First, I
would like to thank everyone in my class for their kind comments about my
teaching. I am deeply touched by the originality of their perceptions and the care
that went into each contribution. Every actor in the class deserves all the individual
attention I can possibly give. Working with them makes me feel that I have one
of the best jobs in the world: i.e. imparting what I believe to be important
artistic truths to receptive people for whom I feel boundless affection. Several
responses also included references to confusion caused by the Meisner
‘repetition’ exercise, which was the focus of the second group class in a
three-month series.
Why is the ‘repetition’ exercise so damn difficult? ‘Repetition’ was my
introduction to Meisner – as it usually is for everyone – but it turned out to
be the last element that made complete sense! Therefore, the weight of the more
advanced exercises and my attempts to use them, first as an actor and later as
a teacher, produced a result that felt wobbly and unfinished.
There are reasons for this that
speak to the heart of the ‘problem with Meisner.’ I would like to say, however,
that I have nothing but great admiration
for the inventor of this technique. The principles that underlie all its
aspects – including ‘repetition,’ ‘naming behavior’, ‘knock at the door’ improvisations and the use
of the fabulous The Spoon River Anthology
- require nothing short of genius to enlist them in training actors.
However, let us put ‘repetition’
under a microscope. Pure ‘repetition’ isolates ‘following one’s impulses,’ and
therein lies the reason why I couldn’t master it for so long – and why most
people find it so difficult. It is counter-intuitive to isolate any one element
of the human psyche. But repetition is the only acting exercise I know where it
is useful to do just that. We are all familiar with the expression to be
‘beside oneself.’ I think that in ‘pure repetition,’ one enters a state of
total reaction, which mimics being at the extreme of anger or, less likely,
hurt – with fear attaching itself to both. (Positive emotions are not discussed
here, since we are talking about feelings that relate to conflict.) And obviously, being ‘beside oneself’ is not
the same as being ‘inside oneself.’ In other words, we have separated from
ourselves as we know ourselves to be. It is a state of attack that is rarely
attained – fortunately – in normal life.
Even if one has a quick temper or a
tendency toward hurt or depression, it is unlikely that we will be flipped easily
into these states by another actor pushing us. Why not? Well, most actors
aren’t crazy – despite all evidence to the contrary. (Sorry, I couldn’t
resist…) Like most everyone else, we have our guard up against the dangers of
extreme emotion. So our deeper inhibitions keep resisting the requirements of
the ‘repetition’ exercise, speed and strength – dare I say ferocity - of
reaction. According to whichever our
tendency is in life, we will err on the side of withdrawing from the conflict
or pushing ourselves into it, instead of reacting truthfully to the negative stimulus
that is coming straight at us. There is
no way to speed up our ability to do this exercise; we can only practice it and
follow the critique given by a – hopefully – informed teacher.
In the way that I teach the
technique, we move on very quickly into ‘naming behavior.’ This is very
confusing to the student – and from this point on, my use of Meisner’s great
discoveries would be anathema to a strict Meisnerian. What I am doing is
quickly integrating aspects of Method training with Meisner. Why drive everyone crazy by doing it so fast?
Well, an easy explanation would be a comparison with cooking a lemon filling.
The eggs have to be spun about immediately with the butter, sugar and lemon –
otherwise you get lumpy yolks, more useful for a salad than a pie.
Now for the long, boring
explanation. Sorry but I’m still figuring out how to make this really clear. In
acting techniques which do not include systematic memory recall, it is believed
that memories comes up automatically and inform everything we do. Yes, as long
as what we are doing is ‘real.’ But acting is only partly ‘real.’ That’s why
it’s called ‘acting,’ not ‘reality.’ I
suffer from both a terrible temper and depression, which caused a lot trouble
when I was learning to act. And I’ve had students who couldn’t control their
rage and who were unable to drop the anxiety and grief when they weren’t
working specifically on their acting. The former type I had to let go from my
classes and the latter usually drop out of their own accord.
So acting isn’t just ‘natural
feeling’ and scripts have to be analyzed in order to uncover the appropriate spectrum
of emotional responses for each character. Even if scripts were completely
‘real’ and not artistic compilations of fact and imagination, we would still
have to analyze them; the difference would be that the element of conflict would
not be constantly present. Characters would not continually mislead, often
unintentionally, as people do when they are in conflict. Sometimes, characters lie on purpose, but
they only do it because they believe on some level that this is necessary for survival.
Rarely can anything that is said in a good script be taken at face value.
Characters say the opposite of what they mean, and without close analysis of
the text, an actor can become totally confused. So how does the next step in
the Meisner technique, ‘naming behavior,’ help with all this?
Our upcoming Saturday class will be
coping with this question, and I’ll be back with new information in our
continuing exploration of integrating Meisner with other acting techniques…
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