On The Passing of a Master

I don’t have a clear memory of my first class with Marla and Peter. I know I was scared. It was a long way to Scottsdale. I found the house after at least three missed turns. I parked at the curb, then navigated along the randomly offset gray paving stones up to their hulking, dry wooden door. I rang the doorbell. A floodlight burst on and I squinted. I waited, then heard a distant melodious “Come on in!” from Marla. I pushed the door in. Then, it’s just impressions.

The cavernous studio. The alarmingly blue background at the back wall. The utilitarian pink floor tiles. And Peter Stelzer - a tall, thin, professorial figure, scowling down at his microwaved coffee, standing guard with an elbow slung over the video camera. I don’t think I was greeted until Marla swept in with an armful of scripts to be used that night. And I was early. I don’t think Peter liked that.

* * * * * * *

The last time I left Marla and Peter’s house in Scottsdale, AZ, I was frustrated. The class as a whole had given a third-rate effort, and I was no exception. There is no guessing when you are doing poorly – Marla will come right out and say how terrible you were. Peter will quietly stew until you slip up and try to defend your actions. Then he will holler at you for 5 minutes. And during this time, it starts to sink in how he already knew what your defense was going to be before you finished the scene, and he has had to sit there and WAIT for you to go through your whole process before he could finally respond. A lot of waiting happened in those classes, on Peter’s part, since his mind was constantly working at roughly fourteen times the speed of our own. This night, he slipped away into the recesses of the house as students were filing out and saying goodbyes. I usually shake his hand and say goodnight out on the front stoop. I guess not this week.

Classes like this were common, because the instruction was quite uncommon. A lot of topics get covered at once, and if you don’t grasp them all to some degree, you will have problems. It worked out well for me, because I never did appreciate being taught in a remedial progression, no matter what subject. I want to hear the top-down justification for the discipline I’m studying, and then be given the exercises to justify those conclusions, until the exercises and the philosophy are indistinguishable. In this instance, acting classes consisted of Peter unfurling the suppositions with menacing precision, and Marla translating these into exercises we actually had a chance to understand. It was a beautiful combination of approaches to witness in action. Every class was actually two classes in one – one instruction gentle, honest and compassionate, the other brilliantly brutal.

And I knew I was learning from a genius, because I really was derailed intellectually on a weekly basis. Lots of times at their house, I would be huddling on one of their studio sofas, trying to appear calm, as Peter tried to drive critical shards of understanding into my head like some kind of unrelenting late-night jackhammer. And he wouldn’t stop until you showed some kind of recognition. And you couldn’t fake it, because frankly, none of us were actors of that caliber. What Peter was teaching was Stanislavsky, Morris, Hagen and Meisner, all at the same time. But what he had done had never been done before. He had teased out the Grand Unifying Theory of all of these masters. Yet in its raw equations, it was hard to comprehend for the layman. Nevertheless, Peter kept hammering.

And I knew how lucky I was to be there.

Once I started going to class regularly, my entire acting body structure changed. I prioritized the application of what I had learned, and concentrated on discrete topics during each performance. I picked up two acting awards in quick succession. I started getting complements about performances, even when I thought I could do better. And even in class, once in a while, Peter would actually say the word “good” after I finished a scene. And when class was good, it was fantastically good. When it was bad – well, it was hard to look Peter in the eye. While Marla was always critical and encouraging, Peter just looked disappointed. And I came to realize that this really mattered to me.

I wanted to do well for Peter because I noticed a pattern. When he really cared about your progress and knew you could do better, he yelled at you much longer. He did this because he wanted to devote his time to getting you to realize the truth about your performance, and the ways in which you were lying to yourself. That’s when it became so blindingly obvious: he was exerting all this passion because he cared about us. Suddenly, it wasn’t yelling at all. Peter was grabbing us by both shoulders and shaking us awake.

I wanted to get to know Peter more, so I would try to be there just a little early to be able to talk to him. I learned that he was frustrated with his ability to provide everything he knew his family deserved. I discovered how devoted he was to his kids. And I saw immediately how much he loved Marla, and how lost he was when she was away – even if only for a day or so.

I worked very hard and tried to listen to every word Peter said in class. Then one night, after finishing a scene, the most remarkable thing happened to me. Peter looked up at me from his seat on the couch as I walked back to sit down. His face was strangely relaxed, almost quizzical. “That was a good job, James. That is really rewarding for me to see.”

I’m not certain, but I think I was beaming for an entire month.

* * * * * * * *

I remember moving to the sofa on the right side of the room. I wasn’t sure if I deserved the sofa over the chairs, but I do remember I wanted to appear confident.

“Yeah, so uh… I’ve done some theatre and a Cox commercial. Oh! And I do voiceovers.”

Peter said nothing. He lifted his cup, sipped, and sighted me over the brim. I felt like maybe I was a backyard shrub, and my fate was being weighed – whether to prune back and water, or yank out the roots and cover the hole with gravel.

Apparently, there was something there to save.

Thank you, Peter.