2009 LUL
| "Never let yourself get between you and your character." - Michael Caine
THR221 Intermediate Acting
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& thr blog
There is no less "system" in BM than in the Method Acting. Meyerhold left no books, but the laws of Biomechanics are easy to understand.Read the textbook (2004 Five Aproaches to Acting), expect the surprise quizes!Stanislavsky himself was interested in the method of "physical action" -- after all he was fighting the same enemy -- bad acting. And "talking actors" -- the ones who rely on the written text for communicating the meaning. After Chekhov this type of acting for any serious drama became absolete; the true meaning went from the text to subtext. No offence, Shakespeare, but in the 20th century drama characters do not describe their feelings, or if they do, they lie. Anmd this is where the real drama is -- the silence! We, audience, "read" hero's motivations comparing the words with the action. Not new, but this function of the new public became most important for drama. Both Meyerhord and Stanislavsky understood that the need for NEW THEATRE was dictated by the NEW PUBLIC.
SYSTEM OF THE METHOD [ Review Part I in your textbook! ]Straight drama asks for extereme indentification; Me, spectator, = Hamlet... and therefore Actor = Hamlet. If I have to "forget" myself and feel the drama of the character, the actor has to "die" in his character!
Spectator = Character = Actor The character becomes a central category and you can see it in the drama since Ibsen. The "new" plot is there to serve the characters. Believability becomes a criteria; meaning that I recognize in my own soul the motivations of the hero. Do you see? The Motivation! Not "what" our Hamlet does, but "why"! Here is your interpretation and your acting choices come in.Young Meyerhold was the star of the first Chekhov's productions at the Moscow Art Theatre. Anton Chekhov thought that Meyerhold understood his dramatic craft better than Stanislavsky! Actually, in many of his letter Chekhov complains that Stanislavsky doesn't understand his writing at all! (Interesting to notice, that Stanislavsky himself confessed that Chekhov's drama is ahead of the Russian theatre, including the best theatre in Russia, his theatre).
I ask my students to imagine how bad the acting was just a century ago. I advice them to think why the soup opera actors are bad....
Do you believe them?
The problem is that they are "acting"! Instead of "living" their parts.
I also hold both, Chekhov and Stanislavsky, responsable for the soaps. Chekhov introduced the everyday drama of the average people and Method Acting give the tools when everybody can act. In fact, you can see it even more in the movies, where indeed "everybody" acts! (But this is the subject for Film-North and Eisenstein's theory of the non-actors in film).
One of the problems for the lack of training in Biomechanics is in the absence of the Method trained actors. Only after you go through the experience of the Stanislavsky' System (as Meyerhold himself did), you understand its limitations. You understand that the true emotional reading of your character is only a beginning.
In fact, it's almost impossible to understand Biomechanics without some good knowledge of the Method.
What usually is lost in "inner acting" -- theatricality!
Theatrical language!
To put it simple; theatre IS a language of movenment, born out of dance... and song. The lyrics got so complex that by the end of the 18th century we had "readers theatre".... The triumph of the Broadway has rather primitive reason: theatre is song and dance. No disrespect to Chekhov, but theatre is not about words. Before Meyerhold became a revolutonary, he staged a lot of operas (and he never directed any Chekhov's play, the author he started with and the writer who loved him as an actor). Theatre has its own language, beyond and before written and spoken word. The 20s were the time of the formation of the film language, the Great Silent Film Era. Meyerhold' student Sergey Eisenstein left theatre to experiment on the screen.
Look, we are humans. We can understand what is said. The first book on theatre (The Poetics) talks about drama which became history of theatre. Twenty five centuries later theatre came to a realization that speaking theatre is only a part of Theatre...
In class I have to stress that the revolution in teather won't be possible without the technological revolution, the electrification of stage. The Set Revolution was possible because we could LIGHT it, we can MANIPULATE the space! Here come the Director's Theatre.
To make it simple; Stanislavsky was the end of the long road of drama, Meyerhord was the beginning. He was a student of Stanislavsky, a good one, he took theatre to the 20th century.
We live in the history when the "eclectic" is a style and I use both, Stanislavsky and Meyerhold in class and rehearsals. Actors have to understand the text of the play, but they have to know the languages of the theatre... and BM can help.
We all know about the subtext, the real text in theatre, but how do we master it?
Theatre w/Anatoly: Directing, Acting, Drama, Theory
At what points the Method and the Biomechanics should be connected?
Read other Method pages!
The term signifies the suspension of disbelief by the audience, who are looking in on the action through the invisible wall. The audience thus pretends that the characters in the story are real "living" beings in their own world, and not merely actors performing on a stage or studio set, or written words on the pages of a book. In order for the fourth wall to remain intact, the actors must also, in effect, pretend that the audience does not exist, by staying in character at all times and by not addressing the audience members directly. Most such productions rely on the fourth wall.
The term breaking the fourth wall is used in film, theater, television, and literary works; it refers to a character directly addressing an audience, or actively acknowledging (through breaking character or through dialogue) that the characters and action going on is not real.
Успех МХАТа Чехов объяснял так: старательны, учат роли, хотя талантами не блещут. Чехов кардинально изменил театр: кроме роли, нужно было знать пьесу. Ведь режиссеры не читали пьес. Чехов жаловался на Станиславского и Немировича-Данченко: “Я готов дать какое угодно слово, что оба они ни разу не прочли внимательно моей пьесы”. Немирович считал, что Чехов шутит.
The Method Based on Stanislavski and Strasberg (1995)
This VHS is a must for actors, teachers and directors who wish to understand Stanislavski's and Strasberg's "Methods", as well as techniques of Elia Kazan, which are explained and demonstrated. Dr. Hull is currently producing "Method II: Based on Stanislavski, Strasberg and Kazan," which will explain and demonstrate even more advanced work of "The Method," such as affective memory, more advanced substitution, personalization, creating the place, narrative monologue and other techniques. Excellent extensive explanations are printed of the video, as well as of Lorrie Hull's book, "Strasberg's Method: A Practical Guide for Actors, Teachers, Directors." The current VHS, "The Method" has been of interest to the general public who are curious about how fine actors develop their craft. The video not only is a comprehensive teaching tape, but also entertains with scenes and scene critiques by Emmy and Academy Award actress, Cloris Leachman. "The Method" is an invaluable purchase for the library of all those interested in "Method Acting," and for all those who watch Bravo's "Actors Studio" TV show. Many professional acting and directing instructors, as well as college professors, find their teaching is much easier when they use this VHS.
More and more I use film terminology in BM class; simple as CU and MS frame -- or more complex, like line of action, axis of tention.
An Actor Prepares
by Constantine Stanislavski,
So much mystery and veneration surrounds the writings of the great Russian teacher and director Stanislavski that perhaps the greatest surprise awaiting a first-time reader of An Actor Prepares is how conversational, commonsensical, and even at times funny this legendary book is. After many productions with the Moscow Arts Company, Stanislavski sought a way to introduce his new style of acting to the world outside of his rehearsal hall. The resulting book is a "mock diary" of an actor describing a series of exercises and rehearsals in which he participates. He details his own emotional and intellectual reactions to each effort, and how his superficial tricks and mannerisms begin to disappear as he increasingly gives over his conscious ego to a faith in the creative power of his subconscious. Rarely has any writer on the theater achieved the sort of lucid and inspired analysis of the acting process as Stanislavski does here, and his introduction of such now-standard concepts as "the unbroken line," "the magic if," and the idea of emotional memory has laid the groundwork for much of the great acting of the 20th century. While much excess and nonsense was to follow in the steps of Stanislavski's writings, his original texts remain invaluable, and surprisingly accessible, to any actor or student of drama. --John Longenbaugh
A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method by Lee Strasberg In this short work, noted director Strasberg (1901-1982) tells how the teachings of Stanislavsky changed his life and describes his own discoveries and techniques in the art of acting. PW designated this as "essential reading for actors, directors and students of theater." Photos. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc
mini-chekhov fall 2005 *
"It's a long while since I've drunk champagne."He drank it, turned on his side and died moments later. A huge black moth suddenly flew in through the open window, batted wildly against the lamp, and then found its way out, leaving silence. Olga later consoled herself with the recollection:
"There was only beauty, peace and the grandeur of death."
Four Jokes and One Funeral:
In my opinion it is not the writer's job to solve such problems as God, pessimism, etc; his job is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what about God or pessimism. The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say; his only job is to be an impartial witness. I heard two Russians in a muddled conversation about pessimism, a conversation that solved nothing; all I am bound to do is reproduce that conversation exactly as I heard it. Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language." — To Alexei Suvorin, May 30, 1888
Who dies? Chekhov.
TB. He knew it first, he was a doctor.
“Мне отлично известно, что проживу я еще не больше полугода; казалось бы, меня теперь должны бы больше всего занимать вопросы о загробных потемках и о тех видениях, которые посетят мой замогильный сон. Но почему-то душа моя не хочет знать этих вопросов, хотя ум сознает всю их важность”. (Ivanov)
Comedies?
"His vaudeville plays like The Bear and The Proposal proved commercially successful. Popular as they were, however, Chekhov's purpose for writing them was not simply providing light and lucrative entertainment. Though the works themselves were never intended to be taken seriously, Chekhov never lost sight of his goal of becoming a "serious writer." These plays represent studies in the craft of playwriting. Hard-hitting satires, the vaudevilles mock love but also revel in how fickle our hearts can be. He is laughing at us, but given his own amorous escapades, he is also laughing at himself.
The genre of these vaudevilles is important to note. Chekhov classifies The Bear, The Proposal and The Wedding, as well as Swan Song, A Tragedian In Spite of Himself and On the Dangers of Tobacco as belonging to the same genre as The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard: comedy. Chekhov gives us an important clue in his deliberate association of these light-hearted sketches with his master drawings. The suggestion is clear: In the farces, sex is taken seriously. In the serious plays, sex is revealed as farce." *
