Archived Questions.

Question #1.

Question:

How exactly does the meisner technique differ from stanislavsky's method ??

Answer:

Thank you for your very good question!  Stanislavsky was the "grandfather" of modern Western acting technique who created the overall system on which the great American acting teachers based their work.

Because Stanislavsky's discoveries were so broad, different teachers have emphasized and developed different aspects of his teaching.  Lee Strasberg, for instance, in what has become known as Method Acting, emphasized Stanislavsky's work on "Affective Memory," using real memories from the past to stimulate present understanding and emotion for a role, and "Sense Memory Work" in which actors would re-create past experiences in fine detail.  Sanford Meisner, on the other hand, emphasized Stanislavsky's work on imagination, improvisation and truthful behavioral responses.

In Stanislavsky's rehearsal technique, he discovered certain principles which Meisner built on.  In the theatre before Stanislavsky, actors would often merely "indicate" their actions, making a few dramatic motions to show what they were doing.  Stanislavsky started the trend of modern realism in acting, and said that the actors should really do things and really experience them on stage.  He found that when an actor did a real activity, rather than acting it out, it increased his sense of reality in his role.  Meisner increased the use of such activities and had actors do physical activities to involve themselves in their acting, such as brushing their hair, or fixing something that was broken.

Meisner also utilized Stanislavsky's extensive use of the imagination to get involved with his role.  Meisner used a form of "creative daydreaming" to get the actor totally involved in the imaginary world.  This came directly out of Stanislavsky's experiments with his actors.

Often when you hear about the "Stanislavsky System," people are referring to the emotional work that Stanislavsky did combined with his brilliant use of imaginary circumstances, objectives and actions.  These are the basics of Stanislavsky. Meisner took these basics and created a very systematic training technique that built on these principles of Stanislavsky's in great detail.

Best,

Robert Epstein

Question:

Answer:

Hi Rittesh.

This is a pretty complicated question which is difficult to answer in a simple message.  In fact, in my program we spend over six months of weekly classes just focusing on the tools for developing a complete character.

The Meisner approach to acting is to give the actor a concrete way of doing something, so Meisner Technique would not focus on a complicated psychological study of a character.  Instead it would focus on the way the character behaves, while still giving you a way of connecting truthfully to doing that behavior.  If you look at that simple-sounding formula it has two aspects:  

1/ A basic understanding of the inner life of the character, or how the character feels, and

2/ A way of expressing that inner life through specific behavior.

In a simple way, you could follow the steps below to create a character, and then say the lines with a sense of that character:

1/  Decide whether the major emotion of the character is angry, sad, frightened, or happy.

2/  Find a way of developing that emotion in yourself, such as imagining something that makes you feel that way.

3/  Determine what is the most important way that the character behaves.

4/  Do that behavior when you do the part, and allow the emotional life you have developed to come through that behavior.

5/  When you say the lines, do not focus on the lines themselves, but on the way you are behaving as the character.  Let the lines be part of that behavior.

These instructions may not be so easy to follow, which is why training is usually necessary to learn to do this kind of work.  But if you take each step and work on it, you should make some progress towards developing a specific character.

Best,

Robert