I faced my future self

The most surreal and memorable acting exercise I've experienced to date.

Sanford Meisner’s repetition exercise has had a profound impact on not only my ability to “act truthfully under imaginary given circumstances” but on my real life too. It’s a simple yet complex exercise. All quotes within this post are from Sandy himself.

The repetition exercise is part of an acting technique where two actors face each other and repeat something that they notice about the other person (that’s ideally not an assumption) and the other person has to “accept everything and deny nothing,” as Meisner would say. Like a game of ping-pong, the phrase should bounce between you both. The only time it changes is if something in my partner behaviourally (their tone, their energy, their posture, their expression, their movement, etc.) changes. “An ounce of behaviour is worth a pound of words”. If nothing changes behaviourally, you just keep repeating the same phrase - even if it feels awkward or boring.

This technique trains our ability to draw our attention away from ourselves and onto someone else, our scene partner. It also trains our observation skills and presence; I’ve learned that the extent to which I’m present is in direct correlation with the quality of my attention. I don’t know about you, but presence, for me, is one of the most magnetic qualities that someone could possess. It’s a skill and it can be trained.

The repetition is also an exercise in empathy, openness and courage. It is also an exercise that trains us to remove the masks we wear in everyday life. “F*ck polite” is often a phrase we stumble across, as we all have been socially conditioned one way or another to do or be something that’s not entirely who we are. But we do it because we don’t want to be judged, we don’t want to be rejected, we don’t want to be failures, we want people to like us, to admire us, whatever it might be.

Meisner believed that "the truth of ourselves is the root of our acting" and this repetition exercise is a gym workout for our emotions and honesty. Repeating a phrase as simple as “you have beautiful wrinkles” can provoke spontaneous and rich behaviours that are instinctive and unfiltered. We all, to varying degrees, have a myriad of masks, or layers - however you want to look at it - and if you’re lucky enough to find a wonderful Meisner class that enables this vulnerable and extraordinary work to take place, then I hope you feel that my explanation of the above does the work justice.

Thankfully, I have been lucky. My first teacher Alex Marx was phenomenal. I trained with Alex across the span of about 7 years and he opened my eyes, heart and mind up to the world of Meisner. He also introduced me to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way which I’ll always be grateful for. Since Alex is following his own thespianic dreams and about to direct his first feature film, (with a stellar cast too may I add), I had been looking for someone to continue my Meisner journey with.

👏May I please introduce Nicole Gaskell everybody. 👏

Nicole has a Meisner class every Saturday and Tuesday in Central London, hosted by Actors Coaching International and they’re affordable and everything I was hoping for.

Now, to directly address the subject of this post it was in this Saturday’s class with Nicole that I faced my future self.

esiuoLouise

Photo by Wanda Martin

Makeup & Hair by Mikaela Honeywill

Styled by Laura Parkes

I’m standing up in front of the class and partnered with a lovely woman who comes to join me - also called Louise. Nicole agreed to differentiate us by calling me Lou and my partner Louise, Louise. I notice straight away that Louise was an attractive woman in her (I’d guess) early 60s? Her eyes were warm and friendly. Her skin was fresh and dewy. She was wearing a deep blue dress with some speckles on it (I want to say flowers), I liked it. I liked her. I noticed her bracelets.

Me: You’re wearing bracelets.

Louise: I’m wearing bracelets. (Louise smiles)

Me: You’re wearing bracelets. (Louise’s smile makes me smile)

Louise: I’m wearing bracelets.

Me: You’re wearing bracelets.

Louise: I’m wearing bracelets.

You’re wearing bracelets.

This went on and organically shifted from “you’re wearing bracelets” to a few other observations and 3/4 of the way, this caught my eye:

Me: You have beautiful wrinkles.

(This takes Louise by surprise and she bursts into a sort of sad laughter).

Louise: I have beautiful wrinkles.

Me: You have beautiful wrinkles.

Louise: I have beautiful wrinkles. (Louise’s eyes well up)

Me: You have beautiful wrinkles. (At this stage it felt like I was convincing her)

Louise: I have beautiful wrinkles.

Me: You have beautiful wrinkles.

A 30-something year old and a 60-something year old stand face-to-face and are confronted by the openness and honesty of the person who they’re looking into the eyes of.

In order for me to have the courage to comment on Louise’s beautiful wrinkles, I had to apply the “f*ck polite” rule. In everyday life I would never have felt comfortable expressing that as it could be deemed as “rude” or “offensive” but I knew that my intention was loving and that was something that interested me about Louise’s face.

The repetition continued and although we kept the repetition simple, I could feel how alive we both were with each other. I wasn’t thinking about my own behaviour at all - I was just fixated on Louise.

Then, Nicole prompted, “Lou - I want you to now imagine you’re meeting your future self. This is your future self looking back at you now.”

In that instant, I fully allowed myself to believe that I was looking back at myself. And I could not have been MORE. SCARED. It shook me to my very core and I did not know how to take it. Louise had similar almond eyes to me, her hair was the silver-blonde wasn’t too dissimilar in length to my own - we both even had fringes. Looking into Louise’s eyes felt like I was looking into my own eyes. I turned away from Louise and couldn’t help but start to cry and shake. It was so surreal and I couldn’t un-see it.

What was I so afraid of?

This is the question I woke up asking myself this morning. I think I was most afraid of time passing. That a big part of my life had skipped and I hadn’t the memory of what happened in between, (you can probably tell how convinced I was in the way that I’m writing - my heart is still accelerating at the thought). I commonly hear people say how their life flashed them by in a heartbeat and comment on the disconnect between the person they see in the mirror and the person and age they feel themselves to be. Although the thought of death occasionally rocks the steadiness of my breath, I do know that I am more afraid of losing people whom I love than dying myself. If I’m dead I wouldn’t have to worry about the grief. I think perhaps I’m afraid of grief.

Aging has also been a fear of mine, and I (shamefully) plucked the one and only white hair that has ever presented itself on my hair as quickly as I spotted it. But WHY WHY WHY am I so afraid of aging? Isn’t it a privilege to have lived? I had no hesitation in telling Louise how beautiful she was and truly saw that. I also saw a woman of strength, groundedness and grace. Yes, the insecurity may have been in there too, but I saw resilience. I saw resolve and self-assurance. A woman who had been on a journey and isn’t going to be saddened by societal pressures. This part is an assumption of course but it’s true to what I saw in Louise.

I’d love to hear Louise’s perspective on the experience we shared.

To be continued?