Method acting - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Method acting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Method acting is any of a family of techniques used by actors to create in themselves the thoughts and feelings of their characters, so as to develop lifelike performances. Though not all method actors use the same approach, the "method" in method acting usually refers to the practice, influenced by Constantin Stanislavski and created by Lee Strasberg, in which actors draw upon their own emotions and memories in their portrayals, aided by a set of exercises and practices including sense memory and affective memory. Method acting shares similarities with Stanislavski's system. Method actors are often characterised as immersing themselves in their characters to the extent that they continue to portray them even offstage or off-camera for the duration of a project. However, this is a popular misconception. While some actors have employed this approach, it is generally not taught as part of the Method[citation needed]. Method acting has been described as having "revolutionized American theater." While Classical acting instruction "had focused on developing external talents," the Method was "the first systematized training that also developed internal abilities (sensory, psychological, emotional)."[1] Method acting continues to evolve, with many contemporary acting teachers, schools, and colleges teaching an integrated approach that draws from several different schools of thought about acting.

Contents

1 Origins 2 Technique 3 Contemporary approaches 4 Teachers 5 Practitioners 6 Controversy 7 Further reading 7.1 Articles 7.2 Major books on Method acting 7.3 Books on contemporary approaches to Method acting 8 See also 9 References

Origins
Main article: Stanislavski's system "The Method" was first popularized by the Group Theatre in New York City in the 1930s and subsequently advanced by Lee Strasberg and others at the Actors Studio in the 1940s and 1950s. It was derived from the 'system' created by Constantin Stanislavski, who pioneered similar ideas in his quest for "theatrical truth." This was done through his friendships with Russia's leading actors, his collaborations with playwright Anton Chekhov, and his own teaching, writing, and acting at the Moscow Art Theatre (founded in 1897).

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Strasberg's students included many of the best known American actors of the latter half of the 20th century, including Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, James Dean, George Peppard, Dustin Hoffman, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Mickey Rourke, and many others.[2] Using the Method, the actor also recalls emotions or reactions from his or her own life and uses them to identify with the character being portrayed.[citation needed]

Technique
"The Method" usually refers to the teachings of Lee Strasberg, but the term "method acting" is also sometimes applied to the teachings of his Group Theatre colleagues, including Stella Adler, Robert Lewis, and Sanford Meisner, and to other schools of acting derived from Stanislavski's system, each of which takes a slightly different approach. Constantin Stanislavski himself has been noted saying that certain techniques that are considered to be "method" are not true to his original system, with an undue emphasis on the exercises of affective memory. However there is no one correct way of method acting, for each different method technique is simply a different teachers' understanding of the Stanislavski System. Generally, Method acting combines the actor's careful consideration of the character's psychological motives and personal identification with the character, possibly including a reproduction of the character's emotional state by recalling emotions or sensations from the actor's own life. It is often contrasted with acting in which thoughts and emotions are indicated, or presented in a clichd, unrealistic way. Among the concepts and techniques of Method acting are substitution, "as if," sense memory, affective memory, animal work, and archetype work. Strasberg uses the question, "What would motivate me, the actor, to behave in the way the character does?" Strasberg asks the actor to replace the play's circumstances with his or her own, the substitution.[3] Sanford Meisner, another Group Theatre pioneer, championed a closely related version of the Method, which came to be called the Meisner technique. Meisner broke from Strasberg on the subjects of sense memory and affective memory, basic techniques espoused by Strasberg through which actors access their own personal experiences in order to identify with and portray the emotional lives of their characters. Meisner believed that this approach caused actors to focus on themselves and not fully tell the story. He advocated fully immersing oneself "in the moment" and concentrating on one's partner. Meisner taught actors to achieve spontaneity by understanding the given circumstances of the scene (as did Strasberg) and through interpersonal exercises he designed to help actors invest emotionally in the scene, freeing them to react "honestly" as the character. Meisner described acting as "living truthfully under imaginary circumstances."[4] Robert Lewis also broke with Strasberg. In his books Methodor Madness? and the more autobiographical Slings and Arrows, Lewis disagreed with the idea that vocal training should be separated from pure emotional training.[5] Lewis felt that more emphasis should be placed on formal voice and body training, such as teaching actors how to speak verse and enunciate clearly, rather than on pure raw emotion, which he felt was the focus of Method training.[5] Stella Adler, an actress and acting teacher whose fame was cemented by the success of her students Marlon Brando, Warren Beatty, and Robert De Niro, also broke with Strasberg after she studied with

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Stanislavski himself, the only Group Theatre teacher to do so, after he had modified many of his early ideas about acting. Her version of the Method is based on the idea that actors should conjure up emotion not by using their own personal memories, but by using the scene's given circumstances. Like Strasberg's, Adler's technique relies on carrying through tasks, wants, needs, and objectives. It also seeks to stimulate the actor's imagination through the use of "as ifs." Adler often taught that "drawing on personal experience alone was too limited." Therefore, she urged performers to draw on their imaginations and utilize "emotional memory" to the fullest.[6]

Contemporary approaches
Contemporary Method acting teachers and schools often synthesize the work of their predecessors into an integrated approach. They reject the notion that any one of the major Method teachers of the 20th century was completely correct or incorrect, and they continue to develop new acting tools and techniques. Some modern acting theorists and teachers have noted that Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler, and others often misunderstood each other's work, and that their criticisms were based on this misunderstanding. For example, they all taught actors to use their imagination, to connect with each other in performance, to analyze the script for wants, needs, and objectives. Meisner often said that Strasberg actors were too focused on themselves, but Strasberg trained many of the most respected actors of the 20th century. In addition to taking an integrated approach, contemporary actors sometimes seek help from psychologists[7][8] or use imaginative tools such as dream work or archetype work to remove emotional blocks. Techniques have also been developed to prevent the world of the performance from spilling over into an actor's personal life in destructive ways.

Teachers
Stanislavski described his acting system in a trilogy of books set in a fictional acting school: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role. He also wrote an autobiography, My Life in Art. Acting teachers whose work was inspired by Stanislavski include:

Richard Boleslawski, actor, film director, and founder of the American Laboratory Theatre in New York. Michael Chekhov, an actor, director, and author (and nephew of Anton Chekhov) whose technique, largely an outside-in approach and somewhat more metaphysical, diverged from and returned to Stanislavski's over the course of his career. Maria Ouspenskaya, an actress who taught at the American Laboratory Theatre. Her students included John Garfield, Stella Adler, and Lee Strasberg. Lee Strasberg, a director, actor, and producer whose teachings are most closely associated with the term Method acting. Stella Adler, an actress and founder of the Stella Adler Conservatory in New York City. Herbert Berghof, founder of HB Studio in New York City. Uta Hagen, an actress and the author of Respect for Acting and A Challenge for the Actor, who emphasized the techniques of identity and substitution. Robert Lewis, an actor, director, co-founder of the Actors Studio, and author of Methodor Madness?

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In fact, most post-1930 acting philosophies have been strongly influenced by Method acting, and it continues to be taught at schools around the world, including the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in New York and Los Angeles, the Actors Studio Drama School in New York, the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York and Los Angeles, the Edgemar Center for the Arts in Santa Monica, Calif., HB Studio in New York, Le Studio Jack Garfein in Paris and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Practitioners

Daniel Day-Lewis Tom Hanks Richard Armitage Christian Bale Marlon Brando[9] Adrien Brody Kamal Haasan Michael Caine[10] Nicolas Cage[11] Jessica Chastain Bradley Cooper Gary Oldman Bryan Cranston Mammootty James Dean[2] Robert De Niro[2] Johnny Depp Leonardo DiCaprio Jane Fonda[12] Walton Goggins Ryan Gosling Ed Harris Dustin Hoffman Matthew Mcconaughey Michael Ironside Anne Hathaway Val Kilmer Heath Ledger Mohanlal Marilyn Monroe[2] Jack Nicholson[13] Al Pacino[2] Joaquin Phoenix Suzanne Pleshette[14] Aamir Khan Gena Rowlands Peter Sellers James Stewart Meryl Streep Forest Whitaker

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Michelle Williams Reese Witherspoon Shelley Winters[15] John Lloyd Cruz[16] Bill Pendergast Dilip Kumar [17]

Controversy
British biographer Jean Benedetti, who was a scholar and translator of nearly all of Constantin Stanislavski's works, spent most of his later years trying to correct what he felt were gross misunderstandings of Stanislavski's works, including the "over-limited reliance on psychological approaches that led to the American conception of method acting."[18]

Further reading
Articles

Mel Gussow: "The Method, Still Disputed But Now Ubiquitous," The New York Times (April 14, 1987)

Major books on Method acting

The Technique of Acting by Stella Adler ActingThe First Six Lessons by Richard Boleslavsky To the Actor by Michael Chekhov A Dream of Passion by Lee Strasberg Sanford Meisner on Acting by Sanford Meisner Methodor Madness? by Robert Lewis Advice to the Players by Robert Lewis Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen No Acting Please by Eric Morris and Joan Hotchkis Strasberg's Method: As Taught by Lorrie Hull by S. Loraine Hull Life and Acting: Techniques for the Actor by Jack Garfein The Power of the Actor by Ivana Chubbuck

Books on contemporary approaches to Method acting

The Intent to Live by Larry Moss Dreamwork for Actors by Janet Sonenberg O poetic a artei actorului (Poetics of the actor's art) by Ion Cojar Rosemary Malague: An Actress Prepares: Women and "the Method", London & New York: Routledge, 2011

See also

List of acting techniques

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References
1. ^ Stella Adler, 91, an Actress and Teacher of the Method New York Times, December 22, 1992. 2. ^ a b c d e Lee Strasberg of Actors Studio Dead The New York Times, February 18, 1982 3. ^ Carnicke, Sharon. Stanislavsky in Focus: An Acting Master for the Twenty-First Century. Routledge Theatre Classics, 2008, p. 221 4. ^ Meisner, Sanford. Sanford Meisner on Acting, Vintage, 1987 5. ^ a b Robert Lewis (2003), Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life, Hal Leonard Corporation, ISBN 1-55783244-7, p.193. 6. ^ "Stella Adler." Encyclopdia Britannica, Inc., 2011. 27 October 2011. 7. ^ Larina Kase (2011), Clients, Clients, and More Clients!: Create an Endless Stream of New Business with the Power of Psychology, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-177100-X, p.125. 8. ^ S. Loraine Hull (1985), Strasberg's method as taught by Lorrie Hull: A practical guide for actors, teachers, and directors, Oxbow Books, ISBN 0-918024-38-2, p.10. 9. ^ Marlon Brando redefined acting MSNBC 10. ^ Michael Caine 'uses painful secret to cry on set' The Telegraph 11. ^ The Ghost Rider himself answers your questions Empire 12. ^ Jane Fonda Is Actress with a Character AP, Gettysburg Times - Jun 14, 1962 13. ^ What I've Learned: Jack Nicholson Esquire 14. ^ Suzanne Pleshette, 70, Newhart Actress, Dies The New York Times, January 21, 2008 15. ^ Shelley Winters Outspoken Oscar-winning actress who had a string of famous lovers 16 January 2006 Herald Scotland 16. ^ http://www.philstar.com/supreme/2013/03/23/922828/what-makes-man 17. ^ http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100627/spectrum/main7.htm 18. ^ "Jean Benedetti obituary". The Guardian. 20 April 2012. Retrieved 09 June 2012.

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