The Song Exercise

What I Learned in Acting Class

Peter Thompson said, “Steve, come in next week with a song. Doesn’t have to be complicated. Just something you can sing a cappella.”

I thought, “Okay, sounds like fun.”

Peter was an acting teacher. In an effort to expand my performing repertoire, I was taking his evening class once a week at a space in midtown Manhattan. I was already making a living as a stand-up doing the showcase clubs in the City, one-nighters in New Jersey and Connecticut, weekends on Long Island and stops up and down the Atlantic corridor via Amtrak: Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. to the south, Boston to the north.

One of my best friends, Kathi Levitan, whom I’d known since college, recommended Peter. I liked him. A tall, lanky man in his early fifties,[1] he knew his stuff and gave notes in a low-key, patient way, offering gentle suggestions to a gaggle of green 20-something actors while he, a diabetic, occasionally munched on a Snickers bar.

Mainly, we ran scenes. Peter assigned a couple of actors a scene from a play, or we could choose our own partner. We rehearsed with our partner over the course of the week and then performed the scene for Peter and the rest of the class.

After every scene, before he commented, Peter turned to the class for our analysis. This was always awkward, but it was part of the learning process, he assured us.

No one was eager to speak up and say something dumb and unhelpful. Only one person in class knew what he was talking about. That was Bob. Bob was a little older than the rest of us and also happened to be Peter’s life partner. He attended every class, but I don’t remember him doing much performing, if any. Mostly, he was the class member who unfailingly offered incisive commentary. I’m sure Peter planted him there for that reason.

Post-scene analysis always followed the same pattern. After a long, uncomfortable pause, a brave student would meekly raise their hand and say something stupid, which gave the next person just enough confidence to raise their hand, thinking, “Whatever I say can’t be that stupid.” But of course, it was usually stupider, which was enough to embolden a third person to think, “Wow, now that’s really stupid. I can’t possibly say something stupider than that.” That person then somehow managed to top the first two comments in the stupid sweepstakes as we all rapidly careened in a toboggan down Stupid Mountain. By this time, I’m sure Peter was wishing his Snickers bar was a gun, so he could blow his brains out through the roof of his mouth. There are few things more agonizing than listening to actors speak without a script.[2]

That’s when Bob would finally speak up and say something smart. Something cogent. Something spot-on. Sweet relief!

Then after Bob had his say, a few of us would loosen up and jump on his bandwagon, beginning our comments with, “I agree with what Bob said, and…”

…something stupid.

One night, I was the first to raise my hand and said, “I agree with whatever Bob is going say…” I didn’t say anything after that. I just got my laugh and shut up.

Occasionally, Peter assigned us an improvisational exercise. He took a student aside and, out of earshot of everyone else, gave them an elaborate back story. Then he took another student aside and gave them their unique back story. Each back story included an objective that conflicted with the other back story. Neither actor knew the other’s objective. The idea was to put these two characters in a room together and see what strategies the actors came up with to obtain their character’s objectives.

Most times, it was painful to watch these improvisations, mainly because it took so long to get to the conflict. One character entered the scene, and it was five minutes of “high-how-are-you,” “How was your day?” “Okay, you?” followed by another ten minutes of small talk about the weather before one of the characters casually brought up, “Oh by the way, why are you fucking my wife?”

The night it was my turn to do the improvisation, the gist of my backstory was that the other character was my roommate who owed me money. Peter told me to start in the room and instructed the other actor to make an entrance. We always had a lot of props in the class, so I set up an ironing board and took off my shirt (a little somethin’ for the ladies) and started ironing. The other actor came through the door and instead of saying, “Hi, how are you? How was your day?” I said, “Where’s my fucking money?”

I still remember the shock on his face. He was obviously expecting a round of fine how-de-do’s, and I had ambushed him. I had him back on his heels from the get-go. Furious, I pulled my shirt on (sorry, ladies) and continued to press him and stalk him throughout the entire scene. The class was on the edge of their seats watching me laser in on my objective as my scene partner backpedaled and fumbled through excuses he hadn’t worked out beforehand.

In retrospect, I realize that my real-life backstory had emerged. I wasn’t an actor. I was a writer. That’s what writers do. Start the scene as late as possible. Blow past the “hi-how-are-yous” and get to the meat of the conflict. “Where’s my fucking money?” Or “Hey, how ‘bout you stop fucking my wife.”

But now, I was to bring in a song to sing in front of the class. For many, this might seem a scary proposition. Not for The Skro[3]. I’m not shy. I was untrained, but I liked to sing. I even had a couple of singing bits in my act. I had a phony opera bit, and one of my first jokes ever had a singing element inspired by a book I picked up at a Barnes and Noble. It was a biography of country singer, Tammy Wynette, entitled Stand By Your Man, which was also the title of her biggest hit song. The flyleaf noted that Tammy Wynette had been married multiple times. So I’d say, “Tammy Wynette, her big hit song: Stand By Your Man. This is coming from a woman who’s been married seven times. Then I’d sing, “Stand by your man… man… man… man…,” each time taking a step to the side as if I was standing by the next man.

I had another singing bit in my act that I sometimes used as an opener. Before I said a word, I’d shuffle to the mic and start singing the National Anthem… badly, as if I were a nervous amateur in front of a stadium full of face-painted football fans. I’d struggle through the first two verses, voice cracking, off-key, clearing my throat “Oh, say can you see…” just enough to make the audience – after initially chuckling – start to feel uncomfortable, “Through the twilights last… gleaming.”

Then I’d slowly find my groove and get better and better and smoother and more confident until I was doing a balls-out Luther Vandross: “And the home… and the ho-ome… and a house is not a home… of the bra-a-a-a-a-ve!”

This always killed down South. It could be they were less jaded about unabashed patriotism than in the urban North.

This night, I was going to sing in front of a captive audience, and it didn’t even have to be funny. We hadn’t done this exercise before, so I had no idea what to expect, but I was looking forward to it. I chose the Beatles’ “Oh! Darling.”

Peter asked me if I was ready. Was I ready? I jumped in front of the class and started belting out:

Ohh Darling,

Please believe me.

I’ll never do you no harm.

Believe me when I tell you,

I’ll never do you no harm.

Everyone seemed delighted and entertained. I couldn’t wait to get to the bridge:

When you told me, you didn't need me anymore
Well, you know I nearly broke down and cried
When you told me, that you didn't need me anymore
Well, you know I nearly fell down and died

Oh, Darling…

The class actually applauded. I had fully committed to the song.

When I was done with my bravura performance, instead of opening the floor to notes, Peter said, “Okay, now do it like Elvis.”

“Elvis? Sure. Thank you very much.”

Ohh Darlin’,

Please believe me.

I’ll never do you no harm.

He didn’t let me get too far before he said, “Now do it while hopping on one foot.”

Okay, you’re the teacher. I started hopping on one foot.

Ohh Darlin’,

Please believe me…

For the next forty-five minutes, he had me sing the song over and over again, using different voices, pretending I was in different locations, doing jumping jacks, push-ups, funky white boy dance moves, all sorts of physical contortions until my voice was raw, my body was exhausted, and I was sick of this goddam song.

Finally, he had me sit on a crate and told me to pretend I was in a park at night on a bench with no one else around, just singing the song to myself.

Ohh Darling,

Please believe me.

I’ll never do you no harm.

Believe me when I tell you,

I’ll never do you no harm.

That was it. That was all I had left.

Peter turned to the class. This time Bob spoke first. He said, “It took forty-five minutes to get you to stop performing… and just be.”

As usual, Bob was spot-on. I got it. I now understood what the exercise was about.

It took Peter all that time to tame this bucking bronco and get me to understand that an actor, unlike a stand-up, doesn’t need to “perform” in the sense I was used to, to put myself out there to earn the audience’s approval. As a stand-up, I was used to eliciting a reaction, being in tune with the crowd. In that format, the audience is my scene partner. They don’t have any lines,[4] but they make these barking-like sounds I am clocking second by second, laughter in all its various frequencies, forms and intensities. I’m even measuring the quality of the silences between punchlines. There’s good quiet and bad quiet. The good quiet is pure, indicating the audience is listening and anticipating. The bad quiet is disquiet, coughing, the scraping of chairs, the low murmur of someone ordering a banana daquiri.

That was the lesson: As an actor, you don’t always have to “do” something. An actor has to forget the audience. An actor has to pretend no one is watching and trust that their existence on stage is interesting enough.

Over the years, this song exercise stills resonates with me, although I’m not quite clear why.

All I know is that it pops into my head occasionally having nothing to do with show business. Like when I think about my late father-in-law, Henry, a radiologist who had always been sharp and competent, the person you went to with a medical question, a scientific question, a computer question, or to fix a clock or a toaster. He knew a lot about a lot of things.

In his twilight years, his mental acuity declined, and he could no longer play that role. I was with him once when a younger man stopped by to tell him how much he admired and respected him. Henry cocked his head, genuinely puzzled.

“Why?” he asked.

In his current state, Henry felt diminished. He had always been the go-to guy, the helpful, knowledgeable one. Now that he no longer could fulfill that function and, in fact, needed others to care for him, he couldn’t understand why he’d still be loved and respected.

Those who know me will attest I have always enjoyed singing for my supper. But there may come a time when I won’t be able to do all the things I’ve always done, to perform all the little tricks that make it seem worthwhile to know me, to like me, to love me. There will come a time when I may not be able to write a funny joke or dash down to first base or belt out “Oh! Darling” while hopping on one foot.

When that time comes, I’ll just have to imagine singing to myself in a park with no one else around, trusting that my existence is interesting and maybe even… valuable enough.

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[1] I’m guessing. Your perspective on age when you’re young always skews old. He could have been in his forties.

[2] Or on social media.

[3] My nickname since freshman year of high school.

[4] Absent hecklers