Use your imagination

We discussed this last week at a training session. The objective of the session was to imagine any object as any other object and engage with the object completely. So, I first picked a bench and imagined it to be a bicycle. Then I picked up a bag and pretended it to be a book. And then a steel tumbler as a phone and so on.

In the discussion that ensued, the takeaway was not that, we believe that the tumbler is a phone, but the fact as an actor one has to make the audience believe that the tumbler is a phone. The actor who cries in a crying scene is not as good as the actor who makes the audience cry in the crying scene.

And that led to the story that children find more joy in their imagination than in an actual toy. The process of making the toy builds up the imagination that is far more rewarding then mere ‘unboxing’. So, a cardboard quiver made of cardboard, double sided tape, a satin ribbon is far more fun than a plastic quiver. The cardboard quiver has decorations, names, colour all customized to the childs liking (and not an adults liking) and they are doubly proud of the fact that they made it.

For a child that imagination is the bigger part than the toy. Likewise, for an actor on stage, one does far more with imagination (and making the audience believe in that imagination) than with actual props.