ACTING FROM SOUL
Soulful acting is inspired from something greater than the individual ego. It has the quality of being elusive. The audience senses something intangible yet so real. It captures, and has the power to draw an audience in. It is not interested in performing or entertaining. Instead it simply lives and permeates the theatre. The audience is involved in the story instead of the actor.
“Acting is not about being famous, it’s about exploring the human soul.”
– Annette Bening
Acting from Soul means being open to life and death, love and hate, light and shadow on a very deeply personal level.
Soulful acting is full of beauty and love because it comes from the very depths of the actors being. It can keep an audience’s attention even when the actor is still and not speaking because it is intense in feeling and thought. Soulful acting makes an actor intensely real.
Acting from the soul means being open to life and death, love and hate, light and shadow on a very deep and personal level. It means being willing to face our deepest places of shame, fear, rage and grief. It means letting go of the defences and protections that keep the ego rigid and the acting shallow. It means connecting our expressive voice to a deep emotional honesty and truth from within the body.
Two actors in one of our Toronto acting classes tap into a soulful chemistry in their scene work
ACTING FROM THE DEPTHS OF CHARACTER
This is the deeper layer that undergirds all the “actions” of your character. It is the layer that attracts and involves the audience’s emotions and subconscious. No matter how great your choices are, no matter how wonderful your physicality on stage, no matter how cleverly you tell the story; without this layer the performance will be superficial and without truth.
Make it about the story. Be willing to “go there”, to visit the places that are difficult to visit. Rip open your soul and heart. Take an intense soul-searching journey. Be willing to “go there”.
When we act from the soul, we act from within a creative space that is filled with an infinite possibility.
With love,
Cindy Tanas
Cindy Tanas Actors Studio teaches acting classes for Theatre and Film in Toronto and the GTA, Collingwood and Southern Georgian Bay.