Jane Marla Robbins - Acting Techniques for Everyday Life Look and Feel Self-Confident in Difficult, Real-Life Situations

I HAVE BEEN able to teach only because I have been taught. I am grateful to all of my teachers, especially Martha Graham, John Lehne, Walter Lott, Sonia Moore, Pat Randall, Sandra Seacat, and Edwin Steinbrecher. My students have also been my teachers, and I am deeply grateful to every single one of them.

I have my editor, Mathew Lore, to thank for his belief in this book, and for his invaluable input, and Sue McCloskey, for her help in clarifying and sculpting it.

I have been able to write this book also because of the support and love that both it and I have received from Terry Belanger, Anna Norberg, Bonnie Loren, Pamela Shaw, Rachel Choderov, Dianne Demailly, Patricia Bosworth, Casey Kelly, Ahmed Aboudan, Rob Gardinier, Danny Selznick, Sonny Shear, Dolly Gordon, David Bockoff, Bill Bassett, Eileen Peterson, Phyllis Persechini, Gabrielle Lamirand, Talia Shire, Leon Schneiderman, Judith P. Zinsser, my agent Julia Lord, my sister Aileen Robbins, and my niece Ariel Friedman, who sent me the following message after one of my performances, words that I wish we could all hear all the time: I knew you could do it; and you did. Just believe. I do.

ACTING
Techniques
for Everyday
LIFE

JANE MARLA ROBBINS

For my grandma Esther Robbins, who came to America from
Russia in 1900 and didnt always know how to act.

And for my mother, Mildred Robbins Leet,
for teaching me how to take action,
and for her love.

ACTING TECHNIQUES FOR EVERYDAY LIFE:

Look and Feel Self-Confident in Difficult Real-Life Situations

Copyright Jane Marla Robbins 2002

Published by

Marlowe & Company

An Imprint of Avalon Publishing Group Incorporated

161 William Street, 16th Floor

New York, NY 10038

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Robbins, Jane Marla.

Acting techniques for everyday life : look and feel self-confident
in difficult real life situations / by Jane Marla Robbins.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-78672-919-7

1. Self-confidence. 2. ActingPsychological aspects. I. Title.

BF575.S39 R63 2002

158.2dc21

2002141431

Designed by Pauline Neuwirth, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.

Distributed by Publishers Group West

The names of the people who have worked with me,
whose stories I share in this book, have been changed to honor their privacy.

The names of the actors I have quoted have been kept to honor
their craft and their work

J ANE MARLA ROBBINS is thrilled to have her many years of experience as an actress, writer, and teacher come together in this book.

Jane has been teaching acting techniques for everyday life for over twenty years all over the United Statesat schools, universities, in corporations, and in private practice. She currently leads workshops on Acting Techniques for Business Success in Los Angeles and teaches classes at Loyola Marymount University and the University of Judaism.

Jane was commissioned by the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. to write and perform the one-woman play Reminiscences of Mozart by His Sister, which she also performed at New Yorks Lincoln Center. Jane also wrote and starred in Dear Nobody (which ran for a year in New York, was produced on CBS, and then toured all over the United States and to London); Jane Avril (New York, Copenhagen); Miriams Dance (New York, Los Angeles); and Bats in the Belfry (Spoleto Festival, Italy).

Jane has appeared in several motion pictures, including Rocky I, Rocky II, Rocky V, Arachnophobia, True Identity, and Coming Apart. Her television credits include ER, Murder She Wrote, The Heidi Chronicles, Beverly Hills 90210, Knots Landing, Falcon Crest, and 79 Park Avenue. She also performed on Broadway in Richard III and Morning, Noon & Night.

A published poet and essayist, Jane graduated magna cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and studied at the Graduate School of Psychology at Antioch College. She lives outside Los Angeles, California.

I HAVE ACTED in plays, movies, and on television for over thirty years, and while I was acting, I always felt secure. I knew what I was doing. I had learned how to make myself look great and even to shine.

But I noticed that in my everyday life, there were too many situations in which I felt uncomfortable, awkward, and ugly. I, whom the New York drama critics had described as witty and wonderful ... with the smooth cool beauty of a Gainsborough.

Of course, I had thought it wasnt the real me they were reviewing. Surely, it was the character....

But it was also me, and only me, up there on those stages, feeling free enough to be and reveal those different, witty, wonderful parts of myself.

I got tired of feeling stupid and inadequate in life. I realized I could use the preparation and work that went into giving a dazzling performance on stage to make real-life situations that made me uncomfortable easier to handle, and even fun.

I made a list of some of the techniques that actors have used for hundreds of years, tools that have helped them to achieve the confidence and joy they need for any good performance. I realized that the same tools could help anyone achieve confidence and joy in their real life.

This book describes those techniques, how and why they work, and contains stories from famous actors and ordinary people, all of whom have used them successfully both on and off stage. Including me.

This book is not meant to teach you how to lie, but to help you find ways to be more authentically yourself. With all your humor, grace, and depth. With all your strength, uniqueness, and joy.

The first time I ever consciously used an acting technique in my real life, I was frankly amazed that it actually worked. I found myself in a situation where I had to spend time with a man who it seemed could not be in the same room with me without mocking me, belittling me, or in some way putting me down. His put-downs made me want to shrivel up and die. The times I had to see him became unbearable.

Then, one day, I pretended that he had leprosy. I just told myself, He has leprosy. I didnt imagine boils on his face, or bones sticking out of his hands, I just said, Ill try it. Ill pretend he has leprosy.

I was using a simple acting technique called the Magic As If. I merely acted as if he had leprosy. It worked.