I recently had a great discussion with my long time yoga teacher Baxter Bell, in Oakland, California, about how acting and yoga overlap in their requirements of clear bodily awareness. In acting, as in yoga, it's essential to find a neutral body and be as relaxed and open as possible. Both require this neutrality to begin to work one's bodily instrument into a character to share with an audience or a strong, balanced physical being. One must loosen all unnecessarily tight areas and properly align one's skeleton. Shoulders and hips, and neck are obvious places to start. These large areas get lots of attention in both yoga and theatre.
But one biggie that comes up a LOT for singers, speakers, and actors, that doesn't get much focus in yoga sometimes, is the jaw. I heard somewhere it's one of the strongest muscle sets in the body.
TMJ, a painful jaw condition (popping and pain often accompanied by teeth grinding in one's sleep, and clenching one's jaw constantly) is becoming a more and more prevalent condition, especially in women. I've experienced TMJ for a number of years. I started wondering: WHY?
My theater teachers have helped me more with my TMJ than the physical therapy, massage and acupuncture I was given as treatment. Through acting, I am starting to see how completely my jaw is linked to mind, speech and inner world. In order to act, it's important to understand what we hold back.
In observing the differences of verbal form in modern theatre vs. romantic and historic theatre (ie: Shakespeare), we've been learning that modern works spend a lot of time and energy on inner life being physically observable. Shakespeare, on the other hand, tells you every single thought. Connor Kerns, our Shakespeare teacher, has been teaching us the fascinating fact that in Elizabethan England, people were closer to everything in the natural world. Death, birth, poop, mud, weather, food, sex - were all much more in your face. The philosophical concept of the separation of heart and head had not been discussed yet. The body, mind, and the natural world were more ONE. Thoughts weren't so hidden, private, and introverted as now. Shakespeare's plays process out loud; the characters share thoughts and feelings with the audience in real time, their inner selves completely open through their words.
Connor also pointed out recently that some people don't know what they are thinking until they speak or write their thoughts. It was like a sun shined in my soul! (I had always thought that I was a bit on the slow side because I had to speak or write to know what was on my mind. Maybe I'm just less evolved, and therefore exotically Elizabethan!)
These insights relate closely to to work we are doing in Meisner with Barry Hunt. A big part of our work is to respond to and act on our own impulses. I'm finding this is incredibly challenging for me because I have learned over my 38 years to keep many of my verbal impulses under wraps.
You know the scene: You're standing around at a party and you say something that makes perfect sense to you, and it's even pretty funny. Just as you speak the there's a lull in the conversation in the room and the nice people you just met look at you with a distant horror in their eyes, as the entire party falls silent. The chirping of a single cricket, the skittering of a tumble weed and the mournful howl of a distant coyote are the only sounds to be heard.
The most unnerving bit of these personal discoveries is the understanding that I often have no idea what my impulses are because I don't speak, write or act on them. Is my internal world so terrifying? I'm not sure I want to know...
In normal day-to-day life I shut myself down and greatly censor my speech. This may be a good thing for the party goers, but I still have to question how it came about.
How best to censor one's self? Keep one's mouth shut! This seems related to that old adage "Children should be seen, not heard". I grew up with that standard somewhat, and I took it to heart.
I also learned that a woman must look her best at all times. So around the age of 13, I examined how I look best - mouth shut or open? Where did my jaw need to sit so that I looked "prettiest" ? - and then I set it there. The other day, I was thinking about the term "mouth breather" - a term I've heard used for so called "dumb" people. I was overcome with a desire to be so senseless of my jaw that it could hang there and I'd never even think about what people thought of how I looked or what my intelligence was. What a sweet release that would be - an entire life with a slack jaw! Heaven on earth, even if bugs flew in from time to time!
I'm going on 25 years of a jaw set by vanity, and 38 years of sequestered thoughts, here. Bare with me.
With all of this new awareness, I find myself feeling a bit more confident in my acting, and personally gaining better access to my internal voices and practicing saying what's on my mind. Certain levels of politeness and privacy are not as necessary as thought. Speaking out is a great gift and natural ability we have as human beings. Theatre is based on this very ability. On some very large level we may have learned to narrow that tendency toward verbal truth because of cultural mores. Theatre speaks for us.
Connor taught us something his mentor Cicely Barry (a voice coach for the Royal Shakespeare company) imparted to him. She has an idea that it is our need to survive that compels us to speak.
Acting school is helping me survive. Maybe THRIVE would be a better word.
I wont be there to partake of the classes Baxter will build around these ideas, but I know that he will craft a deep practice for the jaw that will benefit many. We're planning a phone date to discuss exercises. I'll bring what I can to class. I'll unhinge my jaw, and let the words pour out like water. At the very least, I'll feed a tree.
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