ON ACTING: Emotional Flow

At some point in an actor's training, the emotionally developing actor will probably overflow in emotional release. Too-much-control will disintegrate into too-little-control. The pipes will rattle. The actor may (and often will) cry through six scenes in a row; even comedies! OR: The actor will be angry at everybody in every scene! OR: They will feel sexy even in scenes between siblings!

Intense emotion release will flood from their performances as a many headed gorgon, a monster of feeling. That’s okay. It’s like drilling for oil; when the drillers first hit the mother lode, black gold will explode out of the ground and spill everywhere.

Don’t worry. There’s good news in all that: you’ve found the sources of your emotional oil!!

And a new process begins: once the deepest pressure in the emotional pipes is known--and the overflowing actor discovers they can survive at the increased level of emotional energy--then they can (and will) begin the process of capping the flow of emotional riches, devising proper fittings, joints, valves and rings necessary to control and manage that flow with grace, pumping out its riches in precise, elegant, economically proportional performance amounts.