Observing and Acceptance - The Importance of How the Meisner Repetition Exercise Begins
If you've done Meisner training, you know that you begin the repetition exercise by taking your partner in and stating something you observe about them. You don't need to go deep with this to start the exchange. A simple, "red sneakers" will do.
However, it is interesting that, even in a task that is so focused outside of ourselves, the first place we go for a response is into our heads! I have seen students (and I've done it myself) stare at one another for five, ten seconds, totally mute. Sometimes one or the other will throw his or her hands up in frustration without saying anything. I was conducting a seminar the other day, and partnered with a prospective student. I purposely put a big, expectant grin on my face before we started our repetition, just to give him something to go on.
He stared at me for a long moment and finally said, "I'm not getting anything!"
What fills this kind of pregnant pause at the start of the repetition exercise can be one of several things. First, we all ignore some of what we see. In our judgment, it's either not interesting enough, doesn't fit our rules about what the world is and is not, or is or is not something we can deal with. We've all known someone in love with a person that the rest of the planet recognizes as a jerk. And who among us has never looked back on a failed relationship and had to admit to ourselves, "The signs were there from the beginning. I just didn't want to see them?"
Ah. But the observation problem gets still worse than that. We also imagine things that aren't there. It is not at all unusual for a new Meisner student to look into the pleasant face of a classmate and snarl, "You're looking at me funny." Hilarity ensues, but . . . wow.
Then there's minimizing. I've seen students in the middle of an emotional repetition, and one will suddenly say, something like "You scratched your neck." Strictly true, but was that really the thing that is most riveting as someone screams in anguish? Most likely there is some serious selecting and minimizing going on.
As you train, it is critical to work on observing and listening as fully and with as much acceptance in your heart as you can. It's a discipline, a muscle that has to be made strong and flexible through your training. You're not working to eliminate your unique point of view on the world or alter your personality (but if you know you need to, go ahead!) You're working to reach a point where, as you move into playing roles, you can add and take away the things that your character is and is not able or willing to see. I believe most every play is about what the characters do and don't see, and how, why, and if they end up seeing the world differently by the end of the play.
Comedies will involve characters whose ability to see no more than a few things clashes hilariously with differently but equally tunnel-visioned characters. Tragedies will have tunnel-vision clashes, the results will be horrific, and the blinders come off after all is lost. Dramas will have big differences in how the characters see the world, and often one or more characters will be trying to influence the "sight" of other characters. (Twelve Angry Men, any police drama, A Streetcar Named Desire). In satires, all the characters will have viewpoints that differ absurdly from that of the audience. In other words, the joke will be on every character.
If you as the actor can open your vision through your training, then close selected parts of it down to suit the characters you play, you've got something.
So, "black pants," is sometimes all you need to say in a repetition. But if what you really need to do is yell Open fly!" please do that. In class, that is.
Love and Drama -
Jill
Monday, September 24, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The Top 10 Things to Look for in an Acting Class
Listen, you can spend
a lot of time and money with your butt parked in the wrong acting
class. Ask me how I know.
After YEARS of taking
classes that failed me, I've come up with a list of things I think you MUST look for in a class. If you're missing more than one or two of these things, itr might be tie to be up out! This list is 30-plus years in the making, so think if over . . . .
Wannahearit? Hereitgoes:
1.
The teacher is approachable.
We’ve all been raised on acting guru
lore, where acting teachers wear black turtlenecks, chain-smoke and look at
every student like crumbs that need to be swept off the floor. Makes for
great TV, but really, you need to be absolutely comfortable talking to and
asking your teacher questions. There is too much to learn. The day
you keep your mouth shut may be the day you could have learned the one thing
that would get you the role of a lifetime. Look for a smile and an open
office door.
2. You
like the other students.
You’re
going to fall on your face many times while you’re learning. You do not
need catty, competitive classmates. Ideally, your class should gel into a
community in which you make both friends and professional contacts. If
you’re not feeling the vibe that’s going down, you will find it that
much harder to feel free enough to take chances in class. Plus, you’re
missing out on what could be valuable networking time.
3.
You start improving soon. Really.
I can't believe this is a point of contention,
but apparently it is. In my opinion, if you’re going to an acting class, you should be getting
better as the weeks go by if you are giving it your full effort. I'm not into the 20-year plan.
First, let's get one thing clear. The main purpose of an acting class is to lay the foundation of your technique. Then you stay in class to practice building on that foundation - you experience plumb and true versus wonky and flimsy and learn to know the difference.
What happens in most instruction is the students are presumed to have a technique. Then the "Scene Study Two - completion of Scene Study One or interview with the instructor required" jazz starts happening. You do a scene in class till you are able to fill it with the predictable line readings and put-on mannerisms that make it look a little better than awful. This is not training; it's rehearsing. The minute you pick up a new script, you're a beginner again.
First, don't pay anyone to rehearse. Second, you can embark on this 20-year plan and still suck at the end of it.
So though I may get skewered for this by the purists, I suggest you not sit in a class or theater program without being conscious of the pages of the calendar turning. Especially you young actors who want to act in TV and films - that dewy Twilight demographic look doesn't last forever! And, to paraphrase Dr. Phil, time doesn’t fix everything - it's what you do with the time. If you’ve been working diligently in a class for a few months and don’t think you’ve improved and have a way of beginning to approach any type of script, it’s time to find another class.
First, let's get one thing clear. The main purpose of an acting class is to lay the foundation of your technique. Then you stay in class to practice building on that foundation - you experience plumb and true versus wonky and flimsy and learn to know the difference.
What happens in most instruction is the students are presumed to have a technique. Then the "Scene Study Two - completion of Scene Study One or interview with the instructor required" jazz starts happening. You do a scene in class till you are able to fill it with the predictable line readings and put-on mannerisms that make it look a little better than awful. This is not training; it's rehearsing. The minute you pick up a new script, you're a beginner again.
First, don't pay anyone to rehearse. Second, you can embark on this 20-year plan and still suck at the end of it.
So though I may get skewered for this by the purists, I suggest you not sit in a class or theater program without being conscious of the pages of the calendar turning. Especially you young actors who want to act in TV and films - that dewy Twilight demographic look doesn't last forever! And, to paraphrase Dr. Phil, time doesn’t fix everything - it's what you do with the time. If you’ve been working diligently in a class for a few months and don’t think you’ve improved and have a way of beginning to approach any type of script, it’s time to find another class.
Last, let me say that the old saw about “Talent!
Either you have it or you don’t!” has provided haven and cover for many a
teacher who wasn’t getting it done in the classroom. Don't let a teacher
convince you that you are somehow unteachable. Anyone can skim the best
students off the top, kick out the rest, and take credit for the predictably
stellar results. That ain't teaching a class. It's casting a
testimonials video.
4. You
should be learning to take direction.
In
other words, keep an eye toward translating your teacher’s feedback into
action. Say your teacher says you don’t seem invested enough in a
scene. He or she may mean you need to find something in the scene and or
the character that has deeper meaning for you. Or she may just want you
to talk louder. Ask, then do.
5. Your
personal life should not be on display.
Acting may be therapeutic, but it ain’t
therapy. If you’re being asked to reveal deeply personal, painful events
from your own life in order to arrive at some emotion in an acting class, watch
out. First, you never know when a moment of sharing will spin out of
control, or simply leave you feeling so exposed you never return to
class. Second, an actor’s inner life is his gold. Keep it out of
direct sunlight.
6.
You should be learning a cold reading and
audition technique. The whole time.
Unless you have tons of time and loads
of money, I don’t see why an actor would settle for separate scene study,
monologue, and audition classes. If you can get through a scene, but your
cold readings are flat and your monologues have to be practiced aloud and calculated like a
military maneuver, your acting class is failing you. All these skills
should be improving as you progress in class. The end.
7. You should be working on emotional
preparation in class. A lot.
Coming onto the stage as if something
BIG just happened not easy, but essential to the illusion of
storytelling. Knowing how whip yourself into a genuine emotional state
while you’re fixing your powdered wig and waiting for your cue is no joke, and
worse yet, you may have to change your preparation from time to time to keep it
fresh. You have to practice emotional this. You have to ask
questions of yourself and of your teacher. He or she should guide you in
getting started. “Come in ecstatic!” is an advanced note for a teacher to
give. You should NOT be hearing it before your level of advancement
warrants it. This is critical, since working for emotional results like
this is where a lot of BAD acting is born.
8. You should be learning even when you’re not working.
If you find yourself in a class where
it’s fun to be a fly on the wall while others work on scenes and monologues, but
the notes the teacher gives apply
have no real application to the rest of the class, your time would be better
spent watching one of those master class DVDs. Make sure the teacher
considers everyone in the room when working with actors. And make sure
you pay attention, even when you’re sitting down. It ain't all about you.
9. The teacher should not think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.
You may well be, but you still need feedback and criticism. Don’t be afraid to tell your teacher what you need help with, even if you fooled her that time!
10. The learning process must be fun.
Look, I know there's a kind of romance in the suffering of artists. Have you gotten a load of that draggy, weepy music they play on The Actors' Studio? SHEESH!
You're going to deal with a lot of heavy material and emotional surprises as you train. The crap playwrights write about will kill you if you let it. So it MUST be fun for you to come to class. You should want to come in and hug your classmates' necks. You should be excited about showing off your budding skills. You should want to talk about class after class. Class, like life, should not be a drag.
Any other essentials you think should be on this list? I welcome your comments!
Finding the right Acting Class - or not!!!
My journey to finding the right acting training for myself lasted YEARS. I don't wish that on anyone, but I bet a lot of you will be able to see yourselves in this story! Here it goes:
My first day in an acting class, the teacher told us to act like light bulbs. Had I been four and in nursery school and not a 14 year-old who had begged her parents for both tuition and the freedom to go into Manhattan alone on the subway, it might have been okay. The teacher caught me staring, fish-eyed, then pointed at me and shouted, “GOOD!” Everyone turned in their sockets to see which light had come on. I looked like a crash dummy solving a crossword puzzle, but it was good. The suspicion that acting classes were fake and random took root in me right then, to grow for many years. A couple of terms later, I believed I was beyond repair.
My first day in an acting class, the teacher told us to act like light bulbs. Had I been four and in nursery school and not a 14 year-old who had begged her parents for both tuition and the freedom to go into Manhattan alone on the subway, it might have been okay. The teacher caught me staring, fish-eyed, then pointed at me and shouted, “GOOD!” Everyone turned in their sockets to see which light had come on. I looked like a crash dummy solving a crossword puzzle, but it was good. The suspicion that acting classes were fake and random took root in me right then, to grow for many years. A couple of terms later, I believed I was beyond repair.
Screw this, I thought.
I’m going to college and majoring in finance.
Get a real job.
Get a real job.
Not knowing when to quit, though, I took a few college acting
classes. My teacher was the late Susan
Spector, with whom I remained friends until her passing. She’d studied with and written about Uta
Hagen, and she took me through exercises in which I was always doing something,
and for a reason. I began to drop some of my kooky
habits, mainly because I was so busy. Susan was encouraged with my progress enough that she asked
me to play Joan of Arc, the lead role in “The Lark,” the following fall semester. I'd have to audition, of course, but she was confident I could do it. For my part, I knew that unless my own St.
Michael came and walked me through that audition, and if I got the part, the role, I would be the one going down in flames. I went to the Yellow Pages (that's what we had back then) and looked under
“Dramatic Instruction - Emergencies.”
I found Ernest McClintock of the 127th Street
Repertory, and we met for an interview. This
was a black man who’d done the classics.
I needed him, badly. So, without
a hello, I said: “Listen. I have the lead role in a play. I can’t act.
I have eight weeks. Help me.” Ernie roared with laughter and over the
summer, gave me enough tools to get by and get over. The play went fine, people said I was good,
but what shocked me was that, once or twice, freed by the externals Ernie had
given me and grounded in the reasons for doing Susan had taught me, I actually
felt something onstage. Not more than
here and there, but there it was.
I hunted down that high for the next several years. I knew that time alone was not a teacher - I was present when two actors from a hit TV show cackled about the acting skills of one of their long-running, beloved costars. So I filled my time with effort. I drank from imaginary coffee cups, fell backward into the arms of other actors who also couldn’t act, sang lines of Shakespeare to “keep them fresh,” and imagined my dog dying in order to coax out tears (turns out a little mineral oil would’ve done the trick - but don't try it at home, kids). I read the first few chapters of Chekhov’s “To the Actor” more times than I’d attempted the Bible. No cigar.
Screw this, I thought.
I’m going to law school. Get a
real job.
Little did I know, Harvard Law School had a full-time Ham – um,
Drama Society. I auditioned for
everything. I directed. I acted.
I sang. I produced. It was in the course of producing and set-designing
for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that I saw something that changed my attitude
about acting forever. I got a hold of a
copy of a 1968 film of the play starring a fairly weak actress struggling through
a leading role. It was Helen Mirren. That’s when I realized: it’s not
either you have it or you don’t.
Acting can be learned! People are
going somewhere and learning this! My third-year
paper was due, I had to study for the bar exam, and I had a job at a law firm lined up, but believe me, I did
not forget that.
In 2000, an actress I’d cast in a staged reading for a TV
network (I’m proud to say the network stole – I mean, “ran with” with the idea)
urged me to come to Matthew Corozine’s class in NYC. By
that time, I had given up on acting, but enjoyed directing, and I wanted to learn to work better with actors. So I came to class with, shall we say, "skepticism and emotional distance." I hoped to pick up a little actor-y jargon so actors would know I felt their pain, and be out. No way was I going to learn to act there. I'd really given up on learning acting concept.
Matthew taught based on the Sanford Meisner technique, and lo and behold, the class I showed up for was his very first class. I didn't know from Meisner at that point, but what grabbed me right away was how clear everything was. We did this repetition exercise, and I thought, “I have been here one hour and I am using a kind of text and feeling real emotions. WTH??” There were no riddles and rhymes designed to confound and impress. The work was not easy, but it was fun and the goals were defined. As the months went by, everyone improved. Everyone. Having met actors since then who’ve studied Meisner elsewhere - including at big-name schools - and gotten little out of it, I know for sure that the technique is only as strong as its teacher.
Matthew taught based on the Sanford Meisner technique, and lo and behold, the class I showed up for was his very first class. I didn't know from Meisner at that point, but what grabbed me right away was how clear everything was. We did this repetition exercise, and I thought, “I have been here one hour and I am using a kind of text and feeling real emotions. WTH??” There were no riddles and rhymes designed to confound and impress. The work was not easy, but it was fun and the goals were defined. As the months went by, everyone improved. Everyone. Having met actors since then who’ve studied Meisner elsewhere - including at big-name schools - and gotten little out of it, I know for sure that the technique is only as strong as its teacher.
Eventually, I started to substitute
teach, and I taught at my own studio as well. Now,
12 years later, I'm still so enthusiastic about Meisner-based training that I'm teaching an ongoing acting class at the Matthew Corozine Studio in NYC. Journey complete(?) (smile)
I know from experience that anyone with the will and the right instruction can learn this acting thing.
I know from experience that anyone with the will and the right instruction can learn this acting thing.
Like they say: those
who can’t leave it alone - teach. So - bring your questions, perspectives, and acting problems. Let's talk them out!
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