What makes a good or great actor? We asked five distinguished directors/mentors in theater: Nanding Josef, Maribel Legarda, Dennis Marasigan, Frank Rivera and Joy Virata.
Nanding Josef
Josef, artistic director of Tanghalang Pilipino, is an actor and educator and does not claim to be a director. But his long experience as a cultural administrator and facilitator in workshops has made him a mentor of young actors, which is what being a director is all about.
“My earliest training as an actor was with Peta (Philippine Educational Theater Association, founded by Cecile Guidote-Alvarez in 1967),” he recalls. “One important belief or mantra, if I may say that, instilled upon us was that ‘everyone has a gold mine’ inside. We were made to believe that each human being is unique, has creativity and artistry just waiting to be freely expressed.”
It follows that “a great actor must be both an artist and a scientist. A great actor must have a deep understanding of the nature of other human beings and of human interrelationships, of the external universe, and the complexities of life and all its realities.”
The veteran actor has been a resource person in many acting workshops for beginners, out-of-school youth, farmers, fisherfolk, indigenous people and teenagers, and he observes: “Results of the training vary. There would be students who at the outset did not show any great potential, but who turned out to be much better artists and human beings than those who immediately displayed exceptional skills in artistic expression. But, of course, there were others who were good at the start and became even better in the end. I can confidently say that great artistic potential can be both inborn and developed.”
Maribel Legarda
Legarda is the resident director of Peta, and in this capacity has directed many plays, including the monster hits “Rak of Aegis” and “Care Divas.”
“I don’t know about ‘great,’ but a good theater actor is one who has a wide acting range, can also sing or dance and fulfill double- or triple-threat requirements for musicals,” she says.
The actor should also be “someone who is disciplined, generous, creative and always eager to learn and do something new.
“I think that training is important to become an outstanding performer, but experience is just as good,” Legarda opines. “Constantly performing in plays of different styles and genres will hone his or her talent. The actor should also have a sense of the larger community and world, and be exposed to many types of social discourse.”
She adds: “I have met many good actors young and old, and I feel that as a director I cast them because they have shared their skills and creativity in a generous way. It is all I really need, and the rest will be up to their own hard work and some luck.”
Dennis Marasigan
Marasigan is an actor, and lighting designer, among other skills, who has found his niche in directing. He was acclaimed by the critics for his work in Tanghalang Pilipino’s “Pahimakas ng Isang Ahente,” a Tagalog adaptation of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”
“An actor must have all of the following, not just to be good but to be a great one: skill, passion and intellect,” he says.
“If one possesses skill and intellect but does not have passion, he or she will likely not stay in the field. If he or she only has passion and intellect but no skill, the results will be obvious. If there is only skill and passion without intellect, the performance will be empty and hollow, perhaps even put-on.
“An actor has to experience life to be an outstanding performer. Experiences provide him or her with a wellspring of truth that he can bring to his or her performances.”
He adds, “I’m proud to say that there have been a number of actors who got their first lead roles I have directed who have turned out to be consistently dependable performers, some even branching out to television and film.”
Frank Rivera
Rivera is a poet-playwright, modern sarsuwelista and director, and is active in holding acting workshops around the country. He founded the seminal Sining Kambayoka of the Mindanao State University in Marawi during the 1970s, when all hell broke loose in the city in revolt against martial law.
Rivera believes that the actor should be a “thinking actor.” And he or she must consider the following: instinct/intuition (react to stimuli around him and do something about it); involvement (consider the cultural background of the character you are playing, the society, environment and immediate surroundings); and identity (you are your own person, so find your true self inside the character you are playing).
Best of learning tools, according to Rivera, “is to observe movements of people, animals, even inanimate objects around and how they affect you. The actor can study these effects, which can be useful in different attacks on the role. The experience can be personal or borrowed emotions. The actor can also dig deeper into the past, the cultural community that brought him or her up.”
One memorable acting workshop Rivera has conducted took place at the national penitentiary in Muntinlupa City. One inmate-participant appeared as a magician, for that was his former profession, using tricks to show how poverty led him to commit a crime. “I was floored by the act,” declares Rivera. “And I wondered what more great things would come out of his talents from this creative gift.”
Joy Virata
Virata is an actress, singer, dancer (during her younger days) and a director of children’s musicals for Repertory Philippines, founded by the late Zenaida Amador and Carmen Barredo in 1967.
For Virata, a good or great performer must have passion, dedication, willingness to work hard and must read. Her advice to performers is to the point: Accept roles big or small. Accept direction. Don’t stop studying and learning. Study the script well. Learn to get along with fellow actors no matter how difficult that may be.
“Yes, there are young actors who show their potential from the start,” she says. “Very few have disappointed me—if any. Acting in theater for young audiences is excellent training because actors learn all the fundamentals. That’s why so many have gone on very successfully to ‘main’ stages, here and abroad. Probably the only reason actors may disappoint is when they do not or cannot make theater their priority.”
She notes, “I’ve only directed a few adult plays but the biggest difference, at least in my experience, has been that many experienced actors don’t take to direction as willingly as the actors in RTYA (Rep’s Theater for Young Audiences.)
“Directing for RTYA also requires a lot of attention to the production—sets and costumes—and imagination. It is more difficult to hold the attention of 800 children, often from ages 5 to 15. The children must find it magical. Actors are also required to expend much more energy. RTYA has a rallying cry—‘Happiness and Energy.’” —CONTRIBUTED
