Okay, I have thought about the topic of this post for a long time. I didn't know how to start it, but I've gotten confirmation from many of people and I feel this needs to be brought out into the open now!

I hear from all the time, "Oh, I don't train or believe in Stanislavski. He's too old fashioned. We don't use him anymore. Things have changed."

Well, what exactly has changed? Even my teachers say this. I think frankly it's a lazy way of acting. The people that say this obviously can not be actors. They are making excuses. Acting is the study of psychology (human behavior); it's just applied. That's the only difference.

How has even studying the Method (50's acting) changed so much now that we are in 2009? It hasn't been that long? What discoveries have we made in psychology that would discredit what Stanislavski, Meisner, Adler, Strasberg, and of course Hagen said?

I don't understand. People talk about things changing, but WHAT has changed?

Did people in the 1700s not have objectives, childhood needs that needed to be solved for themselves and other people? (Example: the need to be loved, the need to respected, appreciated, to get you to like me, to get back the power I lost, etc.)

Those needs didn't just come up in 2009. They have been occurring in people of all ages, no matter what year on the calendar. BC or AD.

So, I ask. What is the difference between acting now and even acting 50 years ago? What has changed and how does knowing this SPECIFIC change help us as actors?

Anyone please feel free to enlighten me as well as the board! Thanks!

I'm certainly no "expert" but with the "younger" acting coaches (those in their 40s and under) there seems to be a more integrative approach to acting.

In other words, amongst the younger teachers, there are less purists out there when it comes to the different "sects" - Stanislavsky (or whatever interpretation of him), Stella Adler, Strasberg, Meisner, Michael Chekhov, Uta Hagen, etc.

Or to put it another way, it seems like the younger teachers are less dogmatic about being 100% faithful to what Strasberg taught, or what Meisner taught, etc.

Here's my personal view.

All these so-called "techniques" are simply tools. The problem in the past is that each "sect" would feel that their technique was the last word on acting - that their approach is all you need.

In my view, each one has their place - they are part of a toolbox. Sometimes, you need a screwdriver. Other times, a wrench. Sometimes, a saw. Other times, a hammer.

But some of the more dogmatic schools will teach you how to use a hammer, and tell you that you only need to use a hammer and nothing else.

Think about it from your own experiences on different kinds of projects or auditions.

Certain schools of thought (Meisner, Adler, etc.) may totally shun the use of "personal experience" or even "sense memory", but frankly it can be practical in some cases, and self-indulgent in others. You don't think that Mickey Rourke used his personal experiences when portraying that burnt out wrestler in "The Wrestler?" In fact, the director had cast him in it precisely because of the parallels between the character's journey and that of Rourke's. It would be self-indulgent if Rourke simply "played out all his personal sh*t" on screen, but it would be stupid to go out of his way to ignore the parallels to his own life, and to use it as a doorway into the character.

Same with Meisner. It has it's place, but it's not the be-all, end-all of acting technique. It's incomplete. It's probably the best approach in getting you to be real in the moment, to trust your impulses, listen, etc, but limiting yourself to Meisner's approach will also make it harder to prepare for stuff that isn't as modern or "real" - even comedy (yes, you need to listen and react in comedy, but it's a different kind of listening, reacting and behaving). Or prepping for characters that are very different than yourself (i.e. character work, analysis, etc isn't what Meisner is about). Meisner is a great foundation, but on its own it's incomplete.

Same with Adler. Yes, script analysis is important. Yes, doing all the prep work in understanding the given circumstances, character arc, etc. is essential as a storyteller (whether you're an actor, writer, director, etc.) but it's also incomplete - because this is great for helping you understand your sides, script, scene, etc. but if you make this "analysis" conscious the moment you step on stage or the moment the director yells "action" you won't be in the moment, and you will be in your head. Again, Adler's approach is incredibly useful, but on its own it's incomplete.

And then there's improv - which historically tends to be associated with comedy, which is yet another sensibility altogether that requires a slightly to drastically different approach - depending on the kind of material. Again, the improv you learn at Groundlings, Second City, UCB, etc. can be the one "technique" you rely on in certain kinds of projects/auditions - but again, it's not something you'd use as your primary reference for every single project.

I think Larry Moss is the quintessential modern teacher - rather than pit one "sect" vs another, he embraces all them as useful.

They all have their place, just like your wrench, screwdriver, hammer, drill, handsaw, etc. in a toolbox. You use the combination of tools that suit the particular situation you're in.

What has changed though is the nature of the projects, which can dictate the kinds of acting techniques that may be used more often than others.

For example, for a lot of TV commercial work, auditions, TV series, etc. Meisner and improv are likely to be your best friends because oftentimes you don't have a lot of time to prepare, so you will have to rely on keeping it simple, connecting and being in the moment and trust the casting process (i.e. you were cast for a reason because you don't have to do much "acting" for the audience to believe you so long as you don't get in your own way).

But if you are prepping for a lead role in a play or the lead role in a feature film where you have weeks or even months to prepare (rehearse, research, etc), then living in a cave to feel what Batman feels like, emotional recall of your Vietnam war past, sense memory or running through rose bushes, etc. may be helpful because you have the time to dig deep and inhabit that role. Plus, you also have the time to do all the research you want, discuss the script at length with your director, etc so that's where Adler can be incredibly useful.

This doesn't mean that script analysis and sense memory are useless in prepping for TV, comedy or auditions, or that Meisner and improv are useless in prepping for feature films and plays, but that certain approaches will predominate depending on the project.

Or, a short way of saying how "things have changed" in the last 50 years is that now, it's about "whatever works".

I believe that there are certain constants. And one thing will never change regardless of your approach. you must find the truthin the given imaginary circumstances. How you go about bringing yourself to the work is a very personal thing. But in order to be believable you cannot leave yourself out of the work. For me Meisner's approach is by far the best. For others the affective memory or sense memory approaches may be the thing. But any way you cut it the truth must be there. alangordonstudio.com

At the end of the day great artists use a piece of themselves in their work. This is true of actors, singers, painters, writers, etc...

Every proven acting technique out there helps you bring a piece of yourself to the stage/screen. Which technique facilitates this process is very personal and depends on the individual, and can only be determined by experimentation in a classroom/set/rehearsal.

quote:

Originally posted by Actorlover:
Did people in the 1700s not have objectives, childhood needs that needed to be solved for themselves and other people? (Example: the need to be loved, the need to respected, appreciated, to get you to like me, to get back the power I lost, etc.)

As a student of the 1700s (that is, the eighteenth century), I have two different responses to this specific part of your query.

One is that, to the degree that they did, the culture as a whole did not acknowledge them anything like we do today and you probably would have been thought a little nutty merely to talk in those terms (maybe until Rousseau, whose ideas on education changed a lot in how personally people felt the need to raise children).

The other is, in acting terms specifically, whatever they felt or analyzed about their feelings (and, again, that would have taken a different form than today) was not usually identified as an acting technique. I dimly recall one writer mentioning an actor's personal experience coming through in one performance as rather an anomaly.

This is not to say that the received wisdom that earlier generations of actors used codified gestures and artificial expressions is accurate either. Those tendencies existed at specific times, but so did a very simple desire to appear natural and believable. One vivid example was when the great actor David Garrick was riding through a small French town with a friend and, on a whim, said they should both "be" drunk. Which they did so well the townspeople mocked them. And which intrigued a writer enough for him to subsequently report it.

Otherwise, in general I think the comment that younger teachers are more eclectic and less doctrinaire is to the point. I would only add that, yes, there are developments, if only in our understanding of human psychology and what pushes people's buttons. Meisner's insight, for instance, that confining two people into the repetition of a phrase might unleash something powerful was hardly obvious. And other techniques, like Grytowski's, did not just flow from trying to understand or reproduce human nature. So there have been new developments and probably will continue to be.

Two things, though, I think remain constant. One is that certain people just "get it" - techniques might refine their approach, but they have the basics from the start, independent of any training (which they often don't have). The other is that, today at least, most methods ultimately serve to release unconscious impulses and are only tools to do so. If wearing a different costume and speaking with an accent does that for one person while contemplating a childhood trauma does it for another, that is irrelevant to the audience member who is equally affected by the work of both. All the audience cares about is to be affected and, more often than not, to be affected in some meaningful (i.e., not overtly manipulative) way. Whether, for instance, an actor makes them feel his or her anger by simply raising his voice and contorting his face or by recalling someone who provoked rage in them is the actor's problem, not the audience's, and in fact actors have a wide range of ways of solving that problem. But the audience's desire to be affected remains constant.

Just found this quote from William Faulkner on Wikipedia. Food for thought for actors too:

quote:

Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique. There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut. The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes; people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice. He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.

I happen to enjoy technique, myself. But I think the idea that there are no shortcuts and that ultimately you are on your own, and can only persevere, is an important one.