“Art of Acting” by Paul Dekker

“Art of Acting”

Creation is singular, a single event, in which the appearance of many events is revealed simply as a play of light and sound.

Everything in life happens as a singular movement from a source that is beyond the mind, beyond mental concepts, beyond thought and thinking – from a source that is unthinkable.

Awareness appears as consciousness, as the five elements, as plants and animals, and as human beings.

Awareness as energy is information. Awareness appearing as man is therefore information.

In some human beings information appears as acting talent, they are born with the talent to act.

What could possibly be an actor’s instrument which life uses to act? An actor is his own instrument, meaning his body and his mind, together called: acting instrument.

As a human being an actor is both: body and mind. No mind exists without a body. Therefore the body is an actor’s primordial instrument, and it includes the mechanism of an operating mind.

Mind does not exist physically but mentally, and therefore mind can only appear as thoughts.

As long as it exists, the body of an actor is always present in the present, and within it breathing is also always present in the present.

Body and breath, together called: bodily acting instrument, produce movement as well as sound.

To be able to produce particular sound, an actor uses the physical vocal cords of the body, called: vocal acting instrument.

To sophisticate his sound an actor uses of the physical speech mechanism of the body, this includes mouth, lips and tong, together called: speech acting instrument.

Man, and therefore also an actor, is the only species that has a functioning mind. Images in a mind get converted into language, trough thinking.

Of all arts, only the art of acting makes use of spoken language. Words have to be believed to have meaning while enacted on a stage.

It is an actor’s job to create behaviour on stage. Behaviour means expression of bodily movement, including physical as well as vocal movement.

Mind is included in behaviour. Behaviour therefore appears in both conditions: mentally and non-mentally.

The illusory nature of a stage drama is its reality. Everything on stage is a lie, until the actor, through his behaviour, makes it appear real, the appearance is illusory.

Man’s sound is among all sounds in life, the only sound that appears as thoughts. Man is life’s most sophisticated musical instrument.

Since man as an actor is his own instrument, he has the ability to perform sophisticated behaviour on a stage.

The body is an actor's instrument, he plays with it on stage and performs a character to perfection and draws acclaim, just as a musician performs to perfection with an instrument on stage and receives applause.

For behaviour to appear on stage, it first has to appear as a thought in an actors mind. Therefore, acting is actioned thought.

Often actors are ‘awkward’ off stage, but instead ‘free’ on stage. An actor is most himself when acting another character.

An actor who performs, does not exist any longer as an actor, but as the character. He has left his ego at the stage door, and has become the character.

An actor acts at his best when ‘he’ is not there. That is the moment when the actor has become the acting: the act, the acting and the actor are one.

Thinking it is the actor who acts is an illusion, for acting like every thing in life simply happens, whether an actor likes it or not.

Like everything in life, life appearing as acting talent does not renounce itself. Each generation of actors is the witnesser of life’s own expression.

Acting as such can’t be taught, it can only be enquired. Every acting ‘problem’ is a key to the actor’s talent.

Life is a singular, continuous, spontaneous, uncontrollable, unpredictable and precise movement that flows, and like every man an actor also does nothing and possesses nothing, not his acting talent, not the art of acting, and not even his life.

© Copyright 2011 Paul Dekker

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