Playing with Reality:
Method Acting in Theory and Practice
Samantha Schäfer
Prof. Henri Schoenmakers
A&H 343 Current Developments in Theatre and Media Studies and Practice
British English – MLA Style
4 December 2010
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Playing with Reality: Method Acting in Theory and Practice, Summaries of Acting
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Playing with Reality: Method Acting in Theory and Practice
Samantha Schäfer Prof. Henri Schoenmakers A&H 343 Current Developments in Theatre and Media Studies and Practice British English – MLA Style 4 December 2010
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- I. Theory and Techniques of Method Acting - 1. Stanislavsky’s System - 2. The Different Approaches to Method Acting - 3. Historical Development of the Actors Studio - 4. In-depth Analysis of Method Acting - 5. Method Acting in Practice
- II. The Relationship between Shakespeare and the Method - 6. Statement of the Issue - 7. Methodology ………..................................................................................... - 8. Results - 9. Discussion
- Conclusion
- Works Cited
- Appendices
and, later, primary, i.e. more subjective sources. It is guided by the main research question of the paper: What are the characteristics of Method acting and its relationship to Stanislavsky’s original System as characterised by secondary sources, and how is Method acting actually approached in practice? The second part is based on empirical research which deals with a sub-question resulting from the main research: How is Method acting approached in regard to Shakespearean plays, and is it suitable for performance based on poetic, formal language? In other words, this part analyses the relationship of a script’s use of language on the overall credibility of the performance and determines whether or not the Method’s aim can be fulfilled regardless of this particular language. This is especially significant for the practical approach to Method acting. The tradition of the Actors Studio does not include Shakespeare for various reasons; however, it is questionable whether this tradition is justified. This then represents the empirical part of the study, based on the theory of performance analysis in The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies.
Part I: Theory and Techniques of Method Acting Stanislavsky’s System Contemporary Method acting, as taught and practised by the Actors Studio, originally stems from Stanislavsky’s System. Caught in the conventions of early 19th^ century Russian theatre, he longed for an entirely realistic acting style. By systemising what he saw in great actors, he hoped to develop a method that every actor, not only the most talented ones, could use in order to excel at their work and in order to make the audience believe in what they see on stage. This “scrupulous realism in performance and production design would issue a challenge to the artificial conventions that were strangling Russian theatre” (Hirsch 20) with its “[c]ommercial glossiness, theatrical fakery, [and] narcissism” (25) at the time he started developing his System. His theatrical revolution would occupy him for the rest of his life. It gained exceeding importance after the Moscow Art Theatre was founded by Stanislavsky and Nemirovich-Danchenko: “In less than a decade, and certainly by the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, they had evolved into theatrical elder statesmen temporarily overshadowed by upstarts who denounced them as dry-as-dust conservatives” (41). The Russian audience was especially susceptible to such new theatrical conventions after the revolution, since they “looked to the theatre for something other than entertainment or temporary relief, wanting instead to confront, through the mirror of dramatic art, their own deepest impulses” (49). In the uncertain and new society in post-revolutionary Russia, theatregoers thus perceived theatre as more than just pure entertainment. Stanislavsky’s newly proposed system, against the grain of theatrical conventions, fit quite well into the general atmosphere of the country. The audiences were more open towards it because “Russian theatre […] was as polarized as Russian politics: the forces of the old and the forces of the new faced each other behind a volley of theory and pronouncement” (47).
In the first category, “[t]he actor develops a theatrical sense of self by learning to control the skills of concentration, imagination and communication ” (18). To develop such a sense of self, one first has to train those three areas. This process of concentration begins with maintaining “total mental and physical concentration on stage”, a state that he calls “ public solitude ” (ibid, emphasis in the original). This psychophysical process relies on the sharpening of the actor’s senses. Next to the physical senses – the visual, aural, tactile, olfactory and gustatory parts – Stanislavsky also includes an affective sensory aspect. Actors need to be trained to be consciously aware of their sensations. For this purpose, he develops a number of exercises that supposedly help an actor develop a sensory awareness and, by this, improve his concentration. Another method to train the actor’s concentrations is called “ circles of attention ” (20, emphasis in the original) of varying sizes. This consists of the actor’s focusing only on the objects that can be found within a specific circle that has been determined beforehand. At the early stage of the exercise, the circle of attention is small, but is expanded as the exercise progresses and the actor’s concentration improves. Imagination encompasses “an actor’s capacity to treat fictional circumstances as if real, to visualise the details of a character’s world specifically, and to daydream or fantasise about the events of the play” (ibid). Visualisation, then, is the core element of imagination. This process is trained “by strengthening inner vision” and by employing what Stanislavsky calls “the magic if ” (21, emphasis in the original), a mind experiment that relies on the actor’s relationship to objects, real and imaginary. This relationship is changed by adding a different component to the object which, then, affects the direct relationship between actor and object. Communication is essential to Stanislavsky’s action theory. It is concerned with “interaction amongst scene partners and between actors and audience” (ibid). Such interactions are fed by words, but also by the play’s non-verbal subtext “that describes
anything a character thinks or feels but does not, or cannot, put into words.” Unlike dialogue, subtext is communicated “through non-verbal means (body language, the cast of the eyes, intonations and pauses.” To train this communication, Stanislavsky emphasises the importance of “rays of energy that carry communication” and trains actors to recognise as well as manipulate those. Non-verbal communication is also trained using silent improvisation, i.e. improvisations of “situations that involve naturally silent moments.” Those are later followed by improvisation on verbal moments. The second group of character creation is divided into techniques focusing on “imagination and intellect” (23) and techniques that “rely on physicalisation.” However, all those can only take place after careful reading of the whole play. Imaginative and intellectual techniques involve “ affective cognition and the scoring of actions ” (ibid, emphasis in the original). Affective cognition is a “cognitive analysis” that requires a collective approach – i.e. the play is divided up into several elements which are discussed by the whole cast – and an individual approach, i.e. the “actors work individually by visualising distinct moments from their characters’ lives, thus imaginatively emphasising with them.” The collective approach always precedes the individual approach. Physical techniques involve “ the scoring of actions ” (ibid, emphasis in the original). Because physical action is the basis of a play and depicts the character’s motivation, the actors first have to learn to make a distinction “between actions and activities and [learn] to execute them” (24). To do this, the actor has to break the play into ‘bits’, wherein “each bit embodies a single action and begins whenever the action of the scene shifts, not with the playwright’s division of the play. For each bit , the actor first examines the given circumstances and describes the character’s situation in an adjective.” Working with his notion of his psychophysical continuum, Stanislavsky assumes that emotions are the natural consequence of action. If an actor focuses on executing the single actions defining his
The Different Approaches to Method Acting Scholars generally recognise three branches of Method acting, after the three teachers that are mainly recognised as having developed a certain standard in this type of acting. Those approaches are “Strasberg’s emphasis on the psychological [aspect], Adler’s on the sociological, and Meisner’s on the behavioural” (Krasner 129). The following section discusses those approaches on the basis of secondary sources; an in-depth analysis of Method acting according to primary sources is discussed in a later chapter. While the three approaches to Method acting differ in some aspects, certain fundamental principles to define any kind of Method acting are generally agreed upon. Vineberg compiled a list Method acting conventions in the following tenets:
- The Method sees as the actor’s essential task the reproduction of recognizable reality – verisimilitude – on stage (or screen), based on an acute observation of the world.
- The Method seeks to justify all stage behavior by ensuring that it is psychologically sound … providing a unifying motivation for [a character’s] behavior.
- It places a high premium on the expression of genuine emotion.
- It identifies the actor’s own personality not merely as a model for the creation of character, but as the mine from which all psychological truth must be dug.
- It encourages the use of improvisation as a rehearsal aid, and even in some cases as part of the performance, in an effort to keep acting spontaneous (and therefore lifelike).
- It promotes intimate communication between actors in a scene, and therefore moves toward the performance ideal of a true ensemble.
- It stresses the use of objects both for their symbolic value and as emissaries from the solid, material world.
- Finally (though this last consideration is more often implied than stated), it demands an almost religious devotion on the part of an actor, based on … the power of truth in acting. (qtd. in Bandelj 393) This is reflected by David Krasner in the article “Strasberg, Adler and Meisner: Method Acting”, but he also pays attention to areas Vineberg does not mention. According to Krasner, the actor first of all has to be able to justify relationships. This is done by identifying the character’s motivation, which can be found through “ objectives, actions and intentions ” as well as “the character’s super-objective , or ‘ spine ’” (Krasner 131, emphasis in the original). The latter must be urgent and includes creating obstacles to the objective. This “must emerge from relaxation, concentration and the creative selection (choices) of objectives.” The subtext serves the objective. An emphasis has to be put on “the specific given circumstances of the play, everything from period style and social fashion to the way a character behaves, lives and relates to other characters and situations.” The actor’s imagination is an important part of character creation. Method actors in general have to emphasise truthful behaviour and work “ moment-to-moment on impulsive , talking and listening as if the events on stage are actually happening in the immediate present.” This means that “characterisation is not fixed, but a fluid and spontaneous response to events on stage.” Rehearsals require improvisation exercises, and the actor eventually has to “[ personalise ] the role, i.e. [he] draws from the self, from his or her emotional, psychological or imaginative reality, bringing into view aspects of one’s memories, life experiences and observations that correlate with the role” (132). In Lee Strasberg’s approach to Method acting, he places his major focus on three of Stanislavsky’s principles, namely relaxation, concentration, and affective memory (134). The
different remembered emotions “the actor becomes emotionally available, prepared to respond instantly and expressively with feelings and passions.”
Stella Adler emphasises “a play’s given circumstances, the actor’s imagination and physical actions” (139). This essentially means that “the source of inspiration is not purely psychological or past experiences (as in Strasberg), but the actors’ imagination as they relate to the given circumstances of the play.” This approach can be implemented by trying to understand a characters’ life. The actor has to do research concerning the circumstances within the play – time period, character’s profession, etc. – and by this get a feeling for the character. The background and the circumstances of the role have to appeal to the actor intellectually, but mainly emotionally. In order to achieve this, “if the actions, words or events of the play seem lifeless to the actor, then the actor must create another set of circumstances that correspond to the events of the play, but create excitement and passion internally” (140). Adler suggests several techniques for personalising a role. Those include “to personalise the experience” (ibid) and “paraphrasing the text” (141). Stella’s source of inspiration does not come from the actor’s personal life, but from “the world of the play itself”, thus placing an emphasis on the given circumstances of the play. Adler also incorporates a method from Stanislavsky’s later work, “the method of physical action.” In this, the actor has to “[draw] from the active doing and performing of actual tasks.” Again, the actor has to find the justification within the given circumstances and the play’s ruling idea. Not only actions, but basically all “the things said and done on stage” have to be justified in such a manner.
Sanford Meisner, on the other hand, focuses on “behaviour, relationships and the reality of doing” (142). In this sense, he stresses the reality of action and reaction: an actor must not only act out or imitate his behaviours; he must actually carry out the actions as if they were real. To teach the actors to find such an emphasis, he uses repetition exercises in which the actors “verbalise what they perceive in the other actor”, i.e. the other actor’s action or reaction. This is one starting point of the actor’s complete understanding of the relationships on stage because they soon start to “observe the scene-partner’s emotions, feelings and thoughts” (144). The next stage includes improvisatory exercises. In those, one actor has a real “independent activity.” The other actor has to have “an ‘objective’ that relates to actor A.” This leads to the actors’ reading each others’ behaviours, thus reacting to them. Meisner puts a strong emphasis on impulses, which “is a response to internal or external stimuli. As the actor receives the stimuli, they then feed it to the imagination and personal associations. The actor responds by acting on the stimuli, creating an ‘impulsive’ behaviour that emerges truthfully and spontaneously from reactions rather than from pre-planned behaviour” (145). The impulsive is then the cause of all truthful behaviour and interpretations that might result from them. His exercises are designed to establish real relationships between the actors on stage. Both Adler and Strasberg stress “the belief in truthful behaviour, self-exploration (whether psychological or sociological) and respect for acting as art” (142), whereas Meisner’s main emphasis is the reality of actions. However, although all use quite different approaches, they “search for the reality that must underlie a quality performance” (147). The different aspects of Method acting do not exclude each other; they can function together. Krasner concludes that “Method acting, when properly used, is holistic, enabling the actor to perform on several levels with conviction and confidence.”
company of commonplace actors who couldn’t make it on their own, but […] a company where every actor […] performed with authority” (55). Lacking such a repertory company, America might have had good actors, but they all had very individual, different styles; American actors lacked the Russians’ uniformity. Needless to say, the reality of the Russians’ performances amazed and excited the American audiences. After two seasons of performing in such an inspiring, susceptible environment, however, the Moscow Art Theatre had to return to their country. Only two remained to teach Stanislavsky’s System to the American actors.
Richard Boleslavski was the main figure to instruct American actors in the System. At first, this happened in the American Laboratory Theatre, originally called the Theatre Arts Institute, aimed at “translating Stanislavsk[y]’s ideas into an American idiom” (59). When Boleslavski was approached to teach at this school, he agreed upon three main principles upon which it was to be based:
- This theatre must grow here by itself and must get its roots into American soil.
- It must begin slowly, training young Americans for the stage in all its departments.
- It must be recognized and organized as a living social force, recreating itself each generation from the thoughts and material of its own times. (59-60) The studies at the American Laboratory Theatre were divided into two clear stages. The first stage included “diction, voice production, and body rhythm. Only after a year of classroom exercises and practical study did the school evolve into a workshop of scenes and play production” (60). The school’s broad curriculum, designed to stimulate the actor on both a physical and an intellectual level, also included “art, music, speech, phonetics, ballet, and the history of theatre” (63).
Boleslavski himself focused mainly on lectures, leaving the practical classroom teaching to the other teachers. He focused on “[c]oncentration, memory of emotion, dramatic action, characterization, observation, and rhythm” (ibid), acting upon the principle that “acting is a high and exacting art that demands control of the body, the will, the intellect, the emotions, and, crucially, the soul.” By developing soul, or imagination, exercises which were based upon “relaxation, concentration, and training [of] the affective memory” (64), he stressed the connection between “the actor’s internal and external tools.” Already at the beginning of his teaching career in America, Boleslavski had emphasised that there were fundamental cultural and social differences between the Russian and the American theatres, and that therefore “American actors could not become like the Russians they had admired merely by studying Stanislavsk[y]’s System” (59). Nevertheless, he managed to bring the System closer to the American actors, and thus gave them a unified method of preparation to work with. However, the American Laboratory Theatre still “presented plays by foreign playwrights acted by students trained primarily by Russians” (65). The theatre therefore failed to become a truly American theatre, i.e. a theatre that had its roots in American society. Boleslavski later left the Laboratory Theatre for a mediocre Hollywood career. Where the theatre might have failed in achieving and establishing Boleslavski’s original principles, it still served as an inspiration for certain actors to start anew, to finally found “a theatre devoted to the production of new, socially significant American plays of literary merit performed by a company of actors trained in an American adaptation of Stanislavsk[y]’s System” (66).
To establish a common basis of acting, inspired both by the Moscow Art Theatre and the American Laboratory Theatre, the Group Theatre was founded in 1931 by Harold Clurman, Cheryl Crawford and the man who is nowadays mostly associated with Method acting: Lee Strasberg (71). They combined their three very individual, different and difficult personal styles and personalities into one group, complementary to teach other: “Clurman’s brashness balanced by Strasberg’s and Crawford’s soberness, his public personality in
System was confined to the period where affective memory was the main focus of the System, which influenced his interpretation of the System enormously. Affective memory and improvisation, for Strasberg, “[were] to liberate the actors from the text, to stimulate their imagination, and to coerce them into examining their own feelings ” (76, emphasis added). Despite his enthusiasm for affective memory, many Group members criticised it strictly. Some saw it as a method that was extremely harmful for the psychological wellbeing of the actors, as it included sometimes painful digging into one’s past and, to their minds, did not always fulfil its purpose (77). In the first year after founding the Group Theatre, Strasberg’s emphasis was on the actor’s preparation, i.e. “how the actor uses his past to place himself in the right mood for his role” (ibid). Those preparatory methods included sense memory and work on emotions. A year later, he emphasised “the play’s circumstances rather than the actor’s.” As a supplement to his own work, “gesture, mime, and the use of the voice and body were taught by experts.” On an ideological basis, the Group members were soon divided into “those who believed in the value of the inner work that was Strasberg’s specialty, and those primarily interested in training their voices and bodies to project their roles. Borrowing from Stanislavsk[y] the concept of the actor as his own instrument, the Group began to be divided about how that instrument could best be tuned” (77-78). Those ideological differences were decisive obstacles to producing a company of actors that excelled in uniformity. This developed into a bigger problem when Stella Adler and Harold Clurman, at that time married, paid a visit to the country of origins of the method they used in the Group – and met Stanislavsky himself. Clurman soon went back to America, but Stella Adler remained in Russia “and, in the chance of a lifetime, studied with Stanislavsk[y] daily for a period of five weeks” (78). What she learned from Stanislavsky personally clashed extremely with Strasberg’s ideas since his focus had changed from
affective memory to the play’s given circumstances. Stella Adler, quoted by Hirsch, says that Stanislavsky emphasised “the method of physical actions: how starting from the outside, from creating the outer line of a role, planning it in terms of a series of actions, would take you inside a character’s mind. He led me to use the physical stage, the physical circumstances.” This System, unlike Strasberg’s, proved to be far more effective to Stella Adler than the way the System was taught at the Group Theatre, and it was especially this studying under Stanislavsky personally that influenced the approach she later taught herself. After those five weeks with Stanislavsky, Adler was convinced that his actual approach to the System was the right one, which proved to be one of the most decisive clashes in the history of the Group Theatre. As Hirsch presents it: Like an apostle to the Gentiles, Stella Adler returned to the Group to share what she had learned. “Stanislavsk[y] said we’re doing it wrong,” she announced, in what was to prove a historic confrontation. “Stanislavsk[y] doesn’t know,” Strasberg bellowed. “ I know!” (79) There were, then, two sides the Group members could choose from: Adler’s and Strasberg’s, and taking a stand managed to alienate a lot of the members: “being on opposite sides of the affective memory standoff was enough to sustain a lifetime of animosity” (ibid). Despite those differences, the Group members, at least for a while, still managed to work together towards developing a realistic acting style. It was recognised in its full intensity by the public in 1935, when the Group had a breathtaking performance of Waiting for Lefty , written by Clifford Odets, one of the Group members. Unlike any performance in the past, the actors managed to seize the people in the audience in a way unparalleled before, inducing the audience to eventually leap to their feet and, just like the actors, cry for a strike (81). Odets, then, “was the first Group writer who really answered Clurman’s call for socially alert