To my America, Acting for the AudienceLife is
a stage. We don’t always choose the play. We do always choose our character.
And the general audience will see each type of character primarily the same.
The general audience has a manipulatable mind. The general audience scoffs
when an actor is a stereotype, but the audience is to close minded to accept
it any other way. The general audience has a stereotypical mind. How
hypocritical is the general audience, which we great actors perform for. The
great performers of life know so well the foolish minds of the watchers. The
great ones use these minds as yet another tool for fame. The fans make fame,
this the actor knows. The public makes the power. Politicians, writers,
entertainers of all types, teachers, lawyers, everyone, plays for a crowd of
some sort, of voters, supervisors, or partners. Though the crowds vary, and
the performance waxes and wanes from ticket to ticket, they all live for the
show. They all live for recognition and financial success. All want to be
loved by the audience. All confine themselves to certain rules of the stage.
All take on certain stereotypes so the audience will accept them. How grand
is this business, this terrible "bitch-goddess."
If a leader wants to lead, it must lead by example. If a leader leaves
the preached by path it loses its flock. If a madman wishes to be mad, so
grandly, largely mad, mad to a point of offense, it can never return to play
for the same audience. The audience will not return. However the stage is
written with dramatic twists and it is up to the performer to make a
seemingly impossible twist completely real. The rejected leader, or the
rejected madman, must remember that there are stereotypes of rejection as
well as acceptance. The leader can regain the flock, simply by saying it had
to stray in order to understand the wicked ways of others, or to infiltrate
the other regime and learn of the dark plans. And if the madman stays mad
long enough, if it can tolerate itself, there will one day be a revering
view on a madman that will become a legend. There are many similar roles,
there are many similar plays, but it is the phrases and the eloquence of the
performance that makes one play a success and the other, with the same
theme, a failure. All the world is malleable and open for us if we play it
the right way. Certain musics, certain camera angles, certain costumes, all
lead the audience to where one wishes them. How foolish is the audience
mind, how simple is its weakness.
The audience gives power to the performers before them because it wants
so very desperately to believe in something. The audience makes stars out of
the many others for its own advantage. The audience wants to know of people
it can escape into. The audience has no faith in itself. It strives to find
faith in others. The audience will always look to make the situation more
acceptable, yet distant and more distant. The watchers of the grand
characters leave themselves distant so that if a character slips from
character, slips into negativity, the audience can simply negatively
critique the actor and reject him from the stage.
All of us live the dual role. All are part of the audience and all are a
grand character in a play that the world critiques. So many depend on the
critique. The actors are manipulated by the critique. So many careers are
destroyed by it. So many of us look for that role that will make us stars.
We all want to play the part that the audience loves. We all want to be the
hero. We all want to be the great character. Well, we can play greats, or we
can be greats. That is the option. Those you think are great thought others
were great. Those that play the greats watched others perform as greats. But
few have had the courage to be truly great and honest with themselves. Few
had the courage to leave the stage. Have some courage. Walk off the stage.
Leave the arena. The play ends. Be no longer on the stage. Be no longer of
the audience. Deal with your own opinion of yourself.
Let us leave the stage. Let us live as people, not as actors. Let the
curtain fall.
Do not believe in what others see. Do not believe in what you see. The
stage lies. It manipulates. Believe in what you know you are.
Stephan Pacheco-Founder of LibertyCore |