Blog
Authenticity in acting
Erotic connection happens between people through authenticity. (I define eros in the October 23 post, Actress.) So, authenticity connects the performer and her audience.
People tend to think of acting as inauthenticity: the performer is a character who pretends to be someone else. However, I perform myself. In my writings, which serve as scripts, I speak as myself and about myself and my friends, family, lovers, and experiences, and I speak with an introspective honesty. I read my own language, because it indicates that I am not performing a character through memorized words or through somebody else’s words.
A friend confirmed that my acting expresses authenticity. He connected my acting with a statement made by the actor and director Andre Gregory. In an email my friend wrote:
The actor/director/teacher . . . Andre Gregory of My Dinner with Andre fame . . . said . . . that 100 years ago most people were characters, enjoyed being themselves. The job of the actor then was to be able to portray vastly different characters; today most people are pretending to be someone other than who they are, so the job of the actor is to be nobody-but-herself on stage or film.
Makeup and hair also communicate my authenticity. Rather than wearing stage makeup, I slightly intensify my everyday look. For example, in performance I’ll color my lids with 2 shades of gold, whereas I usually wear no eye shadow. I generally wear my hair long and loose when I perform, exactly as I do every day. In several performances I’ve pulled my hair back, the way that I wear it when I’m in a yoga or dance class.(It always amazes me when hair stylists, whether my own or one who knows me casually and learns that I’ll be performing soon, wants to do my hair for a performance. But I shouldn’t be surprised, because they don’t know that I like my hair as is, no more dramatic or sexy or special than normal, when I perform.)
