Theatre has always been an engaging medium due to its collaborative nature. The visual arts and music are so lonely. Great geniuses dominate these fields but they sit up on their lofty pedestals and shiver, often untouched by others. Theatre is such that though you might be a fantastic actor in your own, you ultimately need to interact with others to fully broadcast your talent. Yes, I supposed one could monologue for a while, but frankly that gets boring and I feel that in order to be a good actor, you need to have an in depth knowledge of the human psyche and experience. Your character can display a facet of the many and varied pieces that compose Life but no one figure can subsume them all. You need others around you to compose and transmit the whole feeling. An actor can only grow from the influence of other voices; though she/he might ultimately reject them as simple sound and fury, they can infuse their character with this experience, further freeing their Hamlets, Lears, Henry Vs, etc. from the pages of their scripts.
I’m also struck by the conception we hold that actors are vain and self involved. These personalities certainly exists in the arts but I think true artists are largely free of these traits, at least when it comes to their work. I think back to Patti Smith’s comment that in order to be an actor one had to be unselfish. One had to be willing to flee the safety of their own personality and prejudices and run straight into one if a character that’s often alien. You’re required to come to know the ins and outs of another being in a few short weeks. What a Herculean task, given that so many go through life knowing so little about their own lives. That’s why I feel performers such as Daniel Day Lewis are so shocking and invigorating for us to watch. We’re bowled over by his empathy, his ability to truly know another being. I think empathy stands as one of those prized traits that we should all like to have but so few of us are really willing to work at. Our own minds are scary enough; to have to consider those of others, strangers, is unnerving. Yet we certain fearless individuals such as Lewis and Pacino hurdle in at full force to the psyche of another. That intensity and recklessness is thrilling and unnerving for the audience. In the end, it’s really what separates a good performer from a great one.