Stop performing

When you step on stage, it is very tempting to do your best. You want to be funny, clever, original; you want to deliver. But the moment you focus on delivering, your attention goes to yourself and to how you come across. Performing is a form of self-observation, and it pulls you right out of the scene.

What Roemer asks for is something else entirely: be there, with every fibre in your body. Listen with your whole body, react with your whole body, let the scene happen to you. That kind of presence cannot be faked, and it is exactly what the audience came to see.

It reminds me of what Kevin Gillese once told me: do your best, but never try. Trying and performing are close cousins. Both put a little distance between you and what you are doing. Don't try to be good. Just be.