us in her productions, “Don’t let the audience take you down a dark road.”
What she meant by that was don’t change what you have been doing in rehearsal, what you know you are supposed to be doing, because of the audience’s reaction.
For example- you have rehearsed your part and although you are doing something funny, you yourself are not laughing. It is your character’s life, not a joke, to you. All through rehearsal you have said it with a straight face. Suddenly, you have an audience and when they laugh hysterically, it makes you laugh. You have let the audience take you down a dark road.
And what if this same character in the same instance, says their line, ready for a laugh and no one laughs. Not a sound. As an actor you know the audience is out there, you heard them come in. The stage manager told you there was a full house, but now you hear nothing. Silence. You decide to ham it up and try to get the audience to laugh. You do the rest of the scene as you have never done it before, overacting to get a reaction, to hear the laughter you thought you would get. You have let the audience take you down a dark road.
You rehearse for a reason. The director has told you what they want. They have done it in a way that they decided was the look and feel they want for the show. You have practiced at home, thought about it at night when you should have been asleep. You have tried different inflections in the shower and then tried some more in the safety of the rehearsal space. It has been decided what is the funniest, most emotional, best way to do each line. Muscle memory has set in on the words, your actions and your emotions. You have delved into the character and you know what you want.
Then one response from the audience changes everything you have decided on, worked on and performed.
As often happens, I see parallels in real life and the stage.
In life, most of us are taught values. We learn how to behave in polite society. We grow up learning how best to treat people, how to conduct ourselves, how to be our best.
Then we see someone get away with something. Not only get away with it, but thrive. So we think, “Hey, maybe we can get away with that as well!” or “If they can do it, I can do it!” Even though it goes against everything we know is right. Although it goes against what we learned as a kid. We let the world around us take us down a dark road.
Maybe we see someone bullying someone else and although we know it isn’t right, the mob mentality takes over and we join in. Or we walk away and don’t stand up for the bullied. We let the mob take us down a dark road.
How often has someone told a joke around you that you found offensive, but instead of walking away, or speaking up, you laughed because every one else did? You let other people take you down a dark road.
Sometimes we see our leaders say or do something we know isn’t right, but we sit back and do nothing. Or we take a particular stand because it benefits us and our friends, but it really isn’t right or fair. Our friends urge us to go along, so we do. We let them take us down a dark road.
Forgetting what we know we are supposed to do so that we can fit in takes us down that dark road. Following the crowd down the dark road happens all of the time, but is that who we really want to be?
As an actor, I try to make myself forget the audience is there. Most of my life I couldn’t see very well, so I just didn’t wear my glasses on stage and suddenly the audience was just a blur. When I got contacts and eventually eye surgery I could see the people, so I had to train myself to just not look.
Onstage I rehearse, I listen to my director, I make my choices and I try to stick to doing the show the way we rehearsed. As far as I am concerned, I am that character just living that part of my life and there is no audience. If they laugh, fabulous. If they don’t, I am still just living my life. If I need to adjust something I will do so later, after some thought and guidance.
In life I know what my morals are, I know what I think is right. I know what I have been taught and how I am supposed to act. I try to live my life to the best of my ability. If I hit a difficult decision I have people that I can talk to, who can help me decide what the ethical response should be. I mess up a lot, but I try to remember who I am and Whose I am. When I trip up, I try to fix it. If I know it is wrong, I try not to let the world take me down a dark road.
Before a show I have several things I do to get ready and to get my head right. One of them is to say to myself- Do it like you rehearsed it. Don’t let the audience take you down a dark road.
More and more, as life gets complicated and the world seems to be headed in a different direction than what I would have hoped, I hear those words in the back of my mind- Don’t let the world take you down that dark road.
