I saw a girl sitting out on the patio of a local restaurant working on a painting of a beautiful woman. She was looking up towards the sky, her beautiful curly blonde hair falling behind her curious expression like an afterthought, all framed in vibrant shades of blue. She only took up the bottom right of the painting, but somehow it felt complete. I watched the girl for maybe twenty minutes - it could have easily been an hour - performing this intimate dance of communication with the painting. She would take a step back, lose herself in the whole image, then step forward, paint a stroke, and then step back again. Every time she took that slow, deliberate step back, a question came to my mind: "What is it that you want to be?" That's what I think she was asking the girl in the painting.
This is a neverending obsession with all painters, writers, sculptors, filmmakers, artists in any medium. Constant revision in search of what the creation wants to be.
This is not true of all actors. You will never see a painter simultaneously work on two paintings. A filmmaker or writer might have multiple projects in the works, but never will they split their focus on simultaneous objects, nor will they slight the moment for want of the bigger and better opportunity. I know what you're thinking; You're thinking that sure, you've seen artists work on two things at the same time. How does that person compare with the deliberate approach another artist takes to one thing at a time? And even so, does an argument for multi-tasking mean that every actor is an artist?
The quick answer is no. I keep running across very talented actors who are not satisfied with working one piece at a time, and I see their efforts diluted. I see them unprepared and waiting for the moment when their talent alone will help them catch up. Their talent alone will get them by. Somehow, this dissatisfaction with the process doesn't sound any alarms when even during a run of a play, they're still catching up when everyone else around them is much farther along. I am told that they're great in the classes. Would that explanation fly at an audition? Maybe. How about during a paying gig? The sad truth is that yes, it will probably be good enough.
And there's the problem. Laziness is rewarded all the time, disguised by that talent that looks unique at first glance. Talent without depth, however, is completely disposable. That's not up to me, though. Maybe these actors know they only need the one gig, and then they'll start working hard to keep the momentum going. Everything until then is foreplay.
Art is only borrowed. It's there for you to form an opinion of it, take something from it, and maybe imitate it. So maybe the question is not whether or not an actor is an artist. Maybe actors are only the paint for the medium, and the whole behind-the-scenes process seek to paint with them. Some actors will always be a sky blue, some will be all shades of blue from Indigo to Teal. The rare actor will show you shades of all colors, and those are the ones who constantly keep working and pushing the medium.
All I can really do with this understanding is to step back as a director and ask "What is it you want to be?" and then see what they do. I know that during the creation of my musical, I watched people a lot and based rewrites on rewarding those who gave me a greater palette and taking songs or lines away from those who barely got by. It becomes a quiet question, whispered as I observe. As a writer and director, I have a right to paint the picture I want and then step back and ask the question. After a certain point, I have to stop asking and go with what I have. That just makes the choice of actors more important at the very start.
And there is that painter, watching me work with actors and carefully studying everything they bring to the stage. To her, they're entertaining and fun to watch, and in my eyes, they are far from where they could be. Sooner or later, both she and I have to walk away from the canvas and look to the next creation. The rest is out of our control, isn't it?
