I have a really hard time understanding how actors look into the audience. In the dressing room, I hear fellow actors talking about that person house left who was sleeping the whole time, or the woman in the back who was taking pictures. I have never understood how they can see the audience. Not only are the lights too bright for me to see through, but I’ve always felt incredibly aloof when talking about audience members because I literally have no connection to them whatsoever beyond their reactions. And even then… I feel oblivious to everything but laughter and applause because for some reason that’s all I remember hearing.

Is not looking at the audience a good thing or a bad thing? Stanislavsky says we should pay no attention to what’s going on beyond the footlights. Uta Hagen, however, says that a disconnect between actor and audience is created when the actor puts on a mask of “Form” which was preconceived. That leads me to believe there is value in the connection between actor and audience, and yet I don’t think these two teachings oppose each other.

I think Stanislavsky is talking about the ego’s selfish need to hear a certain reaction from the audience: applause, laughter, weeping. As an actor, relying on these reactions can get in the way of the work. I think it’s incredibly important to feel your audience is “with you,” but not for the ego’s sake. You can use the air in the room to gauge how strongly your inner life is taking root–are they shuffling or leaning forward? But on the other hand, if you spend too much time worrying about how the audience is perceiving you, there’s no way you can fully lose yourself in the world of the play without constantly dragging your mind back.

Hagen says at one point in her career she was wearing the mask of form. It is my understanding that this mask was made up of things she had decided during her work at home. I think the problem was not necessarily that these choices weren’t rooted in the play, but that they came from a place of actor control as opposed to the conditions and needs of the moment. They boxed her in to a point where she couldn’t respond truthfully to a moment, in the moment.

In short, Stanislavsky and Hagen are both pointing to the most truthful, moment to moment world-construction an actor can muster.

I’ve been telling myself that because I don’t know what goes on in the audience that I’ve been “doing it right.” I was staying in the world on this side of the footlights. But what if I’ve been wearing a big, giant mask this whole time? I don’t look into the black void because when I do, it’s my actor eyes that see the faces out there, not the character’s. I’m afraid of becoming extracted from the world of the play, so I ignore the void. My mask is made of fear and is a form of hiding. Maybe I know my focus and inner life are not strong enough to respond to the void and remain in the world of the play. This causes me to upstage myself in many cases as I attempt to concern myself only with what is happening on the stage. But in a 360 degree world of possibility, this physically and actually blocks out at least 180 degrees of what I allow myself to see. Is my inner life and ability to make-believe so fragile that I cannot look out into a black void and see a blank slate?

Is it lazy to ignore the audience? By doing so, I ignore the stimulus that changes every day with each new audience. No two audiences will be alike, and what a great tool to use when a role feels stuck in a rut. There is this resource of constantly changing stimulus that can help make a role fresh. So maybe by taking the time to endow the audience as a partner to my character, or even as the world that surrounds my character, I can use that stimulus to my advantage instead of ignoring it.

It appears that I have some work to do–who or what is this black void? Why is it here with the character? What do I need from it/them? How does that changing stimulus affect me but also keep me within the rehearsed parameters? In some plays, direct address does occur and makes these answers a little more straightforward. In most plays, however, an actor needs to create that sense of other from the text to integrate the void into her inner life. With this type of research and work, the actor is able to use the audience as a tool to dive deeper into the world of the play under any circumstances.

Mantra: I will give meaning to the void. I will share my experiences with it.