Big 'Ol Sensual Pussycat

I had a realization today as I was teaching. Of course it wasn’t a new realization, it was one I’ve had many times before, the only thing that’s different today is that I’m writing about it and articulating my thoughts.

I am repeatedly stunned and amazed at how disconnected this generation of young actors are from their bodies.

I have to be clear and forthcoming in saying that I believe everything is connected (acting, movement, and voice) and that most things start with the body.

This point was driven home to me today in Meisner class. (At UAlbany I am teaching a section of Acting Two, which is Mesiner based.)

Two very lovely young people were working on a scene (yes, it’s final scene time) where they are playing two lovers who have never consummated their relationship. They are in relationships with other people, one of them is very religious and here they are, after three years of sneaking around, finally in a hotel room ready to consummate their affair.

The two lovely actors were like robots. They were in the scene, but behaving like an Amish couple in church.

They didn’t touch each other the whole time.

They also were on a bed they refused to use.

I love beds on stage. I kneel on them, lay on them, roll around on them, and hang off the edge of them. They are my favorite set piece/prop.

These two actors were talking heads of repression.

So I cleared them of the bed and proceeded to roll around on it. I had the actress feed me her lines while he stood beside the bed. I asked the male actor if I could touch him, he consented and then I held his hand. He held mine. Then I asked if I could put my head on his chest, he said yes and he did a speech with my head on his chest. He opened up. The speech lit up. He went places and connected in a way he hadn’t before.

I turned to the class and asked,  “Was there anything we did that was sexual in any way?”

The class, “No.”

“What was it then?”

Silence mixed with looks of confusion on their faces.

“It was sensual.”

I could see light bulbs going off and realizations happening.

“Sensuality and sexuality are two different things. While it certainly helps if they go hand in hand they are not mutually exclusive. Being sensual means being tactile and connected to one’s partner and environment. It means being present in a larger way and being open. It means following impulses and being in your body.”

As I looked around the room at them, I felt sorry for them.

For the most part (and this is a gross generalization) they are a generation that is afraid to touch. Where everything can be construed as something else, everything can be misinterpreted. They are a generation  where everything is litigious and they fear being uncomfortable and they are detached from their bodies. They are a generation of file complaints and ask for it to be easier rather than problem solve and invent. They are a generation where empathy has been replaced by the tweet and they live a life connected to their devices instead of to each other.

So what am I going to do about it? I’m going to give them more assignments in their journals where they have to connect. (And yes I have them do their journals digitally online.)

I’m going to force them to interact with each other and with art. (They had very mixed responses when I had them go to the free art museum on campus and respond to a piece of art that “struck them.”)

In Acting One (which I teach every semester), I am going to do more old school improvisation work and force them to interact physically. I’m going to make sure that every warm-up forces them to be PHYSICAL and IN CONTACT with each other.

We will see how this experiment pans out. At UAlbany we don’t have movement or voice classes. In the show I directed I did voice warm-ups with them. I’m also teaching Acting Three which is in essence a movement class since it is the outside-in, physical theatre class.

But these students don’t have the opportunity to roll around on the floor like a pepper grinder, tumble, paint the wall with their voices, or roll around on the floor with each other like big ‘ol sensual pussycats.

Perhaps in Acting One I will do a round of open scenes where I will set criteria such as, you have to touch each other at three different points in the opens scene in some fashion. We will see if it will make a difference. All I can do is keep chugging along and help them anyway I can.

I frequently say to me students, "It is the artists job to illuminate the humanity of life." I'm going to start following that line up with, "So let's go light up the sky."