united sorry

I worked with two actors in Leipzig, really nice guys, Tobias and Chris. It is not easy for them, I think, to work with me because I come from another perspective on theatre. Sometimes I shout to them, “ do not act”, what is a strange thing to say to actors. But the more I work with them; the more I understand what I am looking for.

I look for a state of mind on stage, which is open and internal at the same time. It deals with being on stage, treating the text as a composition of timing and understanding of the effect you are creating. It is about listening to your own words, observing your physical actions and giving space to the resonance of all what you doing.
Instead of trying to impress the audience and working hard for them, you try to let things happen in your body and mind and you invite the audience to come to you, to listen and observe you in detail.

This way of acting is more humble, is dealing more with invisible energies, it demands to go more inward, than immediately expressing an elaborate character in gesture, facial expressions, tone of voice on the outside.

So I ask the actors to stay close with themselves, but at the same time I want them to forget themselves in the doing, not to control what they are doing, just observing it. I think it is acting as if you are dancing. I discovered that it is easy to do when you have found you physical and mental centre to be in the moment. For me this centre is right under my stomach, this place just under my navel, I can imagine that some people will call it, the chi centre.

In acting it is very important to learn to expand your concentration, to discover the beauty of stillness in mind.

I know it myself. Preparing myself for the two shows in Amsterdam, next Tuesday and Wednesday I already train my concentration, also when I walk in town, when I sit, when I eat. I really have to calm down my mind; I think that an unquiet mind is the most problematic thing for an actor when he works with me. An unquiet mind makes you think that you always must to do something, to live, to do something creative. You think that to act is to do a lot, instead of reflecting and listening to what happens inside your body and mind, when you put yourself on the path of fiction and illusion.

Two weeks break to do other things, in Amsterdam and Vienna. But I miss the actors already.