“Now you are to bark like a dog.”
Bark like a dog — are you kidding? No, her acting teacher wasn’t kidding at all… and since she had been promised that taking an acting class would dramatically improve her performance in other aspects of her life, life coach and Daily Health News contributor Lauren Zander stood up to face the class and began yapping like a bichon… growling like a Rottweiler… and letting loose with a few woofs in the deep, resonant tones of a lumbering Lab.
How about being a fireman? The very petite Zander (who couldn’t be more unlike a macho male firefighter) rose to that challenge, too, “dragging” fire hoses behind her as she stomped across the stage in invisible heavy boots.
She laughed as she told me about these impersonations, acknowledging that she no doubt “looked like a complete moron” but, she said, her experience with this acting class was “life-changing.”
Her own coach (yes, she has a coach, too!) had told Zander that she was faltering in her group presentations and that learning to act would help her feel more relaxed and, ironically, allow her to more naturally be herself. Since she respected the advice giver, Zander agreed — but admitted to me that she dragged herself to the first class feeling resentful and perplexed about how “a lesson in being fake” could possibly help her be more herself! It did that — and much, much more. In fact, Zander told me that she now believes that we all should consider taking an acting course because, she says, it offers “a profound and intimate discovery of who you are.”
The thing is, we’re actors already, Zander said. “We all manage our personalities for others,” she pointed out, noting you may be a joker with friends, a wise adult with kids and a somber congregant at the church or temple. At the core of these quick changes is a belief that adapting yourself to different people and situations gets more effective results than being your real and unedited self. While that can be quite true, Zander told me that in her experience, taking these acting lessons was a fast and effective way to learn how to really relax into being just who she actually is… and that not only felt better but worked better in her life, too!
Zander recounted her experiences in class, where the students portrayed many characters utterly unlike themselves — different sex, age, place in life and more — and they did this, she said, “without squirming or making fun of it even though others were watching.”
For all the discomfort involved, momentarily turning yourself into a wide range of characters becomes a journey across the human spectrum. It becomes a way to discover parts of yourself that you may not have realized you had. Releasing your shy, awkward and uptight feelings connects you to a bigger world that includes the wide range of feelings, moods and personalities you portray in class — and, Zander said, the only way you can play them is to locate where they exist within you.
A transcendent experience: There’s another benefit, too. Standing in front of an audience and barking like a dog — in fact several different kinds of them — helped Zander transcend her anxiety about needing to present herself “correctly” and worrying about what others thought.
At the end of her seven-week class she was different, Zander told me — her personality had actually shifted. Acting had given her a new comfort level with herself and helped her to become better at telling stories and at listening to others… and she also became more playful in her day-to-day life. “Ultimately acting was about me being me and learning that what I am is enough.”
You can reap some of these benefits by doing something as simple as playing charades (and really cutting loose when you do), but Zander strongly encourages us all to try the real thing — acting classes. They’re easy to find no matter where you live — community colleges and community centers, local theater and even some church groups all offer classes and workshops for acting novices. These classes offer the additional benefit of encouraging you to meet and work with people of all ages and from many backgrounds — and you can bet that the shared experiences of portraying a chimpanzee… a clown… a finicky old man… and other characters will make you some new friends. These challenges will lead you to places within yourself that are new, vital and exciting to find.
