Classes at LAACTTM
Tourist to NYC Police Officer, "Excuse me officer, how do I get to Carnegie Hall?"
Officer, "Practice, Practice, Practice"
In class we only teach one exercise, the exercise invented by Sanford Meisner, perhaps the greatest teacher of acting that this country has produced.
For the purpose of this treatment, the noun, actor, and the pronouns: he, him, and his, mean male and female equally.
If you're a musician, a dancer, or a singer, the route to practice of the fundamentals is very well established. There are scales and barre work, progressive notes and moves, which when practiced correctly over time, become second nature. Practice with scales and barre work actually teach you how music is composed and how to dance a combination.
The actor had no such routine of practice until the advent of the exercise invented by the late Sanford Meisner. "The Exercise," in it's uncorrupted form, and when practiced correctly over time, teaches the actor how to function correctly, scene analysis, and how to meet the behavioral, emotional, creative, and artistic demands of any given scene. When practiced correctly over time, the exercise cultivates your talent and imagination and develops all the good habits that great actors share (while prohibiting the bad habits that all other actors share).
Just like scales and barre work, the exercise defies analysis. It is not a mental exercise that can be figured out in advance and "executed correctly." That would be anti-art. The exercise is an emotional exercise, a behavioral exercise, an exercise in responsiveness and imagination; as such, it is necessary that the student turn off the intellectual processes that prevent those qualities.
I'll describe this one more way for clarity. When you go to the gym you learn how to lift weights correctly so that you get the most out of every workout. Correct repetition of each exercise in the gym develops muscle tone. You don't analyze the exercise or try to accomplish it intellectually. The same is true of scales, of barre work, and of the acting exercise.
In order to clearly see how Mr. Meisner's exercise addresses the needs of the actor you must look at the common characteristics shared by all great actors. These are the qualities you develop through correct practice: all great actors demonstrate wide emotional range and depth; instinctual responsiveness is a value great actors share; a rich imagination is a common trait among great actors; finally, for the great actor, the scene is a real experience happening to him.
Let's look at these four elements, one at a time, and then examine how Mr. Meisner's invention cultivates and develops these strengths.
First, you have to take for granted that the student of acting has the capacity to develop these qualities. Furthermore, it is assumed at the outset that the student has talent. For the purposes of training we define the talent of the actor as the ability to be effected emotionally by something outside of himself. Another word for the talent of the actor is, humanity.
The full depth and range of human emotions are in all of us. We spend our lives suppressing those emotions with politeness and rational analysis. Still, everyone possesses the entire emotional palette. The actor must learn to permit his emotions when he acts.
Instinctual responsiveness is, likewise, hardwired into everyone. We fight those responses with logic every moment of our lives. The actor must learn to permit his instinctive responses when he acts.
All acting is imaginary. All great actors have the capacity to immerse themselves in meaningful imaginary circumstances. This is something we all do as children but is trained out of us at an early age. Learning to employ your imagination in a way that serves you as an actor takes a specific routine of practice.
When we watch great actors work it looks like a real experience. When you really do something, even if your circumstances are imaginary, it makes you behave real. Conversely, if you fake doing something it makes your behavior fake.
So, how then does the actor cultivate and develop these characteristics? Practice, practice, practice.
THE EXERCISE
The purpose of the exercise is to practice "Working Off" of what is right in front of you; principally the other actor. In training, you practice Working Off until it becomes second nature when you act.
Working Off, or Playing Off of the other person, is shorthand for the fundamental act of give and take between actors; the struggle that is inherent in every meaningful scene. As Mr. Meisner said, "Where there's struggle there's life." Working Off engages all the fundamentals of acting.
When you "Work Off" you put all your attention on your acting partner; you listen, you take personally what you see and hear, then you permit your truthful, instinctual, emotional response. You do this moment to unanticipated moment. These are the fundamentals of acting; the barre work, the scales. Listen, take personally, respond truthfully; listen, take personally, respond emotionally; listen, take personally, respond instinctually; all without preconception, analysis, rationale, or manipulation; that's working off of one another.
When you work off of the other person you are building correct habits that you will use every time you act. Of equal importance, there are miriad bad habits that are prohibited through correct practice. This is part of the genius of Mr. Meisner's invention.
REPETITION
Learning the exercise begins with the simplest, most fundamental thing that all actors must do in every scene: listening and responding. When you listen acutely you solve the two most common problems in acting; not listening and thinking. By putting all your attention on your working partner, sensitizing yourself to their behavior and listening to HOW they say what they say, you begin to engage your talent and instincts.
The Repetition Exercise, also called The Word Game or The Word Repetition Game, asks that two actors sit on stage and put all of their attention on one another. The exercise begins with one of the actors noticing something interesting about what the other person is wearing, something that exists on them, then making a simple comment about it, "Blue Shirt." The other actor repeats exactly what he hears, "Blue Shirt." The first actor repeats exactly what he hears, "Blue Shirt." The other actor repeats exactly what he hears, "Blue Shirt." They do not mimic one another or attempt to add variety but simply and honestly listen and respond.
The astute teacher will let this repetition go on until something emotional takes place. Sometimes people start laughing, sometimes they get angry or sad. In any case the point is made that once you quit thinking about what to say next your instincts start to take over and emotion begins to emerge of its own volition.
The repetition exercise gets people listening and answering without manipulation or preconception. This is something all great actors do and it is so important that it's the first class and the foundation on which all acting is built.
Two lessons must be made clear at the conclusion of the exercise. First, listening is all you need to do when you act, your responses, emotion, and instincts are always correct. Second, the first moment and ever subsequent moment, come off of what really exists on the other person.
TAKING THINGS PERSONALLY
Acting is personal.
Scenes, meaningful scenes, are about pivotal moments in the human experience. A scene that is not meaningful is cut. Whether it's a love scene or a fight scene it always starts with someone taking something personally. Whether it was something someone said or the way they said it, when it's taken personally, it starts something emotional.
Actors have to condition themselves to permit their emotions, to tell the truth. Our training from life inhibits every honest or emotional response we have. New training is required to meet the demands of acting.
So, to the repetition game we add, "taking things personally."
Actor one may say, "You have brown hair." To which actor two truthfully responds, "I have brown hair." That may not sound like much but when actors are permitted to repeat that truth long enough their talent and instincts engage and real emotion will emerge from the repetition. If you repeat long enough eventually you become bored and a real response comes out. Repeat long enough and your brain shuts down leaving only your instincts to automatically take over your responses.
The dialogue, as you can imagine, is not very interesting but if you film this rudimentary exercise, then play it back without the audio, it looks like a real conversation taking place. It also looks like a scene with an arc and a spine. So, the truthful, human behavior necessary of all scenes is in the most fundamental exercise. The distinction between them is that in the exercise you repeat what the other person says while in the scene you repeat with what the author has written. The fundamental way of functioning; listening, taking personally, responding truthfully, is the same.
A POINT OF VIEW
The actor has to have a point of view when he acts.
Without a point of view, a feeling, an opinion about what is being said, all you are doing is reciting memorized lines. Recitation is not acting. Line reading is not acting. Oratory is not acting. Saying lines while indicating the emotion you THINK your "character" should be having is NOT acting. These are the arcane ideas, which are still taught in American colleges, that Mr. Meisner found so artistically offensive that he spent his life inventing a method of training that would get the actor working as an artist.
Politeness has all but eliminated opinion and a point of view from human interaction. Plays and movies, the actor's domains, are all about taking the audience on an emotional ride, permitting them to feel emotions and imagine themselves saying things they would never be permitted to feel and say in polite society. In an audition the actor who has a personal feeling about the things he says gets the part. The actor who has no feeling about the things he says does not work, at all.
Now, that last paragraph has a point of view, an opinion about something. Many actors reading that get emotional (although they will argue that they didn't). That's the idea.
You can start the repetition game with an opinion. Take a look at your partner's haircut or the way they dressed themselves. It doesn't take long to come up with an opinion; it may not, however, be polite. Mr. Meisner used to say, "As America's oldest living acting teacher, I can safely say, Fuck Polite!"
"You have a bad haircut."
"I have a bad haircut?"
"You have a bad haircut!"
"I have a bad haircut."
Repeated long enough a point of view will begin to sink in, for both actors. Emotion invariably follows this kind of play. The game is not called, "Insult your partner." "You dress like a college kid," can invoke pride, anger or disgust in any given moment becuase each new repetition has in it a point of view.
THE THREE MOMENT GAME
The Three Moment Game is made up of three moments.
By now the actor is listening, taking things personally, responding without thinking, and has a personal point of view when he's acting. For the sake of his development the Three Moment Game begins to sensitize the actor to his working partner and engage his talent.
The Three Moment Game begins with a provocative question. This question is made up and has nothing to do with what exists right there. This is the only time the actor gets to think in his training. Imagination and creativity begin to come out of the invention of the provocative questions but that is not the purpose of the game. The purpose of the game is to get the actor to begin noticing the bahavior of his working partner, an act at which he must become expert.
In the second moment of the game an actor repeats the question but lets out, emotionally, behaviorally, his real answer.
The third moment is in "pinning down" or naming the behavior of the second moment.
Actor One: Moment One: (provocative question) "Do you shave your back?"
Actor Two: Moment Two: (repetition) "Do I shave my back?"
Actor One: Moment Three: (pin down the behavior) "You look shocked!"
That's it! Three moments and in them are the whole of acting. There will be lines to be memorized, possibly some accompanying action, but it all boils down to someone saying something followed by a reaction, followed by a reaction, ad libre.
In so far as the training is concerned, in that third moment, the actor has noticed the behavior of his partner, named it specifically, and in doing so has begun to sensitize himself to the other person. This is the talent of the actor.
The talent of the actor is humanity. Call it being sensitive, generous, empathetic, or just plain noticing, but the willingness to be effected by something outside of yourself is a common trait to all great actors and must be conditioned from the earliest point possible in training.
The actor has to become an expert on identifying the emotional state of his working partner. Noticing, adjusting to, and responding to that which is right in front of you, in the moment, allows for change to take place.
DOORS AND ACTIVITIES
For the sake of brevity I will restrict a detailed look at Doors and Activities. The simple fact is that they are your experiments in imagination. Using your imagination to invent meaningfully around purely imaginary circumstances is the healthiest way to bring meaning to a scene. If you are young and have no elevating or devastating life experiences from which to draw, you need to cultivate your imagination in a way that will enable you to handle the tough scenes.
At LAACTTM, ours is a process of self-discovery. Discovering what being connected with your working partner can produce in you emotionally. Discovering what really doing something (opposed to faking doing something) can produce in you emotionally. Discovering what your imagination can produce in you emotionally. All these discoveries are tools that last you for your entire lifetime. The imagination is a renewable resource. Your past traumas from real life are good once or twice and then cease to mean anything.
The exercise answers scene work from the start. In every scene you will either be doing something or trying to get something. You could call these things the "actions" of the scene. So, these actions are built into every exercise.
THE DOOR
The criteria for the door are simple. You come to the door to get something from the other person. The thing in question belongs to them. You cannot get the thing anywhere else. Coming to this door, for that thing, is your only hope. There are specific and personal consequences to getting or not getting the thing. If the thought of needing that thing for that reason does not emotionalize you then throw that reason out and dream up a new one. It costs nothing. Your reason for coming drives your knock; every moment after that first knock is "working off of the other person." Practice responding instinctually and emotionally to everything you see and hear after that first knock. You drop your reason; if it's real to you it won't drop you.
THE INDEPENDENT ACTIVITY
Mr. Meisner had two definitions of acting. The first was used strictly for the benefit of student's understanding. "For the purposes of your training, we define acting as, Living Truthfully Under Imaginary Circumstances." The second definition was a bit more poetical, "The Reality of Doing." An entire lecture in and of itself is necessary to detail those definitions.
Solving the problem of the Independent Activity solves the acting problem; making an imaginary circumstance (a scene) personally meaningful. That's what the actor does; makes an imaginary situation, NOT of his own creation, personally and emotionally meaningful. Conquer the Independent Activity and you can solve the emotional problem in any scene, no matter how difficult.
It's called an Independent Activity because it has nothing to do with an exercise, a scene, or your acting partner. You are at home alone doing something important to you, that's the Activity. The criteria are these: the activity must be difficult for you to do; there is a specific time limit within which you must complete the activity; there are personal imaginary consequences to the completion of the activity. Like the "Door," if your reason for doing the activity do not emotionalize you then throw out the reason and imagine a new one that does bring you to some specific emotional state.
The Independent Activity has to be something you might really do. There is a basic tenet here; If you really do something it makes you behave real. If you decide to split the atom as your activity then you would have to be able to really do that. It's plenty difficult but it might take more time than we have in class to complete. Get a stain out of a shirt in 20 minutes; the shirt has to look brand new. That's do-able and specific. It's something you might have to really do and the doing of it would make you behave real.
The time limit has to be believable and not made up just to satisfy the demands of the exercise. If a typical exercise lasts 10 minutes and your activity has to be done in 10 minutes then you are doing it just as a class assignment. The idea is to come up with some personally meaningful imaginary circumstance in which to immerse yourself. That brings up another point; the activity can not be real! You do not do your taxes on April 15th for an activity. The exercise is an exercise in imagination, the actor's domain. You have to be able to believe the time limit. If it reasonably takes an hour and 20 minutes to accomplish the thing, give yourself an hour and 10 minutes to get it done. That will make you hurry up. When you have to hurry it creates behavior and emotion in you, that is part of The Reality of Doing.
The level of difficulty should come from the specifics of the task. Do things that you are not particularly good at; already there is a difficulty in them. Doing things that are difficult for you to do produces behavior and emotion; more of The Reality of Doing. BE SPECIFIC. Don't just generally get the stain out of the shirt, make the shirt look brand new. Have everything you need to fully accomplish the activity with you. If you leave something out then it won't be real to you. You have to be able to really do the thing to completion. When the activity is done, that's it, it's done. There can't be one more thing down the road that gets you what you want. By that I mean this; you cannot sharpen your ice skates for a competition to win prize money to pay off Mom's iron lung. Sharpen the skates or not you still have to win the competition and just like any competition, there is a chance that you won't win.
Let's say that your crazy Aunt Helga is coming to town. Helga is a type "A" personality who demands that your personal hygiene and habitat be impeccable. The irony is that her husband, Uncle Al, cleans septic tanks for a living and has some particular personal habits that are as offensive to you as it is possible to get. Aunt Helga's plane lands in 20 minutes, she will take a cab from the airport which is 20 minutes away. You have 40 minutes to clean your apartment to Aunt Helga's standards. If you complete the cleaning, specifically to her needs, on time, she will continue to pay your expenses and has promised that if you demonstrate that you can take care of yourself she'll kick in an extra couple of thousand a week for expenses and some fun. If you don't get the place immaculate in 40 minutes then you have to move back to Fargo and go to work with Uncle Al and his revolting habits.
That's an Independent Activity. It's difficulty is in the specificity of the cleaning job, it has a specific time limit which will make you hurry up, and there are specific consequences to its completion or failure that are personal to you. Thankfully, you're not expecting anyone to come to your door.
THE PURPOSE OF THE EXERCISE IS TO PRACTICE WORKING OFF OF THE OTHER PERSON
There are maybe two "Meisner Teachers" in the planet who know this, make this clear in class, and ascribe to it as the bottom line in practice; me and one other guy, maybe two others, but definitly me.
DEPARTURES
There are about 50,000 "Meisner" teachers out there. Almost none of them ever studied with Mr. Meisner or even met the man. I only barely knew him but he did know me by name. Many, if not most, of the so-called "Meisner" teachers have improved his techniqe of teaching with their own interpretations. All of those interpretations are intellectual in their nature and therefore anti-art. Having heard stories of many of their improvements I can safely say that they have corrupted the training beyond recognition, salvation, or benefit.
There are a handful or more serious teachers of Mr. Meisner's approach, who studied teaching with him personally for years. The rest never met him, got their information 4th or 5th hand, and use his name as a marketing tool with which they sell their classes. Mr. Meisner rebuked everyone who used his name on their banners. "Only Meisner teaches Meisner," he said.
For my part, there are three things I employ to aid students in their understanding that are, admittedly, of my own creation. "You look..." statments; "I feel..." statements; and "Today's the day..." statements.
When I see a student who is "in his head" and thinking I'll say, "You look..." The student immediately puts his attention back on his partner where it belongs and finishes the sentence, "You look (behavior/emotion)."
If I see a student who is emotionally stunned I'll say "I feel..." The student then says, "I feel (emotion)." This puts him in touch with his feelings. Invariably, young students finish the sentence "I feel..." with what they are thinking. When that happens I'll say so, asking them, "That's what you think, how do you feel?" Getting students to say how they feel is a big step in their progress.
"You look..." and "I feel..." are working off of the other person. "I feel..." statements recognize and name what the other person created in the actor. In either case I may never have to say these things to the same student more than once or twice.
"Today's the day..." is the fastest way I've found to aid students in scene analysis. I begin using that phrase when people are experimenting with their reasons for doing their independent activities and for coming to the door.
It's easy to get one's head around an imaginary situation if you can boil it down to a single concept or action.
"Today's the day I had to clean my apartment or my Aunt would quit paying my expenses and make me work for my Uncle."
"Today's the day I had to borrow $40 to pay my rent or I'd have to move back home."
"Today's the day wrote the letter that broke my mother's heart."
"Today's the day I made the greeting card that won the heart of the girl of my dreams."
Having done a couple hundred exercises this way when students finally get to scene work if I ask them, after reading a scene, to finish the sentence, "Today's the day..." In response, they immediately see what's really going on in the scene without further explaination, they immediately have a 'feel' for the emotional demands of the scene in question, and they very quickly come up with a creative way to do the scene; all without intellectualizing or analyzing the moments, sections, arc, or armature (spine). Eliminating all that thinking and talking generally associated with script analysis saves time and energy, evades misinterpretation completely, and gives the actor a clear route to bringing the scene to fruition creatively, instinctually, and artistically.
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