Minggu, 25 Maret 2012

Meisner Acting - Fine Tuning Your Emotional Reaction

By Maggie Flanigan


Built on the foundation of the work of Sanford Meisner, the master acting coach, Meisner acting classes are designed as a progression of exercises that build more complex acting skills as you move forward. A student that experiences Meisner acting classes will soon discover that they will never be done learning the craft of acting. Improvisation, personal response and emotional memory exercises are just a few of the tools used to help students learn and prepare for increasingly sophisticated skills and acting roles.

At first, a student of Meisner acting classes often thinks that the exercises are simplistic and perhaps a little silly, since the initial exercises use no text, there are no lines, no story. This is so the student will tune into the subtle changes in the meaning of simple repetitive phrases as they are said back and forth between them and an acting partner, which changes the meaning of the phrase and helps them recognize the emotional shifts. Over time, if they remain open to the process, students in Meisner acting classes learn to rely on the emotional cues they get from other players in a scene or exercise and use them to create and live in a new reality they are creating in the moment.

Known for asking the same pointed questions again and again as students worked, Meisner's goal was to make the student aware that they needed to be fully committed to their emotional responses and have a purpose for actions that would propel the story forward. Even activities with no movement, such as resting, sleeping, or sitting still are still considered "actions" and according to the Meisner technique must have a purpose and must propel the story forward. Meisner was considered by many to be a tough, yet brilliant coach, who was known for coining the phrase "acting is doing." His other well known saying "an ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words," is a good way to sum up his theory about acting. The only way dialogue will work is if it is spoken by an actor who is living truthfully in the moment, with authentic emotions and behaviors.

The student who excels is one who recognizes this and discovers an ability to create a new reality every time they act, even if for a simple acting class exercise. Many acting classes nyc will train the actor to use sound, feeling, emotion, physical space, and the sounds, emotions and physical expression of the other players to create an edgy exciting performance full of spontaneity. No matter how good a student is at it, "pretending" rather than "being" is a bad acting habit that needs to be broken. Moving beyond the bad habit of "pretending," Meisner acting classes help the student actually "become" someone else, at will. One aims to achieve complete self-forgetfulness, while at the same time developing complete "mindfulness" of the character and the new reality he or she is a part of creating. If this seems challenging, it is, and being aware of this might be an indication that this technique is for you. Too many up and coming acting students believe acting is simply a matter of "becoming someone else" and reciting the lines as given, and doing it well. The challenge of the Meisner acting technique is that is forces the actor to work on themselves first, and then move into becoming an actor. Yes, you essentially become someone else but, not a pre-determined someone else. The work challenges you to become someone new, someone that constantly evolves, as the work moves forward.

Using an entire set of imagined circumstances of a character's memories, needs, obsessions, mistakes, etc. the character can just emerge and change as the story progresses, which is how Meisner works. This involves behavioral theories, including the elements of adaptation and communication which were aspects of the discipline known as Method acting. Sanford Meisner felt that American acting was different and put his own unique stamp on the training, while at the same time developing a whole new system, which has produced some of the greatest actors of all time.

In order to generate truthful behavior in a new imagined reality, which is what theatre and film are about, an actor must focus on two things: the other actors they are playing with and moving forward in a committed way to the next moment in the scene. This will move the story forward, every moment and every actor will live truthfully and achieve complete self forgetfulness, which is the key to great acting. A performance based on these principles with have a spontaneity and an authenticity that is guaranteed to be mesmerizing. This, in fact, mimics life. This is, in fact, how we live; having no idea what may happen at any moment, how others might react, what they will say, what we will say in return. This ability to re-create "real life" as it unfolds, telling the story in a way that you genuinely having no idea how the story will unfold every time, is the most important thing you can learn in Meisner acting.




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