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In This Issue: It's Not About
the
Words . . .
Dear
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Meisner Part Five: It's Not
About
the Words . . .
|
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Now
Casting's
Richard Gilbert Hill explained to me that Meisner coach, Edward Kay Martin, changed his acting career. "By finally trusting my feelings in the moment", Hill said, "the text led me to what served the play". And, while reading the words of Sandy Meisner and Larry Silverberg, I couldn't help but think that all great
acting coaching empowers actors to realize their emotional truth in the moment within the structure of the script. And that Meisner meticulously constructed his technique training to lead his students to that type of performing epiphany.
Silverberg explains
that an audience comes to a theatrical experience "hungry . .
. to search for, witness, and embrace authentic, human
behavior . . . They come seeking something to reconnect them
with their own humanity" And "when actors have
personally invested themselves into the
circumstances of the play and into the text, the audience is
also getting the 'story' that is unseen, unstated, and
that lives beneath the layer of the words
." The result is "more
than entertaining, it is profoundly moving". I can't agree
more. That's the reason I became an actor in the first place .
. . to move people and transform their lives. How about you?
Sandy
said, "The first thing you have to do when you read a text is
to find yourself-really find yourself". To this end, in the
third book of his series, Tackling the Text,
Silverberg tells actors to perform five "working readings". He
recommends that actors sit at a table with their scripts in
front of them and each looks down, grabs some words, and then
looks up and talks to their partner. Silverberg says that "the
whole point of the working reading is to really talk/really
listen". I do this exercise in my classes with actors sitting
back-to-back. Turned away but connected physically, actors are
then forced to "really talk/really listen" as well as deal
with the physical tension between them.
Silverberg then invites actors to explore the scene
using the technique structure students have been learning all
along in Meisner classes. The important elements of this
exploration are:
-
One person is in the room.
-
The person in the room is
doing a very specific activity extremely meaningful to him
or her that may either be physically or emotionally
difficult.
-
The other person is coming
in the door.
-
That person has JUST found
out something SPECIFIC that is meaningful to her or him.
This is the emotional preparation that I talked about in the
last article.
-
The two people have a
specific relationship.
Silverberg also emphasizes that preparation is what gets you in
the room. After that, you leave it
alone and remain present for your partner and
whatever else is happening in the scene. Since you're working with scripted pieces, the
preparation is obviously dictated by the circumstances of the scene and
what has just happened to the character before
the scene begins. Later "working
readings" add this preparation.
I have
to admit that this seamlessly sequential type of exploration
was what was missing from my own training. I had to figure out
for myself how to fit the techniques I learned into the
parameters of scene work. In contrast, Meisner just about
draws you a map. And then leads you through the quagmires and
sand traps of the script. When I coach, I'm also very careful
to translate technique into action for my own students.
After a
few "working readings", Meisner and Silverberg demand that you
learn the words. Sandy also encourages you to cross out the
stage directions "because they are anti-intuitive . . . "
they're "aids for readers of plays, not for
actors of them". Silverberg, who outlines several
strategies for learning lines in his book, suggests that you
write all your lines in one run-on sentence. He says it helps
you not anticipate when the other actor speaks. He also
encourages you to toss out a memorizing technique if it
doesn't work for you.
With
the words almost learned, you then do your last "working
reading" by preparing fully, then leaving it alone and letting
the moment-to-moment work prevail. If you have the impulse,
use repetition to stay in the scene and take you to the next
moment. It's here that Meisner technique spirals back upon
itself. In other words, you use the very first exercise to
keep yourself focused in more advanced exercises.
Now
it's time to put the scene on its feet with full preparations,
activities and coming into the room. After you get into the
room, you work off what the other actor gives you. Sandy said,
"that's my method of acting: cry, then talk. Don't talk and
then expect to cry, because you won't!"
Silverberg's final book in his series explores many
approaches to understanding the script, including finding the
spine of the character, exploring key phrases and facts and
taking on the part. Sandy told one actor that he was
"emotionally freer, yet you still don't know why you say what
you say at each moment. You should have both." The intense
exploration of the text that Silverberg delineates in this
last volume fills in those moments.
I think this Peter
Brook quote that Silverberg cites says it all . . . "a word
does not start as a word--it is an end product which begins as
an impulse, stimulated by attitude and behavior which dictate
the need for expression. This process occurs inside the
dramatist; it is then repeated inside the actor . . . the
only way to find the true path to the speaking of a word is though
a process that parallels the original creative one. This can
neither be bypassed nor simplified." Clearly it's not about the
words . . . it's about the exploration of expression of
them. And Meisner successfully created this exploration
for several generations of actors.
Don't forget . . . if you have something to say about
Sandy . . . or Meisner work in general, please e-mail me at
jill@actingintuitive.com. The last article in this series will highlight these
Meisner-musings.
Next Week: Meisner Part
Six: Meisner-o-philes
Speak Out About
Sandy
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© 2007 Jill
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