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Visual Image #1

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This is me performing a monologue from The Last First by Chad Beckim. For a little more context, my character Gabby has just walked in on her prom date Peter kissing another boy. I wanted to act a little to re-explore the process of it and give myself more insight into what exactly I do and why it personally feels different from lying.

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Visual Image #5

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For Kiera, acting and lying are completely different. Her definition of acting is the same as Meisner's: "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances". She specializes in stage acting, and for her, it is a special way of storytelling. Live performance produces a unique, special every night that only that audience will get to experience. Lying, however, is the purposeful withholding of information or the truth. To her, it is indicative of a lack of trust and vulnerability, the exact opposite of how she feels about acting. Kiera's motivation and drive towards acting is because of the specialness of theater. Onstage, she gets to create a real, vulnerable moment right in front of the audience. She's only motivated to lie in order to protect herself, either to avoid being seen as the bad guy or to get out of trouble. The action of doing either is also different. Acting requires hours of research into the character and setting, studying the whole script, and in scene work, repetition exercises to listen and react to scene partners. All of this work is done to create a foundation of who a character is in order to allow herself to be free creatively in her acting. She has no real process for lying; it is mostly instinct. If there is any process, she thinks about what lies she can most realistically get away with and put the most truth into. Lastly, how she feels when she is acting or lying is different. When she’s acting, she doesn't think she’s lying. Her choices as her character are truthful to what she would do. When she’s lying, she is anxious because she knows she’s being deceitful. In acting, even when her character is lying, she feels that anxiety she feels in real life. In her words, “The purpose of acting isn’t to lie to an audience. It’s to tell the truth to them.”
(Word count: 315)

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Visual Image #2

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Visual Image #3

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Growing up, I seemed to be a very bright child. I like to think I still am! But around fifth grade, I found that schoolwork became exponentially more difficult out of nowhere. It wasn't that I didn't understand the material; if anything, I often was the classmate that had to explain the concepts to others. But something about getting around to actually DOING the work was impossible. My grades started to slip. And I started a bad habit: lying. When my parents asked, "How's your homework?", I would tell them it was already finished even though I hadn't started it. The grades got worse in middle and high school, and the lies became more frequent and elaborate. I had gotten to a point where my parents didn't believe a word I said in regard to school after tricking them so many times. Eventually, I was diagnosed with ADHD, a side-effect of which is frequent, reflexive lying about the tasks we so often forget and neglect. But by then, the damage on my parents' trust in me was already done.
Around the same time my grades slipped, I joined my middle school's theater program. It was the first time I really experienced live performing, and I was hooked. I fell in love with acting. I had my first big lead role only as a sophomore (in my school's production of She Kills Monsters actually!), and I believe it was for my dedication to preparing. I spent my whole summer reading that script and even getting into a Dungeons and Dragons campaign to understand the character better. And although my parents adored coming to all my shows, my talent added to their skepticism of me. If I could so convincingly laugh joyfully and cry relentlessly onstage, who's to say I can't pretend I've done some homework? And while I don't really feel like they are related when I do either, what if acting actually does add to my ability to lie? What separates acting and lying?
(Word count: 334)

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To explore my critical question, I read 4 articles (which are in my Annotated Bibliography) and interviewed my friend that is both an actress and a good liar.
In my search for the difference between acting and lying, I've found a lot of discrepancies. Namely, the definition of acting and lying are different. Acting, according to both Meisner and Kiera, is "living truthfully under imaginary circumstance." In other words, acting is reacting organically to the circumstances of the show. Lying on the other hand is purposeful withholding of information or the whole truth. The use of the word 'act' in circumstances unrelated to performing arts aren't included in acting as an art. Just because the word is used as a synonym for lying doesn't mean that the art form of acting itself is also the same as lying.
Also, the processes for lying and acting are totally different. Lies usually don't have any organized process for their formation and require guardedness. Most often, lies are told reflexively. We lie to protect ourselves, even to keep from vulnerability. Acting, however, requires many different techniques, research, and vulnerability. Stanislavski asked actors to observe the reactions of others in many situations so they would have a wide range of emotions to use organically in a scene. Meisner exercises require an actor to really tap into their innate reactions rather than a rehearsed one. And live performance especially requires an actor to be completely vulnerable and truthful in front of an audience.
Most importantly, the reasons for lying versus acting are nowhere near the same. The reason we lie is almost always to manipulate others for our own gain. Children and cheaters lie to save themselves from the consequences of their actions. I've definitely lied about doing homework I haven't even looked at. But actors, they act for so much more than themselves. Acting is a form of storytelling, and stories, while fictitious, are meant to communicate a truth. (Word count: 325)

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Visual Image #4