“The Reality of Doing under Imaginary Circumstances”: Acting Technique as Psychoanalytic Endeavor

I am on the treadmill learning my lines. “You must memorize them as neutrally as possible, doing something rote,” my acting teacher said. “On the page, they have no meaning. On stage, they become imbued with meaning through the moment-to-moment interaction with your scene partner.” I learn them coldly, noticing urges to plan affective responses or synchronize my delivery with the pounding of my feet on the plastic belt below. I love writing, I love these words, and I don't care about the words. I do, but I really don't. I care about what is being communicated underneath the words, how the words are empty buckets, containers with the potential to carry meanings inside. On the page, words are fantasies, idealized children who don't breathe. Words put into action, symbolizing wishes, affects, and sensory experience, are where scenes come to life.

Sanford Meisner, the teacher who trained actors like Gregory Peck, Diane Keaton, Robert Duvall, and my teacher, Bill Esper, defined acting as “The reality of doing under imaginary circumstances.” The demands of the text — maybe you have certain things to say, maybe you have had too many drinks, maybe you have a limp — are the imaginary circumstances. The reality of doing arises from the fluid connection with your authentic experience of yourself and your scene partner, your actual life breathed through the particularities of the source material. Its foundation is built through an enterprise called “The Repetition Exercise,” or simply, “The Exercise,” and goes something like this:

Two people stand in front of the class and face one another. One begins by making a neutral observation about the other, something like, “You're wearing a white shirt.” The other actor repeats the statement from their perspective. “I'm wearing a white shirt.” This goes back and forth for a while: