Stanislavsky: «We have as many planes of speech as does a painting planes of perspective which create perspective in a phrase. The most important word stands out most vividly defined in the very foreground of the sound plane. Less important words create a series of deeper planes».
ACTING @ Theatre with Anatoly
Acting @ Theatre Theory * THR221 Intermediate Acting biomechanics | * amazon.com *
"There are no formulas... on how to become a great actor, or how to play this or that part... With strong desire, if you work, if you come to know your own nature, and discipline it, then... you will become a true artist." - Konstantin Stanislavsky
Acting One Fundamentals : BioMethod
This is a theory directory and maybe the right place for my notes about "postmodern acting" (the notes I made, watching my kids watching MTV):
MTV Acting (please read The Book of Specator pages or/and my nonfiction -- POV, Tech -- in order to understand the logic of our Society of Spectacle). Everything is an "act" -- since we are watched all the time (Foucault on Panopticum). Big = comedy? Biomechanics. Physical acting! Dancing & singing -- the Goat Songs, like the prehistorical Greeks! (The postmodern writers call it -- posthistory). What do they sing about? In one word -- fuck. Yes, about the capulation under they name they learned from the past "love"... You don't even need to know any language, you can see the message and ideology in their video-ballet.
Now, about the use of Eisenstein's montage; straight from "Battleship Potemkin" -- finally! That how much they know about cinemagraphy.
"Method Acting"? [The end of notes]
Since the textbooks on acting now splited into three directions (Fundamentals, Biomechanics and Method), it will be a while before I sort out the texts -- and the topics and issues could find their right places.
The problem: now I have three acting directories: Fundamentals (above), Biomechanics and Method Acting for Directors, but no clear statement about the division -- and connections.
[The quotations on this page must be used as leads for acting pages. Especially, in the directory of Acting One, which doesn't has an identity at the moment.]
I'll be using this page to point at the places where the theory of acting issues are discussed. What are the pints of fundamental differences between Method and Biomechanics? Spectator Acts? Actor Directs? [ come back later ]
VOITSKI: He ought to write his autobiography; he would make a really splendid subject for a book! Imagine it, the life of a retired professor, as stale as a piece of hardtack, tortured by gout, headaches, and rheumatism, his liver bursting with jealousy and envy, living on the estate of his first wife, although he hates it, because he can't afford to live in town. He is everlastingly whining about his hard lot, though, as a matter of fact, he is extraordinarily lucky. He is the son of a common deacon and has attained the professor's chair, become the son-in-law of a senator, is called "your Excellency," and so on. But I'll tell you something; the man has been writing on art for twenty-five years, and he doesn't know the very first thing about it. For twenty-five years he has been reading and writing things that clever men have long known and stupid ones are not interested in; for twenty-five years he has been making his imaginary mountains out of molehills. And just think of the man's self-conceit and presumption all this time! For twenty-five years he has been masquerading in false clothes and has now retired, absolutely unknown to any living soul; and yet see him! stalking across the earth like a demi-god! And look at the success he has had with women! Don Juan himself was not more favoured. His first wife, who was my sister, was a beautiful, gentle being, as pure as the blue heaven there above us, noble, great-hearted, with more admirers than he has pupils, and she loved him as only beings of angelic purity can love those who are as pure and beautiful as themselves. His mother-in-law, my mother, adores him to this day, and he still inspires a sort of worshipful awe in her. His second wife is, as you see, a brilliant beauty; she married him in his old age and has surrendered all the glory of her beauty and freedom to him. Why? What for? Such fidelity is false and unnatural. It is thought immoral for a woman to deceive an old husband whom she hates, but to strangle her poor youth in her breast and banish every vital desire from her heart--this is allowed!
"There have been numerous philosophical efforts to define the nature of acting, but none of these has been able to arrive at a satisfying theory of acting without developing some scientific understanding of the sources of human behavior. Practical contributions to acting theory in the 20th century have come mainly from psychology, though speculation has also drawn on the fields of anthropological research, linguistics, and other disciplines.
Stanislavsky borrowed from late 19th-century French psychology the concept of emotional memory, recreating past emotions on stage by recalling the sense details that surrounded the original experience. This became the centerpiece of method acting. In the late 1940s, when the Actors' Studio, home of the method, was founded in New York City, Gestalt psychology was just becoming fashionable (see Psychology). The concepts behind many method exercises are in line with Gestalt ideas about how emotion is experienced and remembered.
Social psychology has contributed much to the understanding of what happens in the complex interaction between actor and audience. The concept of "role-playing" in everyday life has broadened the possibilities for actors in the creation of their own performing material.
A major influence on 20th-century acting emanates from the writings of the French actor and director Antonin Artaud. He conceived of the actor as an "athlete of the heart," giving physical expression to dreams, obsessions, the nonrational side of human beings. Although Artaud produced no convincing examples of his theories, experiments during the 1960s by Grotowski and the British director Peter Brook have shown some of the potential value that may lie in Artaud's thought.
Kinesics, the science of communication through body movement, has made it possible to analyze the meanings of gestures in daily life, how the body's movements have psychological significance. The development of kinesics may create the potential for the very subtle art of psychological mime. *
"Every time an actor performs, he or she implicitly enacts a 'theory' of acting - a set of assumptions about the conventions and style which guide his or her performance, the structure of actions which he or she performs, the shape that those actions take(as a character, role, or sequence of actions as in some performance art) and the relationship to the audience." Phillip B. Zarrrilli from Acting (Re)Considered
Performance Art
To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting by Michael Chekhov, Nicolai Remisoff; Harper & Row, 1953 - Chapter 1: The Actor's Body and Psychology
- Chapter 2: Imagination and Incorporation of Images
- Chapter 3: Improvisation and Ensemble
- Chapter 4: The Atmosphere and Individual Feelings
- Chapter 5: The Psychological Gesture
- Chapter 6: Character and Characterization
- Chapter 7: Creative Individuality
- Chapter 8: Composition of the Performance
- Chapter 9: Different Types of Performances
- Chapter 10 How to Approach the Part
"FunDaMentals" -- about everything, starting with Theatre Games, Improv, Monologues and Scenes at the end. Next - Biomechanics, last - Method. That's it. Attached showcases: Modern Comedy (The Importance of Being Earnest), Classics (12th Night), Drama (3 Sisters).
Level Four: Directing (Stagematrix and Hamlet).
Maybe I should back to "24-Hour-Acting" and see how I can give the overview of the acting levels...
Or should I do it in Book of Spectator (I thought this non-instructional directory could server all the classes, i.e. acting, directing, drama).
Quotes
Read all the Shakespeare you can; if you can play Shakespeare, you can play anything. -- John Carradine
First wipe your nose and check your flies. -- Alec Guinness
Never get caught acting. -- Lillian Gish
If you cried a little less, the audience would cry more. -- Edith Evans (to John Gielgud)
Have a very good reason for everything you do. -- Laurence Olivier
Play well, or play badly, but play truly. -- Konstantin Stanislavsky
Know your lines and don't bump into the furniture. -- Spencer Tracy
Whatever you do, kid, always serve it with a little dressing. -- George M. Cohan (to Spencer Tracy)
Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength. -- Laurence Olivier
Pray to God and say the lines. -- Bette Davis
Act in your pauses. -- Ellen Terry (to Cedric Hardwicke)
If you want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, be an audience. -- Tallulah Bankhead
When you go into the professional world, at a stock theater somewhere, backstage you will meet an older actor--someone who has been around awhile. He will tell you tales and anecdotes about life in the theater. He will speak to you about your performance and the performances of others, and he will generalize to you, based on his experience and his intuitions, about the laws of the stage. Ignore this man. -- Sanford Meisner
Don't think you're funny. It'll never work if you think you're funny. -- George Abbott (to an actor in a comic role)
To be a character who feels a deep emotion, one must go into the memory's vault and mix in a sad memory from one's own life. -- Albert Finney
Nobody "becomes" a character. You can't act unless you are who you are. -- Marlon Brando
You have to work years in hit shows to make people sick and tired of you, but you can accomplish this in a few weeks on television. -- Walter Slezak
My advice to actresses is don't worry about your looks. The very thing that makes you unhappy in your appearance may be the one thing to make you a star. -- Estelle Winwood
Don't be afraid to be outrageous; the critics will shoot you down anyway. -- Laurence Olivier (to Anthony Hopkins)
The important thing in acting is to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. If I have to laugh, I think of my sex life. -- Glenda Jackson
Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much. -- John Wayne
Don't act, think. -- David Lean
If you achieve success, you will get applause. Enjoy it--but never quite believe it. -- Robert Montgomery
Don't use your conscious past, use your creative imagination to create a past that belongs to your character. I don't want you to be stuck with your own life. It's too little! It's too bitty-caca. -- Stella Adler
It is a great help for a man to be in love with himself. For an actor, however, it is absolutely essential. -- Robert Morley
Just let the wardrobe do the acting. -- Jack Nicholson (to Michael Keaton, on the set of Batman)
The first thing you should do when you win an Oscar is thank God. The second thing you should do is forget it. The third thing you should do is call your agent and tell him you need a job. -- Rod Steiger
Never take top billing. You'll last longer that way. -- Bing Crosby
The one word you'll need is "no." -- Bette Davis (to Robin Williams)
Use a make-up table with everything close at hand and don't rush; otherwise you'll look like a patchwork quilt. -- Lucille Ball
The most important thing in acting is honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made. -- George Burns
Actors should be overheard, not listened to, and the audience is fifty percent of the performance.-- Shirley Booth
Lead the audience by the nose to the thought. -- Laurence Olivier
You're at a level where you can only afford one mistake. The higher up you go, the more mistakes you're allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style. -- Fred Astaire (to Jack Lemmon)
If you're going to make rubbish, be the best rubbish in it. -- Richard Burton
Walk in, plant yourself, look the other fellow in the eye, and tell the truth. -- James Cagney
The best research [for playing drunk] is being a British actor for twenty years. -- Michael Caine
I'm afraid you'll never make it as an actor. But as a star, I think you might well hit the jackpot. -- Orson Welles (to Joseph Cotten)
Stick to your inkpots, kid, actors don't eat regularly. -- Anonymous (Colleague advising cartoonist Milton Caniff to avoid the stage)
What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin. -- Katharine Hepburn
You'll never make it as a juggler, m'boy. Your eyes are too sad. But don't listen to me, kid. My entire success is based on one rule: never take advice from anybody! -- W. C. Fields (to Paul Muni)
People disappoint you. Lovers disappoint you. But theatrical memorabilia stays with you, as long as you keep it under clear plastic. -- Sylvia Miles
