Meisner technique

The Meisner Technique is an acting technique developed by and named after Sanford Meisner.

Development

Meisner developed this technique after working with the Group Theater at New York City's Neighborhood Playhouse and continued its refinement for fifty years. Today the technique is part of a two-year program at the Neighborhood Playhouse and at the school that he founded, The Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts in North Hollywood, California. His technique is practiced at universities all over the United States.

Components

Meisner Training is an interdependent series of exercises that build upon one another. The more complex work supports a command of dramatic text.

Meisner students work on a series of progressively complex exercises that develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to text. The technique develops the behavioural strand of Stanislavski's 'system', via its articulation in an American idiom as Method acting. The technique assumes that by emphasizing "moment-to-moment" spontaneity through communion with other actors, behaviour that is truthful under imaginary circumstances may be generated.

There are many self-identified "Meisner teachers" in the US, although there are no objective standards or licensing procedures to monitor the authenticity or accuracy of their work (no such standards exist for any of the Method acting strands, nor, indeed, for Stanislavski's approach). As a result, one can study with one Meisner teacher who emphasizes certain aspects and go to a different Meisner teacher whose personal interpretation is quite different from the first. This is true of all the major approaches to acting. This is partly why Sanford Meisner started his own school in North Hollywood, California. He hand picked the teachers for the Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts to pass on to future generations his proven technique.

Other more character-based techniques are often used to supplement the training, along with the study of style, physicality, and period — Meisner himself recommended the study of Michael Chekhov's work. Whatever combination is applied, the maxim at the Neighborhood Playhouse is that it takes two years to learn the technique, five years to learn how to use it, and twenty years to become a master.

Meisner emphasized doing with early training heavily based on actions. The questions "what are you playing" and "what are you doing" are frequently asked in class to remind actors to commit themselves to an objective rather than a script. Silence, dialogue, and activity all require the actor to find a purpose for performing the action. By combining the two main tasks of focusing one's attention on one's partner and committing to an action, the technique aims to compel an actor into the moment (a common Meisner phrase), while simultaneously propelling him forward with concentrated purpose. The more an actor is able to take in his or her partner and his or her surroundings while performing his or her action, the more Meisner believed he or she is able to leave himself or herself alone and "live truthfully."

The most fundamental exercise in Meisner training is called Repetition. Two actors face each other and "repeat" their observations about one another back and forth. An example of such an exchange might be: "You're smiling." "I'm smiling." "You're smiling!" "Yes, I'm smiling." Actors are asked to observe and respond to others' behavior and the subtext therein. If they can "pick up the impulse" — or work spontaneously from how their partner's behavior affects them — their own behavior will arise directly from the stimulus of the other.

Later, as the exercise evolves in complexity to include "given circumstances," "relationships," actions and obstacles, this skill remains critical. From start to finish — from repetition to rehearsing a lead role — the principles of "listen and respond" and "stay in the moment" are fundamental to the work.

Reactive spontaneity can result in Meisner actors being excellent improvisers, enabling fresh — if slightly varied — performances.

As for all Stanislavskian-derived approaches, for a Meisner actor traditional line memorization methods that include vocal inflections or gestures makes no sense. Doing so merely increases the chance the actor will miss a "real moment" in service of a rehearsed habit or line reading. Meisner actors learn lines dry, "by rote," without inflection, so as not to memorize a line reading. When the line is finally to be delivered, its quality and inflection is derived from the given moment.

The improvisatory thrust of the technique should not be misconstrued as permission to wing it or to go unprepared. Meisner training includes extensive work on crafting or preparing a role. As students mature in the work, they get to know themselves and can make use of this self-knowledge by choosing actions compelling to their particular instrument. They "come to life" through informed, provocative choices. Actors prepare emotional responses by "personalizing" and "paraphrasing" material and by using their imagination and "daydreaming" around a play's events in highly specific ways that they've learned are especially evocative to them personally.

When circumstances are advanced, this preparation must be accomplished with specificity and depth, or else the actor's attention simply cannot move away from self and onto the moment. Solid preparation supports the spontaneity, an idea articulated by Martha Graham when she wrote, "I work eight hours a day, every day, so that in the evenings I can improvise."

Characteristics

Characteristics of Meisner-trained actors include a confidence with improvisation, an easy spontaneity, a regard for truthful behavior and a devotion to the "reality" of a moment. Benefits of training include strong improvisational skills, an ability to accurately read another's behavior and the confidence to "live" onstage, moment-to-moment with an outward focus.

Character development

Despite some misconceptions, Meisner work also addresses the development of character, though in an indirect way. Character attributes such as "mousy," "vindictive," or "noble" are the result of actors' choices when juxtaposed to the story in the text.

Rather than specifically playing "mousy", a Meisner actor would instead want to continually appease another character to create the appearance of the quality. Such derivation of attributes or qualities from specific actions is a critical skill developed by Meisner students. Instead of specifically portraying the personality traits required, the actor instead behaves in such a way that the audience believes the character embodies the traits.

List of Meisner-trained actors

Some prominent actors who trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse in the Meisner technique are:

• Joan Allen
• Kim Basinger
• Andrew Benjamin
• James Caan
• Tom Cruise
• Robert Duvall
• James Gandolfini
• Richard Gang
• Jeff Goldblum
• Philip Seymour Hoffman
• Allison Janney
• Diane Keaton
• Grace Kelly
• Christine Lahti
• David Mamet
• Dylan McDermott
• Gregory Peck
• Sydney Pollack
• Mark Rydell
• José Angel Santana [1]
• Mary Steenburgen
• Jon Voight
• Joanne Woodward

References

• Sanford Meisner on Acting
• About the Meisner Acting Technique
• Sanford Meisner on acting

External link

• Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts acting school
• Sanford Meisner at the Internet Movie Database

Theories and Techniques of Constantin Stanislavski
Active Analysis • Action • Adaptation • Affective Memory • Bit
Cognitive Analysis • Communication • Concentration of Attention • Etude
Experiencing • Given Circumstances • Imagination • Indicating • Inner Contact
Inner Monologue • Intention • Justification • Lure • Method of Physical Actions
Motivation • Objective • The Questions • Relaxation • Representation
Sense Memory • Subtext • Substitution • Through-line of Action • Turning Point
An Actor Prepares • My Life in Art • Method Acting • Meisner Technique

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