Method Acting for Actors, Directors and Everybody Else

Acting with Anatoly and Method pre-acting *

ActJokes:

Of course, I use method.vtheatre.net pages for teaching Advanced Acting, but I believe that directors need knowledge of Method more than actors. Broadway Tickets
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Fall 2004:

Stanislavsky, Constantin, 1863-1938, Russian theatrical director, teacher, and actor (original name Constantin Sergeyevich Alekseyev). He was cofounder with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko of the Moscow Art Theater in 1898, which he would remain associated with for remainder of life. He also achieved renown as a director of opera. As a director, he stressed ensemble acting as well as complete coordination of all phases of production. His outstanding productions included many of the plays of Chekhov, in which he tried to strip away rhetorical cliches to enter the emotional core and complex psychology of the characters. Stanislavsky stressed the importance of the actor's inner identification with the character and the actor's natural use of body and voice. His training, now termed the Stanislavsky method, or “method” acting, had a vast influence on modern schools of acting. In New York City the Actors' Studio adapted many of his ideas to their use.

... I wouldn't write about Method Acting or even Biomechanics, if not for the fact that we still have no "acting theory". Any subjects needs it -- and has it: music, fine art, medicine... and nobody this that this is madness. It was so natural that Aristotle wrote "Poetics" right away after the appearence of the serious drama. What a nonsense to debate the need for it in acting! In fact, I have this hidden pitty for Stanislavsky, who forced to formulate something to fight the stupidity of bad acting. Especially, Meyerhold, who wanted to be a professional musician. Take some music classes, any, and will know that there are LAWS of harmony, right and wrong, principles of composition and etc. You step across the lobby to the Theatre Department offices and you enter the age of barbarism. We start talking like children -- I like it, good, believable, resonating -- opinions, nothing else!

Oh, the old angry man speaking... No wonder I keep working on my webpages.

Method: Yoga & Freud

Stanislavsky:

"The program for our undertaking was revolutionary. We protested against the old manner of acting and against theatricality, against artificial pathos and declamation, and against affectation on the stage, and inferior conventional productions and decoration, against the star system which had been a bad affect on the cast, against the whole arrangement of plays and against the poor repertoire of the theatres." - Stanislavski

Against "bad acting"... "celebrity acting"?

...

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Summary

"...Apollo became a Panhellenic god, second only to Zeus. He embodies the Greek spirit; because almost everything which distinguishes the Greek outlook on life from that of other peoples around them--sensitivity in art, poetry, music, youthful good health, respect for law, and love of orderliness and moderation--all these civilizing concepts are symbolized by Apollo. Even today the term Apollonian means harmonious, measured, ordered, and balanced in character." Britannica. And this what Meyerhold wanted to bring into the realm of Dionysus...

Questions

If you feel that topics and issues are too elementary -- go to another level (method.vtheatre.net) or to Theatre Theory, including The Book of Spectator.

Notes

... "The real lesson that Stanislavsky taught does not lie in any of the theories and training methods that bear his name. He knew there were no shortcuts to truthfulness. After the actor has assembled all the external facts about a character and used his imagination to feel what it is like to live within those boundaries, there still remains the difficult task of using these insights to better understand the human condition. The rules are irrelevant. The process is all.

Stanislavsky bore witness to the fact that the theater need not be trivial or just an urban diversion. It was, and is, a way through which life itself can be examined; and within all the confusions of the symposium, which reflected the feats and doubts of Soviet society today, Stanislavsky's calm and disciplined voice could still be heard. "Take nothing for granted. Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully."
Stanislavsky in Russia

"Realist Acting": George II, duke of Saxe-Meiningen, 1900, theatrical director and designer who developed many of the basic principles of modern acting and stage design.

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* one act fest Method acting is the endeavour to apply natural rules and laws to the theatre which can aid an actor with the process of playing a role.

2005: Total Acting & Total Directing *

Stanislavsky in His Own Words * Method Basics

Method Quotes Russian

index * Parts: I * II * III * IV * V * Books * BioMechanics I * Biomechanics II * Directing * Script Analysis * Method Acting for Directors * SHOWS * Theatre Theory * Film * SPECTATOR * Virtual Theatre * amazon.com *

System of the Method

I am getting old and therefore -- sentimental. Less and less I understand what I write. "Method," "System"? I see a new young face in class or auditions -- so little is needed to turn you into this divine power! Everything is in there! Apollo, you are so beautiful, you have no gender, like an angel -- life and light in your eyes and voice -- I want to say, yes, act!
The problem with the gods in front of me is that they don't believe that they are gods. They want to "actors"... They want to know the secrets of craft and techniques, they don't know the biggest secret that they have it all. They don't understand that what I do is taking away the silly desires of mortal life to let gods in them act.
All right, call it the Method or the System.
Stanislavsky was actor and new a lot about bad acting. So, was sick and tired of bad acting. What if actors instead of thinking about acting (how to stand, walk, speak) would think about the characters, life, their own feelings?.. Isntead of thinking should this line be "softer" or "stronger," they could think about their own experiences (emotional recall) in simular situation (Magic If)... The rest will come by itself -- they will be free to live on stage!
Simple?
Yes, if you have the will to bevelive that you got it all, because you are a human being, because you lived, suffered, cried, smiled, hoped...
What an irony! Am I here to tell them that they are alive?

"Do you have a monologue?" I say.

"The Stanislavsky system ... represents a sharp break with traditional teaching and a return to actual theatre experience. It tries to analyze ... what actually happens when an actor acts. Theatres and actors of great variety and diversified form have created outstanding works on the basis of the training acquired by use of Stanislavsky's principles. The works created are never copies or imitations of one another but are original creative achivements. That is the purpose of Stanislavsky idea. It teaches not how play this or that but how to create organically." Lee Strasberg
"Create your own method. Don't depend slavishly on mine. Make up something that will work for you! But keep breaking traditions, I beg you!" Stanislavsky
How about using both, Method and Biomechanics? Method: from inside out, Biomechanics -- from outside in.
How do you use them it's your methodology! Also, when and why...
[ see System Page ]
Actor = Character (Metod) v. Character = Actor (System)
Mehtod is "American" Stanislavsky SYSTEM; "from actor to character" (Strastberg). Stanislavsky thought that Actor must disolve himself with the character, but American School: Character must become part of the actor, playing this role. (Star System, movies, supports Method; stage is more suitable for the System).
In THR121 Fundamentals of Acting we touch only "fundamentals of method" -- and "basics of biomechanics" (episodic, physical acting).
Method v. BM
Inside v. Outside
Time v. Space
Psychological v. Physical
Text v. Improv
TEACHER. Anatoly, your pages are impossible to read, my dear boy. Do you expect your students understand it?
MASTER. I second it! I wouldn't read it! And my name is everywhere!
TEACHER. My name is too! Stanislavsky this and Stanislavsky that!
MASTER. What about me? Meyerhold this and Meyer that! We have to stop him!
TEACHER. This "Anatoly" doesn't represent me!
MASTER. Not me!
TEACHER. I don't know what is talking about! I don't want Apollo getting into MY Method!
MASTER. I am working! All of you -- out!
ANATOLY. Folks, I have to come back later. I got too many people talking.
...Together, metaphors concerning the concepts in the terminology of the actor's method, and metaphors concerning the narrative constructions, form interference as a net of images which tell about the figurative significations in the qualities of the atmosphere in which the system exists. In this way it is a metaphorical series of images about ethical aspects of the system. One could call it the actors' iconostasis. A prevalence of metaphors in Stanislavsky's relates to the desire to replace the perception of the reality with another. In the communication about the real, the unreal (metaphor, images, theatre) points to the real. The real is indicated in its elucidated absence, whence it becomes present. Theatre in theatre. Metaphors are essential to the way in which Ð in a figurative sense Ð one can speak about the actor's second nature.
The theatrical world in the text corpus is an arena for language, or a revolving stage. This expresses an intention to think compositionally in theatrical moving structures. The basic stories were permitted to lead and the concepts to master on the revolving stage in order to meet the terminology on several levels. The gesamt-composition comprising narration, terminology and metaphors is seen as a synthesis of poetic creation and applied theory about the art of acting. * Kids, I hope you understand why I need gods and muses on my acting pages...
[ use the method-biomx comparizon in your character analysis ]

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PS

Dramatic Acting? Acting is always dramatic!

What is the difference between text, subtext and countertext?

Homework

Everything in "Method" is about homework. You come to rehearsals to show what you did at home!

NB

The TEXT ONLY method directory (listed above) ...

2008 - acting2

Lesson #

60 or 90 min 1. review (previous class)

2. overview

3. new key terms & definitions (see dictionary)

4. monologues & scenes

5. issues & topics

6. questions, discussion, analysis

7. in class work

8. feedback

9. improv & games

10. reading

11. homework

12. online, journals

13. quiz

homework

Class Project (after the midterm)

2004 *

THR121

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Chekhov, Ibsen, Shakespeare

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If you are taking THR121 without having any drama analysis classes, please, read script.vtheatre.net or, at least 200X Aesthetics files!

Next: system

Method acting is the endeavour to apply natural rules and laws to the theatre which can aid an actor with the process of playing a role.
This approach, characterized by any specific or technical approach to acting, is usually the antithesis of cliché, unrealistic, and so-called "rubber-stamp" acting. Depending on the exact version taught by the numerous directors and teachers who claim to propagate the fundamentals of this technique, the process can include various ideologies and practices such as the the extremely notable "what if", "substitution", and "emotional memory". *

Quotes & Thoughts:

notes

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home * All scripts and texts on this site are intended for educational purposes only! * my notebook THEATRE * 2008 blog

biblio/books pages History @ CLASSES directory *

2007 --

Film-North * Anatoly Antohin * eCitations *
� 2005 by vtheatre.net. Permission to link to this site is granted. books.google.com + scholar.google.com
Acting amazon �Система� не �поваренная книга�: понадобилось такое-то блюдо, посмотрел оглавление, открыл страницу � и готово. Нет. Это целая культура, на которой надо расти� К.С.Станиславский

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