Er… What’s a Rembrandt?
Believe it or not, that question was was actually asked by a mid-twenties man in an audition. Let’s be clear, this was not a disadvantaged youth from an informal settlement, hampered by a dysfunctional education system. This was a youth who had spent several summers in Europe and came from a good school in one of Cape Town’s affluent suburbs..
Having had the Sides for several days, he was required to play a scene in which an older sister berates him for the scandal the family endured because of his nefarious adventures not befitting his high station. She is particularly upset by the trouble she had saving him from arrest after he had stolen a Rembrandt. The actor clearly did not understand why his older sister was furious with him. When I prompted him to find the reason in her tirade, he thought a moment then said: “Ahhh, I stole something! …. er… Tell me, what is a Rembrandt?”
Now I did not take Art History at school, but somehow I managed to absorb the names of a dozen or so famous artists through the ages. Even though I hated History as taught in my youth, the names and exploits of several Generals, politicians, scientists, authors and explorers also managed to stick in my head. These worthies mingled with knowledge of several wars and fundamental scientific discoveries, along with at least an inkling of their combined impact upon the world in which I was living. Back in the middle of the last century we called it “General Knowledge”.
Like “Collecting People”, General Knowledge is essential to an actor. How else do you make sense of a line which refers to a significant event or person?
Of course I am not saying that an actor needs to know something about everything, but I do believe that an actor needs to cultivate curiosity, at least about the material he is expected to bring to life in the Audition Studio. Stanislavsky and Meisner are probably the two most enduring Gurus on acting, and both rightly place heavy emphasis on the “given circumstances” in a script being the basis of a truthful performance. Surely a reference to an event or person or place in a script is part of the given circumstances?
Access to knowledge about literally everything under the sun via the internet leaves an actor no excuse whatever to “busk” his way past a reference or allusion in an audition script, yet many attempt to do so.
It shows.
Very recently I auditioned a youth for a part in a Series set during The Cold War. Given the fact that the Cold War ended a generation ago, I was prepared to give him a bit of historical context, but started by asking whether he had heard of the Berlin Wall and the Cold War…
The lad’s eyes lit up and he bubbled forth about the Berlin Wall within the context of the Cold War, Communism, Capitalism, America vs Russia and the Nuclear Arms race!
He was then two months short of his fifteenth birthday.
He lives in Khayelitsha and attends school in District Six
He got the part – and it won’t be his last.