Consistency and the ability to repeat are very important elements of acting and the actor’s craft. This is as true for the organic, internally centered Method Actor as it is for an external, representational actor. The main difference is that an external actor tries to imitate and express the same things the same way in each and every performance, while the Method Actor tries to make the same discoveries in every performance. It’s akin to the experiments that take place daily, year in and year out, in high school chemistry classrooms across the world. The experiments are always identical, and the teacher knows in advance exactly how they will turn out, but the results are always brand new to the students. In the case of Method Actors, we must be both teacher and student in exploring and using the elements of our craft. We must know both what to expect so that we make consistent choices, and at the same time discover their affects as if we were experiencing them for the first time.
An example of this would a character that is in a particular mood, or frame of mind, when entering a scene. Biff Loman, for example, enters the scene in which he discovers Willy’s infidelity, worried that he won’t graduate from high school because of a failing grade in math. It would be important for the actor playing Biff to get in touch with the appropriate feelings of failure at each and every performance. Solely for the purpose of this example, let’s say that the actor is creating a Personal Object that gives him those feelings. (It could be any number of creative choices. That is entirely up to the actor). As long as the actor stays true to his creative process, he can count on that Personal Object to give him the same feeling every time. “But what if the object stops working, or if my feelings connected to the object change”? is a commonly voiced concern for an inadequately or incompletely trained actor. Enter The Rule Of Seven Years.
The first and foremost thing to remember is that Lee Strasberg did not invent this “rule”, nor is it a strict “rule”. It is, however, a guideline that Lee took from his reading of behavioral theory. It recognizes that our feelings can change over time, but it also recognizes that some of our responses to the world in which we live get set and remain with us forever. These are the ones that we are after so that they remain reliable acting tools for us. We can use anything in our acting, including things that affected us that very day. The taxi that splashed us as it drove through a puddle is infuriating and can strongly influence that day’s performance. But it is highly unlikely that those feelings will be there tomorrow, or even in the evening performance on a matinee day. But if after seven years our responses remain unchanged, we can probably count on them for the rest of our lives.
Lee described it, in his inimitable fashion, this way. “Often after a breakup we are left sad and broken hearted. It can take quite a while to get over this. Certainly you can use those feelings in your work while they last. If some time later, when you feel as if you’ve healed and have recovered, you go to a gathering where you see your ex, your heart might race and reignite your feelings of sadness and loss. A year later that might happen again to a greater or lesser degree. A year after that you might feel nothing at all, and a year past that you might even say to yourself ‘what did I ever see in that person in the first place’?. But if, after seven years, you run into that person and your heart races and reignites your sense of loss and heartbreak, that response is probably set for life. This you can count on”.
This applies to all areas of our work. We just spoke of how this affects the creation of the people in our lives. It’s not unusual for students to tell me that they were using “someone I used to love” in a scene because they’re not currently involved with anyone. This overlooks that we can’t get back in touch with how we used to feel if our feelings have changed. If I could teach people how to do that I would go into a different line of work altogether. I would teach people how to reignite the lost love of their youth and save many relationships.
Without the rule of seven years, Personal Objects might lose their importance for us. Even our responses to Affective Memories can be radically different from how we remember our original responses. It is important for us to find out what still affects us the way we imagine it will so that we develop a repertoire of tools to use in our craft. Seven years also gives us the distance in time to have healed from anything. That doesn’t mean that we no longer feel or are affected by someone or something. Only that we can no longer be damaged by it. The scar is in place to remind us of an event, but the wound is closed and healed and can no longer be infected.
With the rule of seven years our work is set in place. Then, if it doesn’t work, it is a problem of procedure not of choice. It would be a terrible experience for an actor who has relied on a reaction to a specific exercise to have that reaction change, or not be there at all, in the middle of a performance. At that moment it is too late to create something different.One last thought on this though: don’t set the date down on your calendar. It might be five or six years, and it might be seven years or longer. Seven years is only an average. You must still explore and discover your own actor’s instrument.