I would like to illustrate what I have been advocating as a healthy way for an actor to go to their own well of experience in order to open up to character and script demand. I feel strongly that the Emotional Recall, “effective memory” or “sense memory”, first developed by Stanislavsky and reinterpreted by Strasberg, is an excellent acting tool. The exercise also serves to illustrate my point of working from something that the actor is psychologically and emotionally resolved about.nnTo begin planning work on the “E.R.”, I first ask the actor to consult with me privately about a feeling or emotion that always presents a problem to them when it comes up in a character that they are about to play, or even audition for. The actor wants to connect and express the feelings that are necessary, but they know they have trouble accessing that area within themselves. Any good actor wants to genuinely connect, not indicate or play an idea of a character. The actor says to me, “I know I could play this role, but the character is very vulnerable/shy/angry/out of control/silly/bounding with joy or any other trait that the actor wants to access as a “quality” demanded of the role.nnI ask the actor to select a moment from their life, for want of a better phrase, a “traumatic moment” when they experienced one of the above mentioned feelings or emotions. I want them to pick an incident that happened at least seven years ago, preferably one from childhood. ‘In big bold letters’ I say that I want them to pick something they are psychologically and emotionally resolved about, are not currently trying to resolve, or working on in therapy. I work with them through the exercise, helping them to recall the actual event through sensory detail, not just narrating a story. When successful, the actor will succeed in re-creating not only the event, but the age that they were and the response that they had at the time. All of the information is stored in the subconscious and reliving it with correct sensory guidance will release it.nnThe E.R. can be a very helpful tool when trying to get inside a monologue which the actor understands intellectually, but contains an event that the actor has never experienced. It is a homework tool that frees the imagination from just centering on the words, and helps to create a life response around the words. I continue with two more steps to this exercise providing Part I, described above, is accomplished. Part II adds an overall activity with tasks. Part III consists of applying the work to a monologue from a play that has a similar climactic emotional moment in it.nnHaving gotten through all these steps, I then know that the actor is free and safe in working from this recollection and can use it as a tool for an audition or performance. I know they will be able to control and place the emotional response into the desired moment of the monologue without being taken over by unresolved emotions, losing objective control, and thus, not being able to use the “E.R.” as a technique. Every well-trained actor knows to play what you’re doing about the emotion, not just play the emotion. An actor who is being taken over by a flood of unresolved emotion, is out of control, and responding from neuroses, which is not acting. This kind of work gets self indulgent rather than creative. This indulgence might be necessary to work through with a therapist, but in the theatre it is ‘wretched excess’, not to mention personally harmful for the actor. I repeat, every well-trained actor knows to play what you are doing about the emotion, not just play the emotion.nnThe standard joke is, “you don’t always have to work on the day your dog died.” Frequently an actor will bring me a choice and I will say, “I appreciate you wanting to share that, but I think it sounds too unresolved and perhaps you should work on that in therapy.”nnA few examples of what I would not work on with an actor are: a recent death of a loved one, being beaten by a parent, molestation, being mugged, abused, raped, an awful accident, or war trauma. While even therapy may never resolve some of these issues, that is the more suitable arena for them to be worked on.nnA lot of actors come from broken homes, alcoholic or abusive parents; it may be the reason they initially chose acting as a means of escape from this environment. But the issues and scars that remain from that background are not necessarily safe areas for an acting class.
