Wave magazine researching the future of the Serbian scene (3): how to study acting?

No recipe for a good actor

There is no recipe for studying acting, there is just an impeccable work and constantly thinking about the situation that should be presented, analysis and strong dedication to the personality that should be played and try to experience the situation given by the role


By NEVENA ŠARČEVIĆ
from Belgrade, SERBIA


How sweet and how bitter is to dwell about ten hours on Academy? Are actors and actresses always beautiful? No, they are not, they are tired and sweaty during the work and make-up makes their exertion just nicer after four years of working, and to the others fame or popularity or well paid job. Persons with other professions ask actors constantly - how to study acting - or they just add them famous sentence - Don't act here, please, you are not on the scene. We decided to explore what does it really mean studying acting, is it possible to learn acting and do actors act out of scene?

About actors it is use to think just according to their physical aspect or charm and not according to technique that somebody learnt, first of all on Academy. Persuations are significant and from that lack of information what was that young actor trained all for. Amateurs see on very different way classes of acting from that they really are, and there is also an opinion that one can't fail exam on Academy, and that is not true.

- There is no recipe for studying acting, there is just an impeccable work and constantly thinking about the situation that should be shown, analysis and strong dedication to the personality that should be played and try to experience the situation given by the role. It is always useful to talk and to ask for advice from someone who has already had similar experience - says for Wave magazine very busy producer Srđan Obrenović who has been working during the past few years with young actors since series "Mješoviti brak" ("Mixed marriage"). Ex-student of Drama Faculty concludes that it is important to have a dose of self-criticism and real look of your own being and the world around you. And it is not easy, not even for himself, confesses Srđan.

According to Miloš Anđelković, who graduated on Drama Faculty in very successful class of Petar Bajčetić, "we learn acting in the process of sleeping because in those moments our muscles are relaxed, motor skill and sensors are on higher level, and that all, together, can bring body to imagination."

- Truth is that, we never start or stop with learning to act; we are simply always in the process! Learning to act is process that lasts and we all go through it - meeting (un)usual people and their lives, new emotional experiences, small details that characterizes human or event, interesting happenings and inter-social relationships, with that difference that for actor it is his job to recognize those things and make them alive on scene - added for Wave magazine young actor who already act in Belgrade's theaters, and he also remembered anecdote from his college days. - Famous actor, whom we all admired, said to my coleagues and me in the buffet of one Belgrade's theatre, that he didn't understand our professor, because he could teach acting for only ten seconds. His lecture would sound like this: stand up, step out, you can use your left leg, and... tell the truth!

Miloš said that on Drama faculty they use famous book, system devised by Konstantin Sergeyevich Stanislavski. - On first year we work on situation, relationship and conflict (somebody call it just - plot), on second year we do creation of character, on third and fourth we work with genre and style. All this systemizing is conditional, because you can't enter the scene and don't be a character, and also character that do nothing is absurd notion.

Through education work is done to improve student's technical abilities. That includes improvement of voice capabilities, clarity, body language, general motion skills, and above all education goes in that direction to make students thinking and imagining with theatre spirit.

Future actor Ivan Đorđević, class of Vladan Jevtović, said for Wave magazine that without gift there is no act of creation, and adds famous Chekhov frase: "Shortness is a sister of talent".

- You can work hard and study, but there is question how much you can identify yourself with character and situation you are in, or with the play, because everything depends on your feeling, ability to transform, to live through character, and on the end of your talent. Point is that acting can be learnt, but as Zoran Radmilovi? said, all of them were only workers on acting bildyard.

Ivan remembers his partner's scenes form his studying diary, especially with his colleague Ivana Nikolić, the scene that after just one preview caught truly emotion, and where true emotions were recognized. That joy of experience of different emotions will always stay in his memory.

- Beside learning some basic skills in acting, I learned something more important - that, like in real life, you should respect your partner, because best plays are those where among partners there is understanding, full feeling and mutual respect. Things go on like that in life, love and friendship too. With genuine playing by those rules, for audience you become an actor, and in life - human.

Lidija Cvetić, student of fourth year, class of Nebojša Bradić and Andrej Šepetkovski (Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade), with thrill speaks about the third year, which was the most interesting to her, because it gave her a lot of space to consider and to try everything that she learned about herself and characters in the previous two years.

- Third year, genre, my class started with Shakespeare's tragedies, struggled with verse, style, epoch, spirit of the time, emotions, passions and conflicts, with Montague's and Capulet's! It was real joy. I dared to set the balcony scene with Romeo and Juliet one more time, repeated so many times - it was real challenge to find that genuine emotion inside myself, and to enbed it in the heart of every man in the audience. Then, as refreshment came Molliere's Don Juan, School for Wives, Tartuffe. Second semester started with dazzling tempo and antique tragedies, that we "conquered" for only a month because we had to work on Cervantes's Entremeses, which we played at Sterija's theatre for young, and at our final exam at Belgrade's drama theatre.

For Lidija, being a student of drama means being dedicated to your job and always full of love, and also be ready to abandon everything not important for creation of young actor.

- One must be absolutely physically ready for all trainings and rehearsals, so that he can be always professional on the scene. There can be no excuses, important jobs, traffic jams, illnesses and worries that could justify ones absence or neglect of duties. Because, every moment is only your moment, and that is the moment were you're on the scene and everybody that watch have to believe in greatest of all illusions - the theatre! Like Nina from Czechov's "Seagull" said - It isn't important fame and glow, but knowing how to endure, carrying your own cross and to believe!

Process of study and creation is a long and tedious, but nothing can compare with the moment when every eye in the audience is pointed to you, and you have power to transfer meaning of "sound and word" in their hearts, like Stanislavski said, and they believe you and award you with an applause! Strength that you feel then without exaggeration equals to divine!

Ksenija Pejić, student of drama second year, class of Anja Suša and Olivera Ježina, thinks that talent and hard work cannot exist without each other, because talent is upgraded by hard work, and also if actor posses talent and he's not worker, there can be no great results.

- Maybe only in the beginning, but by hard work talent is fed and maintain. Acting can be learnt, but that doesn't mean that all the little things and shortcuts that we learn at the Academy will make somebody good actor. I even think that all that couldn't help someone, and many want to be in this job, because people like to be seen, it's in majority nature, but they aren't aware of the obstacles that this job brings.

Future actress says for Wave magazine that competition is enormous, and that there are certain profiles of actors who got engagement. Charisma, energy and readiness are needed for every actor, and that is the fact. Somebody reveals talent sooner, someone later, but one is certain - if talent exists, one should definitely use it.


(Published: 10.09.2008.)