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This Issue: Emotional Preparation
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Meisner Part Four: Emotional Preparation
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The more I read about Sandy Meisner the more confused I get. Meisner said that "your job as an actor is to fill the role with life". By "life" he primarily meant emotion. Larry Silverberg agreed, "emotional preparation is . . . what you do before you enter so that when you do enter, you are emotionally alive".
I think
every good actor understands that emotional preparation is the
most vital strand in a well-woven performance. I also have to
hand it to Meisner that he spends a lot of time on and
sequentially builds a way to unleash emotion from the ground
up with a series of exercises that begins with choosing
something that has just happened that is extremely meaningful
to you and then coming home to do something. It is here in the
work that the "independent activity" I mentioned in the last
article may change from physical to emotional.
The
exercises progress to two people scenes where one actor works
up a powerful preparation and the other, who has been given a
physical independent activity to do, works off them. They also
now have a relationship, such as roommates. In later
exercises, both actors emotionally prepare. The preparation
may or may not have to do with their partner. Larry Silverberg
cautions actors not to fall "into that ugly emotional trap of
having their own emotional experience without any connection
to their partners on stage or to anything going on in their
environment".
Sounds
good so far. So you're probably wondering why I'm so confused.
Well, my teacher, Lee Strasberg, has been mainly criticized
for teaching actors a technique that takes them away from the
moment-to-moment circumstances of the scene. And, from what
I've heard about Meisner, his form of preparation doesn't.
Yet, Meisner himself said in his book, Sanford Meisner on
Acting, "the source of where you find your inner life is
not necessarily related to the needs of the scene". I don't
know about you, but if I were crying because my dog died,
which is one of the examples Meisner uses in his book, it
might not make sense to me in the context of a scene where I
was crying because my lover was leaving. Also, this sounds
incredibly similar to preparations using sense memory.
But
Meisner tries to drive a stake through the heart of Method by
saying "what stimulates you changes . . . That's one of the
reasons I don't like 'emotion memory', and that's one of the
reasons Stanislavsky gave it up". As a Method teacher and
actor of almost thirty years, I can tell you that this is
simply not true. My long-time students are probably tired of
the story about me going 46 takes on my first sitcom pilot
because everything imaginable went wrong. They had to ice my
eyes and reapply make-up several times as this was the
poignant scene where I cry when I tell my daughter about her
dead father. I don't know how I would have gotten through that
very long day if it wasn't for the many emotional sense
memories in my acting arsenal. I have one that's been giving
me EXACTLY the same response for thirty years. As Lee said,
these remembered emotions are not only consistent, they can be
controlled . . . and called up at a moment's notice. I've
certainly found that to be so.
Also, I
found many of Meisner's exercises to be very similar to ones I
learned at Lee's knee. For example, the "coming home to be
alone" exercise that I described earlier reminds me of a
quintessential "private moment". In it, Gerry O'Loughlin, the
actor best known for his tough lieutenant role on "The
Rookies", entered his apartment with a box of KFC. He stood
eating the chicken and tears consumed him as he thought about
the very painful break-up he was going through at the time.
Actor's Studio members who saw the results called O'Loughlin's
exercise mesmerizing and talk about it to this day.
Meisner
also spends an entire chapter talking about the "As
If" adjustment, which he describes as "pure
Stanislavsky". And Larry Silverberg describes an actress in
his book whose preparation entails going into an infant's
clothing store and shopping for her "baby" as well as seeing
and feeling a baby's hand wrap around her fingers. Silverberg
praises her for being "specific". But, when I read this, it
instantly reminds me of the fun poked at Method actors over
the years for just these types of histrionics. Also, the
actress is doing a sense memory without even knowing it. No
wonder she has such a great emotional response!
I do
have to say, however, that I can see where the sequential way
that Meisner taught emotional freedom might be more beneficial
to some actors than the way I learned Method. We learned
relaxation and sense memory exclusive of scene work. And the
critically important bridge from sense memory to scene was
neither discussed much in class nor were there specific
exercises to link the two. So, when I coach, I'm very
conscious of translating Method training to performance. I've
even created my own exercises to do so. As well as teaching
anything else that might stimulate emotional response. Just
yesterday, we were using those old Stanislavsky "As
Ifs".
All
though his book, Meisner demands that actors go "deeper". And
says that "your instinct" will make the right emotional
preparation choice. Yet his actors continually complain that
the preparation didn't come, or that it worked at home but not
in class. I wanted to scream, "learn sense memory"! Because
sense memory not only gives you specific tools to use in a
scene but it also gets the spontaneity going. Two of those
actors who used "As Ifs" yesterday in my class did
wonderful work in a very emotionally-demanding scene. Even
though they used another type of preparation, both agreed that
sense memory and relaxation were key in creating this
emotional spontaneity.
I guess
what I'm really saying is that an actor should use whatever
tools he has at his disposal to "get the colored lights
going". And that, whether it's Meisner, Method or Joe
Blow's School-Down-The-Block . . . whatever works for you to
achieve true emotional spontaneity is alright in my book.
To the many people have e-mailed me in response to the
last article, I truly thank you with all the emotional
spontaneity I can muster. But here's where I desperately need
Meisner-o-phile input. Because I left class before the
emotional preparation exercises, I'd like your input about why
and how well they worked for you. Or not. So please feel free
to e-mail me at jill@actingintuitive.com. I'm going to write one more article on
Meisner technique. And then I'm going to publish all your
responses. So keep 'em coming.
Next Week: Meisner Part
Five: It's Not
About the
Words . .
.
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