The Waiting Game

Just about every Meisner-trained teacher begins a new class the same way... As students sit in excited anticipation of their first class, the teacher will walk in about five minutes late. After dispensing with attendance and directions to the bathroom, the teacher will address the class.

“Before I came in, what was everyone doing?”

Usually one or two students will say something like “I was talking to the person next to me.”

“That’s vocal. Are you a British-trained actor?”

Another answer: “I was tapping my feet.”

“That’s a behavioral result. The worst kind of actor is result-oriented.”

Finally, one unusually bright student would say, “We were waiting for you.”

“Exactly! You can act that. Acting is doing.”

It’s a valuable lesson on many levels. It encapsulates in one simple example the entire foundation of Meisner training... Acting Is Doing, while it illustrates the most basic dramatic through-line: Most of life is spent in anticipation of the next thing. (For screenwriters the maxim is paramount. What is beguiling to audiences is not so much about what is happening now, as wanting to know what will happen next.)

What do we wait for? Everything. We wait for the coffee to brew. We wait at traffic lights. We wait in line for the movies. We wait for news from our doctor. We wait for a beer at the bar. We wait for a sick person to die. We wait for the bus. We wait for the elevator. We wait to reunite with our beloved. We wait for God to answer our prayers. We wait... wait... wait...

And so it is in the theater, the only difference being that the wait is never casual. It is always important. The greater the importance, the greater the tension built in anticipation of the event to come. Waiting is the string that tunes tighter and tighter until the moment of revelation and resolution. It is distilled human drama.