Acting Exercise or Traumatic Experience?

Back when I was in undergrad, we had an Acting Concentration and there were fourteen of us in our cohort.  Tonya and Ryan were the couple of our group.  They had been since senior year of high school and they still were together after we graduated.  They were lovely people, and talented.  But, they were both incredibly insecure and sensitive, making them an often dysfunctional couple.   Tonya was usually in tears in the bathroom once a week over some quarrel they’d had, or Ryan was moping about because of something Tonya had said.  While it was clear they cared for each other, it was also a big case of young love/co-dependency.  Which is fine.  You see that a lot in young relationships, right? 

So how does this relate to theatre?

In undergrad, we were taking an “Actor/Director Collaboration” class, led by Marshall W. Mason. Actors were partnered with the seniors in the Directing Concentration.  Each week, one director had to have a scene work session with two actors while the rest of the class observed.  Ron was directing Tonya and Ryan.  I can’t remember exactly, but I think the scene was from Angels in America.  This particular week, the assignment was to do improvisations with the actors as their characters to help deepen the exploration of their scene work.  Marshall would observe the director/actors and make suggestions/side coach as needed.  Normally, the director came up with imaginary circumstances to create an improv. For example, with Joe and Harper in Angels, he could has set up the circumstances as being when they first met, their first date, or an argument they’d previously had (like maybe the first time he caught her taking valium).  The director would send one actor out of the room and give the other the improv parameters.  Such as, “Harper, you guys just moved to New York.  You’ve been feeling down, so you’ve been to see the doctor who prescribed you valium.  You’re only supposed to take one at a time, but in the past few weeks, you’ve started taking more.  Today, you’ve taken three.  You’re feeling really good, but you don’t want Joe to know.”  Then the actors would trade places and the director would say, “Joe, you had a terrible day at work.  You want to vent, but don’t want Harper to see you unhappy, because it will upset her.” Ok, go!

But Ron, who was (and still is) a very innovative director, opted to try something different.  He sent Tonya out of the room first.  And then he told Ryan the following:

“Ok, you’re going to be doing an improv where you play yourself.  You and Tonya were at a party last night.  You got in an argument and you left.  Today, you heard from a friend that she got drunk and slept with someone else.  Your objective is to confront her and get her to tell you the truth.”

Then he called Tonya into the room and told her the following:

“You and Ryan were at a party last night.  You got in a fight and Ryan left.  You had a few beers and started chatting with some guy.  He started to get handsy though, and he forced you into a bedroom and raped you.”

Yikes.  This was not our typical set-up for an improv exercise.   I was already uncomfortable before the improv began, knowing the somewhat volatile and vulnerable relationship Tonya and Ryan had. The director was breaking the (unwritten) rules of our “safe space”.  How could things not go badly?

Ryan began the improv by asking, “Did you sleep with someone else?” Tonya, sticking to her objective didn’t answer.  Ryan began to freak out and started to yell things like, “Did you fuck him?” and “How could you do this to us?” Tonya sat on the stacked wrestling mats that were serving as a bed, saying, “I’m sorry” over and over while Ryan proceeded to scream at her.  She began to cry, then sob, and Ryan followed suit.  Soon, both were near hysterical.  I sat frozen at first, but then started to raise my hand.  Others were looking around, shifting in their seats uncomfortably.  Oddly, our professor didn’t intervene.  I started waving my hand in the air, as some other students did. Finally, Ron called, “Hold!” and said, “How was that?” Ryan and Tonya seemed to nod approval.  I looked around the room and met eyes with a few other classmates, as if to say, “What the fuck?”  The energy in the room was so weird- I felt like I just witnessed something that was none of my business.  And though the circumstances were fabricated, my two classmates playing themselves was just too creepy and too weird.  It didn’t feel like they were acting.  As we continued to mumble and shift in our seats, Ryan and Tonya wiped their eyes and Ron told them to focus, and get ready to start the scene.  One of my classmates stood up at that point and said, “Hey, I feel really uncomfortable right now.”  To which there was a chorus of, “Yeah” and “Me, too”.  The director said to Ryan and Tonya, “Are you ok? Do you want to do the scene?”  Both of them were still mopping their tears and snot away and nodding vigorously.  They started the scene and did some really intense, weepy work- not to be confused with good work.  When the scene ended our professor finally asked the two of them what they felt.  And Ryan and Tonya both said, “This was great- exactly what I needed!”  Ron smiled and said, “I had a feeling this would work for you two.”  Was that his directorial “wink”?  Because his improv had messed with the minds of two vulnerable 20- year-old actors?  And they started to set up to do the scene again!  At that point, someone else said, “I’m not watching that again.”  Another student got up and left.  I sat, frozen, waiting for my professor to intervene again, or to scold Ron.  He did not.  Rather, he praised him for taking such as risk and getting his actors to “that place”.  We, as the observers, began to express our discomfort.  But we weren’t heard or vindicated. 

It's been years since I thought about this story, but as I tell it, the uneasiness settles back in. I feel like, while it was a bold move to try out a sort of “real life” improv, it went too far.  The director was friends with this couple and knew how sensitive they both were.  He exploited that information when he put them into a “reality improv” and took them away from the idea of living truthfully in imaginary circumstance.  Instead, he put them into an uncomfortable situation that was more like some fucked up therapy session.  Witnessing it was awful, at least for me and a few others. But I did have classmates and a professor who thought this was a genius move by a creative director.  Perhaps a dialogue could have been had with our professor discuss the "too real-ness" of performance.  Not being heard while being an undergraduate acting student made me question my security in the classroom.  But maybe for Ryan and Tonya, the exercise did truly help them. I just wonder at what cost.

What do you think?