Acting Versus Performing –Doing Versus Feeling

Good afternoon. I will be speaking today about styles of acting and actor training

in the musical theatre. The worlds of television, movies, cabaret and recording differ

from the stage in some ways, they also partake of some of what I am about to offer. As

an undergraduate, I studied acting with Stella Adler and directing with Jack Garfien, a

protégé of Harold Clurman. That work, almost 35 years ago, has provided the basis for

my professional work to date.

Tom Loughlin, Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the State

University of New York at Fredonia, cites figures stating that in the 1950’s 69% of

Broadway musicals had casts of over 30, while only 27% of todays’ musicals have

casts this large. The 1940’s averaged 15 new musicals on Broadway in each season,

the 1990s and forward saw 7 to 8 new musicals.i Today the number of productions

is down, the number of roles in new shows is down, the U.S. European and Asian

touring has been subsumed by non-union companies –the potential for earning a

living as a musical theatre performer is more daunting than ever. Yet, more young

people than ever aspire to a career in this field.

I urge my students to make active choices, to chose DOING in active and specific

ways over FEELING. However, many young performers see themselves as unique and

wondrous creatures; they believe that if they feel deeply enough, people will marvel at

their wondrousness and the depth and beauty of their souls; and THAT’S what will

propel them on to stardom. They are wrong, of course; but this preconception becomes

more prevalent, and more deeply engrained yearly. Why? How can we make them see
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that their talent is not their beautiful souls, but their potential to apply intellect and craft

to text, to make choices.

Ms. Adler, used to say, “Darlings, your talent is your choice.” When I first heard

this, I thought she meant that the individual had to choose whether or not to take

advantage of their talents. I finally realized that she was saying that true talent lays in the

ability to set up the best, most active and appropriate choices in a scene (musical or non).

Stella was right.

The word “act, which” shares its root with: action and active,ii is a Middle English

word, derived from the French “acte,” which means, “a thing done.” The dictionary

defines “act” entirely in conjugates of the word DO: as a noun – “a thing done,” “a thing

being done, or to be done,” “a deed,” “the process of doing;” and as a verb – “to do

something; exert energy or force,” “to reach, make or issue a decision on some matter,”

“to produce an effect,” “to behave oneself in a particular fashion” – in other words,

defined by DOING, NOT by FEELING.iii

The Adler Studio’s website states: “Drama depends on doing, not feeling; feeling

is a byproduct of doing.’”iv This is essential to both musical and non-musical acting. And

yet yearly, it seems, musical theatre students seem more certain than ever that their

success is based on the depth of their feeling. What Adler never said directly, but what

has become clearer to me over the years, as I have put her teachings into practice, is that

it is the audience’s function to feel, not necessarily the actors. We go to the theatre to be

brought to the edge of our seats, to be so caught up in what the characters are DOING

that we feel for the characters. This catharsis is the same that Aristotle wrote of in The

Poetics. Oedipus does not stop to feel deeply the agony of his fate, the result of his
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hubris – he ACTS on it, by gouging out his eyes. The audience, through FEELINGS of

fear and pity are cathartically purged, renewed and restored.

Today’s musical theatre students have been weaned on television shows like

“Indonesia’s Got Talent” and “Malaysian Idol,” in which, singers closes their eyes and

wail, feeling deeply, while the director cuts to a close up, leaving the television audience

passively engaged, observing the singer have an intense emotional experience. This may

be good television, but it neither tells nor engages an audience in a story, which is what

the musical theatre actor needs to do. These shows and reality television shows in which

contestants compete for leading roles in musicals eschew dedication to developing of

craft in favor of popularity contests, who is going to get “voted off the island” this week.

Even with “ringers” in these competitions, it seems to come down to, who can belt out a

note louder, longer and higher than the others.

Between the plethora of these shows on television, others like Glee and so much

well-meaning (if perhaps displaced) encouragement at the high school level; more and

more, young performers just want to sing the depth of their feelings. The thing I hear

most often from musical theatre majors is, “He/she was really feeling it.” And to them I

say emotional engagement can only informs the scene – it cannot BE the scene.

In “Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singing Actors,” Joan Melton

identifies a rationale for this internality in singers. “Singers […] spend hundreds of

hours alone in a practice room […] aural models of perfection are ever-present in

the singer’s conscious imagination. Whereas singers train one-on-one with a

technician or a coach, actors usually learn their craft in a group setting, and even the

simplest exercise or vocalese for the actor is about communicating. One of the first
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things an actor learns is that the most important person on the stage is the other

actor, or the partner. Singers, on the other hand, tend to focus on the sound, which

can easily pull their attention inward.”v

My overriding personal mantra for the last 35 years or so has been, “all art is

communication.” In any art-form: painting, sculpture, architecture, ballet, playwriting,

songwriting, acting, hip-hop music, poetry, installation art – it is the artists’ intent, that

separates art from craft. There is NOTHING wrong with or bad about craft, crafts can be

beautiful and well-wrought; but art must transcend craft.

Lucianno Pavoratti’s excellence extends beyond the two roughly ¾” mucous

membrane vocal folds stretched across his larynx. His artistry lies in his applying his

humanity to text and articulating it through that glorious vocal instrument. James Galway

and Jean Pierre Rampal’s artistry does not lay in fingerings and breathing - although

fingerings and breathing are part of their craft; their artistry lays in their ability to read

texts (musical ones), filter them through their own humanity and express their readings of

those texts through their playing.

The artist engages in reflection on some aspect of humanity, himself or herself,

the world at large, man’s relationship to God, to man, to nature, and discovers something

important enough to communicate to the audience – this could be something as simple

and essential as “one must expose oneself to potential hurt in order to achieve connection

with another,” (“Being Alive” or “Try to Remember”) or “one must get back in the game

and engage in life,” (“Before the Parade Passes By”). The dramatist/artist illuminates

this truth (usually by example rather than statement), and the performer/artist

communicates this truth to the audience (usually by enacting a story “revealing” or

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“illuminating” this truth to the audience). And the audience – which is complicit in this

exchange, and DOES play a part, in fact, the most important part – receives and

responds to that reflection (whether they are touched by it or they fail to be touched by

it). A communal sigh, a laugh of recognition, applause, even a stunned silence (as in the

inevitable silence after the final moments of a performance of West Side Story – all of

these are traditional responses in the musical theatre. The act of creating art is FOR the

audience. It cannot be indulgent or masterbatory, or it has failed by its very definition.

Text can be spoken or sung, verbal or physical. To execute a series of

choreographed steps without intent (i.e. without an objective, a need to DO something)

leads to a performance lacking in humanity, lacking in what makes an audience sit

forward in recognition of a glint of humanity, in recognition of themselves.

The pre-1943 musical theatre tended to be about great singers (or great

entertainers) singing the great songs that became a part of what has become known

as the “American songbook.” The songs of Arlen, Berlin, the Gershwins, Kern, Porter

and Rodgers and Hart have outlasted the shows they originally appeared in because

they were written so that the singer could step out of what little plot or story there

was and sing a great song, with all of the emotion they could muster.

But change was in the air, with shows like Lady in the Dark and Pal Joey, and

by 1943 Oklahoma! came along; there was no turning back from the psychological

realism of the “integrated” musical. Many of the songs of these musicals were also

great, but they were now driven by plot and character integrated into the telling of

the story – such that the play no longer stopped for a purely musical moment. After

this point, such a performance would be considered indulgent, unnecessary.

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Musicals from “The Golden Age of the American Musical Theatre,”1943 to 1964,

were written in the style of psychological realism, that called for a “realistic” acting style

in the musical theatre, much more in line with the style of acting popular in plays, which

came from the works of Stanislavski, by way of the Group Theatre of the 1930’s.

Before the introduction of microphones in 1950’s, musical theatre actors

pretty much had to stand facing the audience and “belt out” songs loudly enough to

be heard over the live orchestra, internality was not reasonably possible. Over time,

technology made increasingly subtle and intimate performances possible with

increasingly sophisticated microphones. With this possibility, the impulse to

emulate the kinds of performances created for film and video became inevitable. In

film and video, intensely personal performances are possible thanks to sensitive

microphones and close-ups. Screen acting is small, internal and intimate.

Traditionally, in narrative theatrical forms (like book musicals), artists enact a

story for the audience who derive some pleasure or knowledge, or confirmation of their

own humanity from this exchange. We watch Laurey’s conflict over her attraction to the

handsome cowboy, Curly AND the “bad boy” outsider, Jud Fry. She makes the “right”

choice, which the audience has confirmed for them when Jud comes to confront her and

attack Curley on their wedding day. When Curly accidentally kills Jud, we (the

audience) FEEL a sense of relief. Laurey is in shock over the killing, and Aunt Eller

snaps her out of it by saying, “If you cain’t fergit, jist don’t try to, honey. Oh, lots of

things happen to folks. Sickness er bein’ pore and hungry even – bein’ old and afeared to

die. That’s the way it is – cradle to grave. And you can stand it. They’s one way. You

gotta be heart, you got to be. You cain’t deserve the sweet and tender in life less’n you’re
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tough.” To which Laurey responds, “ I – I wisht I wuz the way you are.” And Eller

replies “Fiddlesticks! Scrawny and old? You couldn’t h’ar me to be the way I am!” The

stage direction reads, “(Laurey laughs through her tears.”vi I have conducted at least six

different productions of Oklahoma! and seen dozens of others over the years; this

moment never fails to get a sob and a sniffle from the audience. It is not the depth of

Laurey’s upset that dampens the eye of the audience; it is Aunt Eller’s folksy, down-to-

earth stoicism, in face of all that has happened, her ability to summon up what is

necessary to help her niece. It is Eller’s action that effects the audience, not Laurey’s

feeling. Actions effect audiences, feelings do not. Emotions ONLY serve to inform the

action, to define character within action.

Having conducted and/or played in the orchestra pit for countless productions of

West Side Story, I can tell you that, the gunshot that kills Tony ALWAYS gets a small,

nervous laugh. As Tony is dyeing in Maria’s arms, they struggle to sing the final few

lines of the reprise of “Somewhere,” the stage directions read “… his voice falters and he

barely finishes the line. She sings on, a phrase or two more, then stops, his body quiet in

her arms. A moment, and then, as she gently rests Tony on the floor, the orchestra

finishes the last bars of the song. Lightly, she brushes Tony’s lips with her fingers.”vii

This is pretty emotional stuff, and always receives a respectful silence from the audience.

It is only when the Jets and the Sharks move towards Tony’s body that “Maria speaks,

her voice cold, sharp. ‘Stay back!’ The shawl she has had around her shoulders slips to

the ground as she gets up, walks to Chino and holds out her hand. He hands her the gun.

She speaks again, in a flat, hard voice. ‘ How do you fire this gun, Chino? Just by pulling

this little trigger?’” And always, it is when Maria gets icy and addresses Chino and the
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others that audiences start crying. The audience’s response is not to Maria’s loss, or

sadness at Tony’s death, it is to the strength that Maria is able to summon, her ability to

transcend the moment and address the rival gangs – to DO what must be done.

Characters in the great American musicals do not stop doing to express the depth

of their pain. They may struggle and fight to find an answer, but they do not stop

ACTING in order to indulge in feeling. Mame does not stop to sing a sad song about

missing “that boy with the bugle;” in If He Walked Into My Life, she desperately searches

for an answer to the question, “what went wrong along the way.” Only by finding the

answer to that question can she repair her relationship with her nephew. Mame’s feelings

at the moment INFORM the song, in fact, they offer an obstacle to her objective, but the

actresses active engagement in what she is doing is what makes the song a showstopper.

The Jews of Anatevka do not simply sing a sad song about their hometown, they

use the song “Anatevka” to make peace with their immanent departure, their expulsion

into the diaspora. Unless there is action to the song, it becomes a dirge.

However, when rock music became the new popular music of the world, the

musical theatre began importing rock and roll songs, bringing the kind of “deeply felt”

emotional performance appropriate to a recording studio or music venue. The first rock

musicals were Bye, Bye Birdie on Broadway and Expresso Bongo in the West End.

These shows simply put concerted rock and roll numbers like “Don’t Sell Me Down the

River” or “Honestly Sincere” into musicals without having them advance plot or offer

character development. Early rock musicals like Hair, Your Own Thing and even Grease

featured singers clinging to hand held mikes and dressing mike cords while they swayed,
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step-touched, closed their eyes and sang deeply felt rock songs about things like

“Sodomy” and “Mooning.” Some of these early rock musicals failed dramaturgically,

but still found great success as sort of concert/musical hybrids. 1975’s The Wiz simply

stopped every so often so that a string of great R&B and gospel singers could sing about

“Being a Mean Old Lion,” “Having Some Oil Slid To Me,” and even “Easin’ On Down

The (Yellow Brick) Road,” while the all-too familiar plot waited patiently until the song

was done and then picked itself up where it had left off. These songs were all deeply felt,

and none-too active; they managed to be highly entertaining, but have not stood the test

of time too terribly well.

But rock musicals learned how to tell stories with all variety of rock music, how

to move scenes forward and develop character. By the 1990’s, with The Who’s Tommy

(1993) and Rent (1996), musical theatre practitioners had learned how to use rock to

move a story forward, develop character, build a scene and so forth. Rock, being the

music on which that generation had grown up, was a an idiom in which that generation of

writers, performers and audiences were comfortable telling and receiving a story.

In the concept musicals of the 1970’s and 1980’s, like Stephen Sondheim’s

Company, Bobby’s crie du couer, his cry from the heart that is “Being Alive,” is a song

with an active journey. In the first verse, when Bobby sings all the awful things that

being committed to someone yolks you with, “Someone to hold you too close, someone

to hurt you too deep, someone to sit in your chair and ruin your sleep,” his friends

counter with interjected spoken lines: PAUL: “That’s true, but there’s more to it than
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that.” SARAH: “Is that all you think there is to it?” HARRY: “You’ve got so many

reasons for not being with someone, but Robert, you haven’t got one good reason for

being alone.” LARRY: “You’re on to something, Bobby. You’re on to something.”

Towards the end of that first verse the images are given more positive qualifiers,

“Someone to crowd you with love, Someone to force you to care, Someone to make you

come through, Who’ll always be there, As frightened as you of being alive.” Until, by

the last verse, the list of thoughts become sentences with active verbs, “Somebody hold

me too close, somebody hurt me too deep, Somebody sit in my chair and ruin my sleep

and make me aware of being alive.”viii In this song, Bobby is fighting for his life,

struggling with the all of the facts he has witnessed throughout the musical in order to

make a decision. But songs, even and especially ballads, in musicals need to be active to

keep their shows from crashing to grinding halts.

The primary 20th century mode of musical theatre performance had been

Stanislavski-based psychological realism; but in the 21st century another style came into

vogue, popularized by television singing competition shows. Throughout the 20th

century talent shows had existed on radio and television: Major Bowes, The Ted

Mack Amateur Hour, Arthur Godrfey’s Talent Search, and others in America –

but these new shows were ramped up, franchised globally, and wildly popular.

Their popularity redefined musical performance style in a way that crossed over

into the musical theatre. Many of these musical performers closed their eyes, beat

their breasts and “felt” very deeply while they were singing. It worked like

gangbusters for television; the camera would close in and the audience at home

would get the simulation of someone having an intensely emotional experience.

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Realizing that the “stars” these shows created were highly exploitable, producers

began bringing them in to Broadway, West End theatres, and theatres around the

world. These television shows included:

The 1999 New Zealand series Popstars was globally franchised in more than

50 countries.The franchises in India, Kenya, Slovakia, Tanzania and Uganda were

broadcast under the name Coca-Cola Pop Stars. Popstars inspired the Pop Idol

franchise, which became known as Idol (or Superstar).

Idol began in 2001 as a British television series, was first franchised in

Poland and has been adapted to over 46 regions, on six continents. American Idols

who have appeared on Broadway include: Clay Aiken, who played Sir Robin in

Monty Python’s Spamalot – although the reviewers decried Aikens’ performance,

his fans showed up in droves. Ruben Studdard toured the U.S. with Ain’t

Misbehaving alongside other Idol winners, Trynece and Frenchie Davis. Trynece

has appeared on Broadway musicals, on tours and in the West End. Frenchie Davis

appeared on Broadway in Rent, and toured the U.S. in Dreamgirls; Fantasia, played

the role of Celie on Broadway in The Color Purple. Taylor Hicks played Teen Angel

on Broadway and on tour in the 2008 revival of Grease, the first Broadway

production to be cast by television reality show, starring contest winners Max

Crumm and Laura Osnes, Idol finalist, Tamyra Gray appeared on Broadway in

Bombay Dreams and Rent., 2005 finalist, Constantine Maroulis appeared on

Broadway in The Wedding Singer, Rock of Ages and Jeckyl and Hyde as well as off-

Broadway and regional productions.. Second place finalist, Diana Degarmo,

appeared in Hairspray, Brooklyn: The Musical, Godspell (2008 revival), Back to

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Bacharach and David, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The

Toxic Avenger, Hair, 9 to 5, and others. Ace Young appeared in Grease and Hair.

Josh Strickland created the role of Tarzan on Broadway. These performances have

received reviews that range from lukewarm and just plain awful; but producers

know that a popular American Idol contestant can generate tremendous ticket

sales. While this indulgent style of performance is not necessarily sought out, it is

tolerated; and the more often young performers see this kind of performance

leading to success, the more that want to emulate that.

Other popular globally franchised reality competitions have included The

Voice, the Got Talent shows, and The X Factor.

Contestants from these kinds of reality shows were worth their weight in

gold as a means expanding the audience base for Broadway/West End musicals.

Another recent phenomenon is the use of television reality series to cast

Broadway and West End musicals. How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria was a

reality show that aired on the BBC in 2006, the prize of which was the starring role

in the Lord Lloyd Weber West End production of The Sound of Music. The show

attracted between 5.5 million and 4.4 million viewers and generated roughly 10

million pounds worth of advance ticket sales, plus another 1.1 million on the

opening day. Weber followed up with Any Dream Will Do to cast the title role in the

2007 West End revival of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, 2008’s

I’d Do Anything, to cast the roles of Nancy and Oliver in a West End revival of

Oliver!, and Over the Rainbow to cast Dorothy and Toto for a West End production

of The Wizard of Oz.

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You’re The One That I Want aired in the U.S. on NBC to cast the 2008

Broadway revival of Grease. Although it’s numbers were paltry by television

standards, barely 8-10 million viewers; that number represents about 10 years of

sold out houses for a live musical. The advance was astounding, greatly outweighing

the poor critical response, in the eyes of producers. Legally Blonde, The Musical:

The Search for Elle Woods aired on MTV in 2008. Reality shows have been used in

the Netherlands to cast Evita, Joseph, Mary Poppins, Zorro, Annie and Maria von

Trapp.

All sizes of theatre embrace this kind of packaging. I was a part of a

production of Godspell at Syracuse Stage, starring Anwar Robinson, the 7-th place

finalist on the 4th season of American Idol. The production was very poor, and the

legitimate actors had a difficult time working with a pop singer with no stage

training or knowledge – but the box office held strong throughout the run based on

Anwar’s “celebrity.” The performances that this type of casting has yielded have

received routinely awful reviews, but the number of fans these performers bring

with them more than make up for that in the eyes of producers.

Fed by all of these factors, more and more performers are choosing to

embrace the style of emotional excess, rather than playing objectives and needs. I

think ultimately, the kind of theatre that I like to create, and that I like to see is more

fulfilling for an audience. But my obligation as an educator is to train my students

with an awareness of the difference and the ability to work in either fashion. My

goal, as an educator, is to send the most employable young actors out into the

marketplace as possible.
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This is the state of the musical theatre, and whether we embrace it or despair

of it, it is a reality, brought about by economic need. The question in front of us is,

how do we move forward from here. The theatre, and the musical theatre are ever-

changing, always responding to the needs and desires of the audience. We must

respond to those needs and attempt to anticipate them.

i
Thomas Loughlin, blog, posted July 17, 2011, viewed on June 24, 2013, <
http://www.apoorplayer.net/2011/07/the-bfa-musical-theatre-degree-should-die/>
ii
Douglas Harper. Online Etymology Dictionary. 2001,Online Etymology. accessed 13, December
2012. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?
allowed_in_frame=0&search=act&searchmode=none
iii
Random House Dictionary, viewed at Dictionary.com, <
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/act> viewed on June 24, 2013.
iv
“Core Beliefs.” Stella Adler Studio of Acting/ Stella Adler Studio of Acting. accessed 9, December
2012. http://www.stellaadler.com/about/core-beliefs/.
v
Joan Melton, “Singing in Musical Theatre: The Training of Singers and Actors,” p. xiv.
vi
Oscar Hammerstein, II, Oklahoma! (libretto), 1943. Viewed online at
http://www.systemeyescomputerstore.com/scripts/Oklahoma/Oklahoma_script.pdf, viewed
June 12, 2013
vii
Arthur Laurents, West Side Story (libretto), viewed online at http://ebookbrowse.com/west-
side-story-script-final-clean-doc-d228295007, viewed on 6, 12, 2013.
viii
Stephen Sondheim, “Being Alive,” Company, viewed online at:
http://www.allmusicals.com/lyrics/company/beingalive.htm, viewed June 12, 2013.