Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Acting (But Were Afraid To Ask, Dear) (6 page)

Actors – at the end of your audition, please avoid saying ‘See you later.’ Because chances are, you won’t, dear.

Every time someone says ‘I don’t believe in jazz hands’, an actor dies. Do your bit. And believe, dear.

Rehearsing

A word of warning
: Sometimes I get reports of actors spending all their time munching on my chocolate HobNobs in rehearsals, and after four weeks of this it adds an unnecessary expense on my show budget. The respectful actor should limit their HobNob intake to one a day. But most do not. This has caused me to request my company manager take a tally of how many HobNobs actors eat every day. And if you eat more than two, you certainly won’t be working for me again, dear.

The First Day

Most directors like to start day one of rehearsals with a ‘meet and greet’ – where everyone is invited to turn up wearing something flattering to impress their fellow cast members, and decide who they want to sleep with. During this time everyone will be asked to sit in a circle and introduce themselves. This is where actors realise how important the circle-sitting term is at drama school.

Circle-sitting

Circle-sitting has many mystic secrets – and, if performed badly, can lead to depression, fatigue, and in severe cases, death. There are many elements to consider: Who do you sit next to? Do you start the circle? Do you place your bag under your seat or at the side? Do you cross your legs? Do you fold your arms? Do you have a ‘Sharon Stone
Basic Instinct’
moment? Overall it takes a lot of pre-planning and thorough investigation to answer these important questions. But once you have decided where to sit, never change your mind – as this shows you only did a one-year training course.

Sitting next to the director has many advantages. It allows you to see their script and notes, and more importantly it allows you to smell them. Smelling your director is vitally important – it will tell you how good they are. If they smell fresh and gorgeous, chances are they are only eighteen and this is their first job. If they smell of chocolate and marshmallows, chances are they have only ever directed children’s theatre. If they smell of alcohol, cigarettes and wee, chances are they are very good. And if they smell sweaty and rusty, chances are they are Trevor Nunn.

After the circle-sitting trauma you will be asked to introduce yourselves. Always remember that it is advisable to do this in your own accent, with as little dribbling as possible. I also advise saying your first name first, followed by your surname. You’re not James Bond, dear.

After introducing themselves, actors sometimes feel the need to talk about their previous acting roles. This is a waste of time as the other actors have already stalked you on Spotlight and found out all your credits anyway.

The Introduction

Next usually comes a nice introduction by the set designer. Set designers are flamboyantly dressed people who stand at the back in loafers. They are quietly confident individuals who arrive with their own secret weapon: the model-box. Set designers love showing their box. The model-box is a little cardboard theatre, and in it are placed various bits of set. A well-known actor once got very confused by this tradition – thinking he was going to be performing in a theatre the size of a Corn Flakes box. Bless Brian Blessed, he gets dazed when he hasn’t had a bar of Dairy Milk before 10 a.m., dear.

The set designer then puts his little box on a table, and everyone applauds enthusiastically as though he has just cured the common cold. Then actors are expected to stare at it and yelp excitedly as each new bit of set is added. The designer will go into detail about each scene, and move little toy army soldiers around the box to convey the actors. On many occasions the toy soldiers are actually far better at acting than the actors we’ve employed.

Sometimes the director will interject with ideas about the set, and why he has decided to set
Hamlet
on the moon – and both designer and director will go to great lengths to justify their vision. It is at this point that the actors look concerned, and wish they were back in
Hollyoaks
discussing teenage pregnancy and alcopops.

The designer will then show sketches of the costumes he has in mind. This is the point when you can tell who the designer a) dislikes, and b) fancies. The people he fancies will have all the lovely frocks, and the most complimentary suits. The actors he doesn’t like are invariably made to look like old, withered scabs. Over the years I have seen many fine actors reduced to gibbering wrecks when they realise they are going to spend five months in Westcliff-on-Sea dressed as a six-foot fungal disorder.

And then it is lunch.

At lunch you either disappear on your own and make important-looking phone calls (which usually means you are calling your agent to get you out of the contract) – or you try and be social and go for a pub lunch with everyone else, with the aim of figuring out who is a friend or foe. As a general rule, friendly actors will order scampi and chips, and difficult actors will order trout.

The Warm-up

Sometimes a full-company warm-up is made compulsory in the afternoon and everyone has to take part. The warm-up will consist of movement, vocal exercises, trust games or group sex. One company at Stratford in the sixties failed to rehearse anything as they spent the whole time copulating. Marvellous for them, but terrible for the Cub Scout Pack next door.

I often find that actors treat the company warm-up as a competition. They will wear the skimpiest outfits and tightest T-shirts available. Whilst I admire people’s physical attributes, I never feel the need to be punished by seeing someone’s nipple rings or Prince Albert. Some things are just left better to the imagination. At one warm-up recently a female was dressed in such tiny hot pants that her lady region kept winking at me, dear.

This is also where another standard ‘actor rule’ comes into play: the water bottle. To be a proper actor it is vital that you attend rehearsals with one. It is a serious offence not to hold a water bottle at least once during a rehearsal day – and is seen as an act of rebellion if no water is consumed. Water is a marvellous tool. It provides you with essential nutrients and hydrates your body. It also makes you need the toilet on a regular basis – which is essential for checking your makeup, checking your sweat patches and allowing the boys to stuff extra toilet paper down their pants. Also, a water bottle is the perfect place to hide gin.

The Readthrough

At some stage on the first day of rehearsals, scripts will be taken out, and directors will indulge themselves by having a readthrough. Many directors say that you shouldn’t treat the readthrough as ‘a performance’ – it is just about ‘listening to the story’. That’s a lie. The readthrough is basically another audition – where the director and producer sit there thinking: ‘Come on then, I’ve employed you. Prove that we’ve made the right decision.’ Invariably we have, but on those occasions where we’ve made a mistake, I have the Krankies on speed-dial just in case.

Many actors treat their script like a Bible. They bind it in a leather folder, christen it at a place of worship and, in extreme cases, sleep with it. I don’t find it problematic when actors sleep with their scripts – but I do feel sorry for their partners. I heard of one actor who got so involved with his script that he dressed it up in a mini-skirt and took it out for a meal at Jamie’s Italian. I wouldn’t have minded but it was the script for a Theatre in Education tour of
Thomas and the Fat Controller: A Love Story
. Hardly Shakespeare, dear.

To be a proper actor it is essential you have a leather binder to put your scripts in, dear.

Standing Up and Trying to Act

When proper rehearsals finally begin, the director will usually tell you where to stand and how to say your lines. Some of these new ‘arty’ directors will allow the actors to ‘discover’ their moves and dialogue, but this is a complete waste of time. It’s a lot easier when the actors just do exactly what they are told, and stand and move when instructed to do so. In fact, there was a study done by a university recently about what kind of direction is more effective: ‘The director using
the actors as robots’ versus ‘The actors being creative and finding meaning and validity in the play.’ Obviously ‘actors as robots’ was far more cost-effective – as it meant a play could be put on in two weeks as opposed to two months.

Some directors I have employed like to spend a lot of time sitting at a table and discussing the play with their actors. This approach only takes place when actors can read and have been to Oxford or Cambridge – and generally only happens at the RSC.

Actors should never be afraid of saying what they think about a scene and play. But they should never actually say it in rehearsals. It’s far healthier to keep all their thoughts to themselves and reveal them
only
when in a pub with other actors. Usually everyone else will agree with these thoughts, but actors are not paid to have ideas. That is what the Assistant Stage Manager is for, dear.