Meisner technique

Meisner technique

1. First year

   • Meisner understood that the actor when faced with a role, gets a sense of how their role, then rehearse to incorporate those images. He also undestood the ability to envision the final product can be an obstacle to an authentic performance.
     • Think of first year as an exercise. The various components are incorporated one at a time. The process is quite specific and roots the actor in the fundamentals of acting. Each element build on the proceeding one. This trains the imagination
   • 1) Repetition; the exercise.
     • Meisner started by removing the script and the necessity for the actor to achieve a predetermined result of any kind.
     • 1)Stand opposite another person and just repeat what they say. First person starts of by responding to something he sees.
     • 2)Can only change what partner says, unless it is untrue e.g. "You are wearing a red dress" changes to "I am wearing a red dress" if partner is not wearing red dress. By changing the pronun the statement is kept true.
     • 3)This exchange is kept rapid, forcing actors to respond freely. Before thinking, so they do not edit responses.
     • 4) The students are encouraged to respond personally,so their acting circumstance becomes a new kind of awareness. Their bodies loosen, voices open. Behaving spontaneously. Acting in the moment. " Acting is reacting".
     • 5) As partners give their full attention to each other, they are responding to the meaning express - the subtext.The real meaning that surfaces in inflection and body language.
     • 6)In responding to the subtext, the students discover they are spontatneously making changes in repetition.
     • 7) Rapid fire creates a current between the two actors that generates authentic impulses, as these feelings have not been predetermined they reveal actors true feelings.
     • 8)Our feelings show what the world means to us. Students must learn what those feelings are and how to gain access to them.For actors be in touch with their most truthful responses and impulses.
   • 2) The activity
     • Presents new demands on actors concentration. One actor will be in the room and another actor will enter the space.
     • 1) The activity must have a concrete problem that is difficult to accomplish and engages their total attention.
       • There must not be a gray area, the actor must know in every moment whether he is accomplishing his task or failing e.g. a cracked teacup must be mended perfectly. Having this is called " a standard for perfection".
       • 2) Actor must invent a circumstance that justifies doing this activity.
         • 3)The failure to accomplish the activity must have concrete consequences e.g. I will feel disappointed.
     • The necessity of listening and repeating at every moment remains the central element. There is creates a "Triangle of attention". One actor is completely focused on accomplishing the activity. Thus her repetitions are filtered through her struggle. Her partner,entering the room is focused on her, and his repetions are responses to her behaviour.
   • 3 ) Time
     • Next, the element of time is introduced. This adds immediacy and gives a heightened reality . The actor must determine how much time is required for the work.
     • The actor is now introducing his imaginary world e.g. the creation of a waiter, a girlfriend into reality.
     • The actors sense of truth will respond and some real feeling will be stirred.
   • 4 )Emotional preperation
     • Meisner, unlike Stanislasky used imagination to invent circumstances- especially daydreams which can be controlled.However the "daydream" is different from thinking. In daydreams you lose awareness of your surroundings, move into an altered state so the actor responds emotionally.
     • During a daydream, behaviour is produced. The actor must learn to daydream at will as part ofthe craft.
     • Meisner encouraged the actor to "Live th daydream", breathing a life of its own into it. As the actor imagines, his involvement deeens. The daydreams are encouraged to go belong to the realm of fantasy. The actors would prepare this at home and bring their daydreams into class scenarious.
     • The actor adds this to his previous exercises. This acts as a filter through which the actor experiences contact with his partner. Though he must learn to shift attention to respond to his partner. Afterall - acting is doing.
   • 5) Relationships
     • 1) The final element is incorporated into the exercise. The actors willl have a shared circumastance. Specific information they share before the exercise.
     • 2) Unless they produce a response the facts of circumstance remain as just information. This information needs to be turned into meaning.

2. Second year

   • 1)Transformation
     • In the second year, the actor must begin with a character created through an authors imagination. One which the actor may not have encountered and learn how to do the detective workthat will enable him to bring it to life. The actor must learn to serve the author.
       • So, in the second year, the actor and his character must merge with the vision of the playwrite and his director.
     • This book covers two variations of character work. The first one teaches the actors how toresearch and justify a point of view that they do not subscribe to. The second introduces the actors to the part of the acting process that requires them to create the illusion of behaviour that must not be created authentically - IMPEDIMENTS
       • IMPEDIMENTS - Need to be created technically. For example accents, ilness, speech defects, altered states caused by drugs.
     • Crafting a role: The playwright provides a kind of blue print - the words he leaves on the pagethat he has imagined. This blueprint is the equivelant of the thingswe say spontaneously while doing an exercise.
       • Now, we must craft in reverse order. We begin the process by identifying with the character in our script. We read the script and learn how to ask the questions that guide us to an understanding of why the characters say what is written.
       • The students learn to identify the information and create what we call a score. Becoming conscious of what the character does and needs from other characters.
       • The smaller units that make up the scene e.g.beats allow the actor to examine this little by little. At first this does not seem like the road to spontaneity
       • The students must read the play as the audience would experience it. They read to take in, to make contact with the material, the language. They should make no judgements.
       • The actor is encouraged to work off their partner, to allow the scene partner to affect them and take it personally.
       • At this stage the actors use their experience of good contact to discover the actor in a new circumstance. They are guided away from conventional line readings. But they do nont attempt a performance. They are making contact with the material and must remain open to its mysteries. They must trust their instincts.
       • Their sense of truth now knows the difference between indicating and accepting this new reality.
       • Early in stages of rehearsal as the actor works off her partner, the actor may find themselves responding in ways that dont serve the character or the playwright. Her honesst responses are now signalling areasa that must be personalized, meanings that must be transformed.
     • Character; transforming
       • Now we transform our persoanl response to serve the character. One way is to identify what the character is doing.. The second, to achieve empathy with the character we use the process of paticularization
         • Paticularization are emotional metaphorsthat help us understand something in the script we do not personally identify with. Using the daydream process and connecting it with something personal inside you
       • Acting is doing!
         • Feelings authenticate the behaviour, but it is what i do because of these feelings that makes my acting clear. The action acts like a conduit e.g. Like a straw dipped into your drink, it pulls the emotions to the surface. As the actor responds in moments, his feelings travel through hsi actions We createa SCORE for these actions - like inner choreography
         • We need to decipher what makes an action e.g. I can embaress someone (object) by making a joke (action). To joke is an actable action. We must clarify the difference between meanings, objectives, and actions.
         • The objective must always be present in acting. An action without an acting object is not an action, it is a recitation. Without this the actor is not tied to needing the other.
         • The actor must "paraphrase" which means to paticularize - out loud.The actor must improvise the characters memories, their daydreams
           • 1) The meanings are paticularized and behaviour and impulses emerge
           • 2) Now the actor must identify the action
           • 3) We must identify to whom we are speaking and what we need from them. REMEMBER: Every action should have an objective
       • Nursery rhymes exercise:
         • The actor is to choose a rhyme and justify it with three different circumstnaces. e.g. courtroom drama, high romance, criminal adventure
   • 3) Style Scene
     • Finally, the students are given scenes written in a style or language they haven't yet encountered e.g. Shakespeare.
       • These scenes demonstrate how the basic tools can be applied to any demand the actor will face.
   • 2) The Character Scene
     • The actors are challenged through more complex characters and circumstances. Students are assigned materials that are not easily within their range. With character that reqquire crafting, beyond particulariizing of broad emotional colours and rleationshsips.