acting and writing et al.

“I trained as an actor in New York, and one discipline I studied was the Stanislavski technique, the basis of which is to live truthfully in the imaginary circumstances. That is what I try to do when I write. I set up an imaginary world, and try to let the characters live truthfully in that world.” DeLauné Michel

The Euro and I talk a lot about the interplay between acting and writing. It was the Chekhov-Stanislavski connection that finally made him realize what I was trying to do as a writer wasn’t so very different from what he was trying to do as an actor. And that, maybe, I wasn’t as nonplussed by his art as he imagined me to be.

His emotional engineering and mechanics of expression are much more concrete, much more tangible than mine. He uses his body, his face, his physical voice. Engages the real eye and not just the mind’s eye. He’s all about immediate interactions and reactions and sussing out wants and needs and objectives. In this last regard he’s become freakishly Freudian.

I don’t have his talent. His stage presence, or his life presence. And when it comes to certain communications, I don’t do physical or verbal very well. Lines drawn on paper and algorithmic keystrokes that turn 1s and 0s into meaning…those are my choice emotional mediums. I accomplish more with writing than I ever do with speaking. With writing, I can make you understand. When I speak I often lose all train of thought and any eloquence I might possess. I may as well beat both our heads against a brick wall. It would be more satisfying and we could get on with things quicker.

So, we talk a lot about acting and writing these days. The truths that join them both. And agree even through our disagreeance that he is perfectly suited for one and I the other. We also eat a lot of chocolate.