2009 LUL
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What is Acting?
Theory of Acting? "Actor's Text" (performance) ...
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Actors on Acting 051788478XSubscribe to my Open Class @ 12night 
This part of the work is not spoken about often. Not unless you are a star. Do you want to be a star? Well, start treating yourself as such. Do you have your wish list? The roles you want to play. You should. Write it down, the list. Get the monologues from those play, memorize and rehearse them, audition with them. Do you know what you shouldn't do? You have to know. Do you know your strong and weak sides? You must.... Do you keep your actor's journal? Do you have one? Well, who is your manager? Your agent? Your publicist? No, you are wrong, you have them! It's you. Do the work!
books.vtheatre.net classes.vtheatre.net directing.filmplus.org shows.vtheatre.net filmplus.org/plays rat.vtheatre.net film.vtheatre.net spectator.vtheatre.net filmplus.org/students
One Act Fest
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«I'm interested for the actor because he is a human being. That interest premise two basic points. First, the contact with another person, the mutual understanding or otherwise the overcoming of our soleness. Second -- an attempt to understand ourselves through the behavior of another human being like seeing us in him. If the actor reproduces an action that I tough him is a kind of "exercise". The result is a well-worn deed which methodologically and deep inside I find it sterile. But if we approach, in tandem, the point where the actor, relieved from his daily resistances let himself to uncover through a reaction, I believe that methodologically, this work is effective. Therefor I ought to enrich my inner world because this reaction reveals a piece of human experience, something unique that can be defined as fate, a human condition». [Lecture excerpt - Grotowski. Published: 1967, Warsow.]
ANT theatreBioMX Forum It will take time to sort out the old pages in Acting One Directory @ Theatre w/Anatoly and I plan to keep Method Acting for Directors for the Method Acting (Advanced). Advanced = Acting III.
Acting is easy and natural like swimming or riding a bike. Once you learned it, it's always with you.
THR221 Intermediate Acting
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& thr blog
I thought that spectator (The Book of Spectator) is the central element in everything I write about theatre and film, but when it comes to craft (applications of theory), actor, not even director, as I thought before, becomes the main medium... Why?
Does it mean that "director" is born by need for acting (action) in us?
Grotowski: "theatre is something that happens between actor(s) and spectator(s)."
If indeed we believe that acting is reacting, we have to start with actor's reactions to space. It's not just a set or a prop, it's the STAGED REALITY. Including, yes, the public. No, it doesn't have to be direct (Brecht), but the stage must be seen as modum where they, the spectators, "act."What does this ReAction to the audience mean?
You act in line and against the spectator's expectations (rememebr the word "play"), they, the public, were there first. They already were directed (watch) and now you enter THEIR world. Think how much of the build-up before Hamlet actually enters the stage! Think about the public as your partner, the lead, you know that you have to react to your partner's lines. Yes, they asked those questions already, they came to theatre because of it, they only look silent.
This "4th Wall" concept could be confusing. It was intended for realism ("like in real life") and against bad acting, when the public is the one and only actor's address (like in opera). Stanislavsky understood that the right address on stage can be used by the public for a stronger dramatic impact. When you address the audience directly, the identification with the character is a geopardy (Brecht based his Epic Theatre theory of this principle, when actor and spectator become "themselves" again, breaking away from the staged reality). In our century's drama "apart" method is gone. We don't have to tell our sofisticated public anything (pretending that the rest on stage do not notice it). Even once popular voice-over in movies is used not very often. We don't want our spectator to be back, where we started, we worked so hard to make him a CENTER OF DRAMA.
There is another way to think about PreActing. Think of exposition you need to establish with your entrance on stage. I tell my students: don't rush! Don't go for your "objective" in the scene, unless I met your character. Without know your character I can't know your objective -- present the character!
Remember, the aim is first, not action!
PreActing is the aim. Remember, we are not together at first, actors and spectators, and only when we are together we have drama. Your aim in the scene must be mine too! Your aim is my (spectator) interest!
Call it co-acting.
Did you notice that I haven't mentioned other actor's yet? I consider the relations on stage SECONDARY and with the public -- PRIMARY connections.
Everything I said about your character and your acting equaly applies to all on stage. Often actors complain that their partners do not GIVE -- but they don't give, because they don't get it -- they do not take it from the public!
I'm working on SpectActor book to explain that the publci is that dramatic engine of the show. The audience is the true space of any drama. Theatre begins and ends with the public.
Unlike Stanislavsky, Meyerhold was dealing with the street crowd public, theatrically illiterate and he tried to develop the most powerful tools to turn them in PUBLIC. What is the most powelful? The movement. Here is biomechanics for you! We react to movement mechanically, my friends.
Without repeating the basic 4-Steps cycle, please, go and see ACT Page. Meyerhold believed that every movement on stage must be choreographed, because every change on stage is MESSAGE. We do need to bring theory into acting business as long as actors can't compose the stage sentences. If they don't, they should glance through the pages of "BioMX Theory fo Actors" -- it might help.Directing Actors: Creating Memorable Performances for Film & Television Directing film or television is a high-stakes oppucatiopn - the white water rafting of entertainment jobs. It captures your full attention at every moment, calling on you to commit every resource and stretch yourself to the limit. But for many directors, the excitement they feel about a new project tightens into anxiety when it comes to working with actors. Directing Actors is a method for establishing creative, collaborative relationships with actors, getting the most out of rehearsals, troubleshooting poor performances, and giving directions that are briefer and easier to follow.Everything in acting is about movement: emotional changes -- and therefore changes physical. They can be small or big, but they are always there. Actor's choices MUST be made. Or they will be made for you, if you work with good director or good actors. No choices means bad performance. Without MOVEMENT you have no "texts"!
I call it Actor's Text (Performance). Stanislavsky called it "Role"! You "write" those texts in time and space. Out of the "empty space" and time, you create YOUR chronotope where your character becomes your ROLE. Do you see the difference between Character and Role? Shakespeare wrote character of Hamlet, you have to write your OWN by using the text of "Hamlet."
You need to learn how to "read" acting texts, if you you want to compose them. The study of "signs" is called semiotics. In method acting it is known as subtext, the actual meaning behind the lines. Biomechanics were developed in reaction to Stanislavsky's System and everything that the method of psychological realism has to offer is EXTENDED to the next level in BioMX. The choices are big and definite! That is why BioMX is so suitable for comedy.
PRE-ACTING Meyerhold used to emphasize the action before any spoken line. How important it is you can see in bad acting: the gesture follows the text -- that is an illustration. Good acting is to set a situation for your line; we anticipate the words, we wait, we want to hear... and only then actor delivers!
The following issues are discussed: * what constitutes a good performance * what actors want from a director * what directors do wrong * script analysis and preparation * how actors work * the director/actor relationshipDirecting Actors is the first book of its kind. Judith investigates in detail the sometimes painful, often frustrating, but potentially exhilarating relationship between actor and director. It provides simple, practical tools that directors and actors can use immediately - and takes the reader on a journey through the complexities of the creative process itself.
Although one chapter is entitled 'Result Direction and Quick Fixes', the tools and suggestions of the book are now superficial band-aids or facile jargon; they are radical excursions into the perhaps most misunderstood artistic collaboration - that of director with actor.
Judith Weston brings to this book twenty years of professional acting and nine years of teaching Acting for Directors. Her students include academy Awards and Emmy winning directors, writers and producers of studio and independent feature films, television episodics and MOWs.
KEY FEATURES:
* The first book to directly address directors about working with actors
* Offers practical techniques in managing the director/actor relationship
Use the showcase directories for monologue and scene' selection.
Use Mikado scenes for comedy.
Tragedy: Hamlet, directing showcase.
Monologues -- at home.
Read, memorize it, do it!
The acting, my friend.
The more you act, the better you feel.
Acting is BIOLOGICAL and MECHANICAL.
Machines do not act, they exist. If you do not act, you are a machine.
Make acting "mechanical" (natural) -- and you are a happy human!
Actor is a human artist. Actor is a human who lives beyond BEING. Acting is becoming!
Spring 2004: we will try BM for film acting (preproduction for The Taming of the Shrew Theatre UAF Fall 2004).
@2000-2004 index * Next: you! *
Unfinished thoughts (need to connect BM and Film): "acting is the most obvious element for audiences.... Acting is the least explained and most evaluated part of the creative process." Especially, in film. Why "the least explain"? Even after a century (20th century) of theories and manifestos! As if the subject resists analysis and reasoning. Too "emotional"? Personal? Like "theory of taste"? It's EXPERIENCE.
What is acting?
"The ritual celebration of the human spirit"...
the old art of expression and communication.
Today: The actor is the major celebrant in direct contact with the audience -- the most important element of film performance – reacting (to the expectations of the viewer).
Does it mean that now we value character above all other Aristotle's elements (Poetics)?
Secret agenda:
... we need to retain the qualities of adolescence [ a positive, controlled immaturity ] that includes:
[ long list ]
* Actors tend to be personality shoppers, trying on personalities rather than buying them and doing things in public they might not do in private. [ "buyers" for mass audience ]
The actor is out in plain sight not hidden in the credits and this leads to too much praise/blame.
As a result -- the actor rules in movies. [The key may not be directing actors, but casting them.) The actor's expression human behavior on the screen is the most understandable for public. The concept of identification (ID).
... The actor [consciously] has learned the significant differences between
* Stage acting
... Acting is evolutionary "with adjustments in style constantly emerging as more and more realistic based on what the audience believes is real." ... As a rule comic style is broader style than dramatic acting, thus creating a different kind of reality in a film. Or, in other words, the audience accepts a "broader" or "larger than life" style in comedy and fantasy films than it does in drama.
The Actor's Creative Process makes the old look new spontaneously, yet it is crafted out of and very calculated.
* Actors work with "signposts" rather than hard and fast rules. A director can explain the psychology or the causes or the action, but the actor must then find a way to express the emotion of the moment.
* "It is not technique so much as the singular use of technique that makes for a great performer." (performance)
[ reflections on notes: Approaches * Process * Relating * Techniques * Film vs Stage ] So far I wrote about BM for stage only.
1. Sense of discovery.
2. Desire to escape reality.
3. Ability to fantasies.
4. Preference for changes in lifestyle.
5. Openness to rapid change
6. Ability to be emotional.
* Silent screen acting
* Film Acting (camera's control of "reacting" and "over-reacting")
* Small screen (TV) acting
"The actor is an Instant Analyst." Peter Brook
An online course supplement *
2005-2006 Theatre UAF Season: Four Farces + One Funeral & Godot'06
Film-North * Anatoly Antohin * eCitations *
Acting amazon
