Back in the Day...

If we haven't all said it at some point we've at least all thought it, "Back in the day" or "Back in my day"...I'm not eighty but I have caught myself saying that to my kids.  Then I feel silly or old, or both.  Sometimes "Back in the day" actually means something, not the "I walked ten miles in the snow to school, barefoot" but more "I had an experience that lasted me a life time".  My recent conversation with actress and acting coach June Barfield afforded me the opportunity to hear an interesting and meaningful "back in the day" story.

I will set the scene:  Los Angeles, CA.  Early 1950's.  June is studying theatre at Los Angeles City College when she gets an opportunity to study at the Stratford CT summer program.  As a young actor, she was eager and open to studying different acting methods and she was definitely in the right place at the right time.  The Group Theatre had just been established and the founding members, Phoebe Brand,  Uta Hagen, Harold Clurman and Sanford Meisner were teaching the summer classes.

The skills and techniques she learned that summer would last her a life time.  But it's what she didn't expect to learn, what she had no way of knowing she'd learn, that changed her thinking for good.  Living in New York City, where opportunity abounds, June had the chance to take dance from the legendary Martha Graham.  In the 1950's Martha Graham was, indeed a legend.  Dancers flocked to her studio for the chance of learning something new and significant to their careers.  June was no different except that she was an actor, not a dancer.  She decided to take a chance, put ego and, frankly, feelings, aside, and take class from one of the greats.  She knew, instinctively, something that is widely overlooked today:  That something good and valuable must come from this experience - something useful.  And it did.

June's story started when she showed up for class, the only non-dancer in the group.  Bravely, she stepped up to the bar, and began taking direction of a different type than she was used to.  The world of a dancer is built upon two guiding principles:  Be able to take direction and learn from your teacher, and discipline, take class everyday or as some put it, practice, practice, practice.  Discipline and humility are integral parts of real learning, the key being that one understands that there is always something more one can learn.

June understood this.  And so she steadfastly perservered taking class after class, even when Martha Graham would say things to her like, "You call that a first position!".  Graham's class toughened her skin the way acting had not.  While there is plenty of rejection in the life of an actor, dance is something of another animal when it comes to "correction".  That's what it is called in dance.  Such a nice word for such a difficult experience.  It says in a very old school way, "When I insult your technique, I'm helping you.  When I hit you with my long stick (not that Graham did this) I'm giving you the motivation to not make that mistake again." The world of dance is the last holdout to political correctness.  Well, one of the last hold outs.

So, June preserved where many did not.  While she has used the techniques she learned from Uta Hagen and Sanford Meisner throughout her career, her great lesson learned in the studio of Martha Graham was to show up, and try, try again.  As simplistic as that sounds, that is a lesson we all need reminding of, day after day. 

June now lives and works as both an actor and teacher in Los Angeles, CA.   She teaches a class on the history of the American acting tradition at the Stella Adler Academy of Acting and Theatre in Hollywood.