from Marrick

When assigned this paper I immediately thought of the Moscow Art Theatre’s first visit to America that Matt had mentioned and how it revolutionized the way Americans looked at the way to approach the stage. Stanislavsky changed everything and became the basis for the many American techniques today. One such Stanislavski spin off the interested me was the technique of Sanford Meisner.
Sanford Meisner was born August thirty-first, 1905 and raised in Brooklyn, New York. When Meisner was five his little brother died and his parents blamed him. He revealed later in his life that he felt like a “Moral Leper”. His made him isolate himself from others and live in a world of fantasy Meisner didn’t go to school for Acting. He studied to be a concert pianist at The Damrash Institue of Music, which is now reffered to as Julliard. This may be where Meisner got his relentless work ethic that several of his students mention. Meisner discovered he wanted to act on a job he had “talked”(meisner center1) his way into.
Sandy, as he was often called, jumped on the acting bandwagon at a very good time. Stanislavski had just visited the United States. He found himself joining the Group theatre. Members included Elia Kazan, Stella Adler and her brother Luther. The group was founded and directed by Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg. They created an American Acting ensemble based on the Moscow Art Theater. They hoped to infuse American Acting with the deep realistic style that they had seen from the Russians. Meisner was a part of twelve productions with the group theatre.
By the time nineteen thirty three came around Mr. Meisner was looking for more in Acting and began to discuss his own idea’s on the acting process and how it should be approached. “When I first began to teach I taught with that kind semi intellectual manipulation that one sees, at its worst, in the colleges.”(Theatre’s Best Kept Secret) He then began teaching at the neighborhood playhouse where he trained actors such as Gwen Verdon, Sydney Pollack, Jeff Goldblum, Tony Randall Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Voight, Grace Kelly, Gregory Peck, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and William H. Macy. He claims this success came from his shift of thought. “You can talk about how you’re gonna play a part but until it finds its living roots it in your head” . In 1970 he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had to get a Larngectomy in which the doctors removed his larynx. For a long time he couldn’t speak. “After my operation I couldn’t utter a sound I used to go to a beach there (Bequi) and practice every day” said Sandy in an interview (Theatre’s Best Kept…). Soon, he found a way to make sound with a microphone attached to his face and Meisner returned to teaching and smoking. He opened acting schools in Hollywood and the Caribbean Island of Bequia. Meisner passed away in 1997. He last performed on an episode of the television series ER in 1995.
In the Video documentary of Sanford Meisner and his technique entitled “Theatre’s Best Kept Secret” several of Sandy’s colleagues describe his disposition and how he was to work with. David Mamet, playwright claimed that the miesner’s students were able to “put their attention on something other than themselves so that it’s allot easier to work with them. You don’t have to cut through the various layers of self consciousness most actors that are being trained are terrified of being foolish of doing something which is out of their control”. Joanne Woodward explained Sandy’s steadfast attitude to the art of acting. Woodard “He said Acting is like playing the violin it takes you twenty years to become an actor, because for the first twenty years you have to think about it all the time. And Finally, like the Violin you don’t have to think about where you put your fingers on the bow… er strings er whatever you just know where” Elia Kazan was in the group theatre with Sandy and described him as a “most sensitive urbane gentle fine man a man of unusual delicate sensibilities but always an artist”. Tony Randall, a former student claimed “He was an extremely emotional man who was given to blowing up He couldn’t stand it if you argued with him and it was stupid to argue with him but it was a different story then he was a very busy actor. I remember in my time at the playhouse he would come to teach class at nine in the morning after an opening night. (on broadway)” Director Vivian Matalon is thankful that Meisner became a teacher and theorizes, “I think that Sandy really did want to be an actor but I think the delicacy of his feelings were not reflected in the way he looked. Personally, I think that injured him and he, to a degree turned his back on acting.”
Meisners technique is based on the “Reality of doing”(Silerberg) which is also comes from “ancient ritual”(Hart 51) of communication. Since the beginning of time we’ve used common gesture to communicate Similar to what we disscuss in class Meisner believes that the present moment is all we have available to us onstage. Meisner raises the question “How do we create for the first time every time?” Meisner says live in the present. This is a common theme among many acting teachers. What sets Meisner apart is how he helps the student to discover being present and the emphasis that is placed on the importance of this presence. Meisner splits up the training of his actors into two years. The first year the student is stripped of any bad unrealistic theatrical habits and to build up a healthy truthful instinct. In the second year the students begin to apply this instinct to their work and discover their “personal pallet”(Hart 72).
The first year begins with the exercise that Meisner is known for. Repetition is the name of the game. This exercise removes a script and thus the need to generate a controlled specific response. In this exercise one student notices things about the other and they just listen and repeat to one another. This happens at a rapid pace so the student does not have time to think but will just respond to what he’s given. This exercise will illuminate the power of subtext to the student and how there are a thousand things you van imply with one line. “Learning how to listen and respond to this subtext, in every moment, is probably the most important skill an actor can acquire”(Hart 55). Sandy said of this exercise “ Its an exercise designed to eliminate all intellectual behavior from the actors instrument and to make him a spontaneous responder.”(Theatre’s best kept…)
The activity is the next part of Eisner’s madness. In order for something to be a legitimate activity it must have three things. It must be a concrete problem or task that requires the actor’s attention to accomplish, a circumstance that is simple personal and specific, and the task must have stakes or consequences if the act is not accomplished. Activity is added to repitition.
After activity Objective is added. The objective is something that must be obtained from a person in a scene. It must be something that is not easily given either. There are still no lines we are still just repeating what one of the actors notices about the other.
Once actors have a hand on responding to subtext repetition is slowed down. This is so actors don’t get caught in just responding because they have but can now wait for a sufficient impulse.
In a scene with high emotional energy Meisner teaches that emotional preparation is needed. One of the reasons Meisner began to explore his own method of acting was because he did not agree entirely with Lee Strasberg’s approach to emotional recall that made a person recall traumatic event from their own life. His beliefs were reinforced when Stella Adler returned from France from having studied with Stanislavsky himself. She claimed that Stanislavsky was now use imagination to get his actors where they needed to be emotionally. Meisner agreed and developed his own formula based on this idea. Meisner tells his actor’s to do two exact opposite things in emotional preparation. First, he tells them to daydream. This daydream cuts the actor off from the world he is in at the moment and transports him to another in his mind. This other world is where the actor gets where he needs to be. However, this emotional state is brought to the first moment and then the actor must be out of his state and fully present with is partner.
The second year begins by trying to stretch and transform the actor into something far from himself. Meisner’s impediments are things that do not come naturally to us onstage such as an altered state through drug use, sickness, wounds, or speech impediments. These must be thoroughly researched and understood before attempted. An actor then must focus on changing his own responses to things. Another exercise that helps explore what the character is thinking is the actor’s paraphrase. This is very much like our before the door when the actor speaks aloud all thoughts that are in his head.