A book to check out, and... Character.

Seeing as how I originally intended for this to be a blog about acting... I think I'll discuss it.  And continue to discuss it more often.

I've just started reading a very interesting book, "Method Acting Reconsidered: Theory, Practice, Future," by David Krasner.  If you have any interest in method-based work, be it Stanislavski, Strasberg, Adler, or Meisner, I highly recommend it.  It's a brilliant collection of essays examining (as the title implies) theories, practical applications, and future uses of method-based work.  It's much more candid about the actor's process than most of the books I've read that address technique.  Plus, it's very well written.

Character.  A concept that's been bouncing around in my mind the past couple of months.  While all of the method schools share some common grounds in regards to character (primarily, that objectives and actions are the foundation of any character), there is also much dissent.  Meisner's theory is very much the one that sticks out (like a sore thumb) from his Group Theatre contemporaries, and from Stanislavski.  Put very simply (as he put it), character is "how you do what you do."  While I cannot speak to Meisner's approach to character-building, I will still insist that this proves to be a very restrictive model for the actor (and underestimates the actor's imagination).  Apparent proof of this seems to be in the performances of screen actors famous for being his direct students: Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Voight, etc.  I would not consider these three actors to be transformative in nature, in regards to character.  

But it is definitely possible to marry Meisner's technique with others.  There are certainly many Meisner-trained actors, working in both stage and film, who retain the technique as a foundation, and build upon it with others.  Every actor, no matter what style or discipline of theatre, is at their best when they are working truthfully, moment-to-moment, whether it be the literal emotional truth of method-based, naturalistic realism or the intensely physical truth of clowning...

Okay, I'm really tired of the academic tone that this just took on.  So, for next time: character mask, Meisner's technique as the "component of doing" in Stanislavski's system, and other thoughts...          

It's interesting how you start to idealize your ex after awhile.  Your unconscious carefully picks out memories, images, sensations, smells, tastes, emotions, and then uses all of them to sort of recreate a new person from scratch in your mind.  This new person so incredibly desirable, because all of the best traits that you remember about your ex are in them, fantastically exaggerated.  You long to see this person, to touch them, smell them, kiss them.  They feel like the one thing that you need, that's missing, that will fill an empty part of you.  But they're not.  Are they?  I don't know.  I think is important to be able to acknowledge when you don't know.  And I don't know.  

For the first time... again.

Do you ever wish that you could experience something for the first time, all over again?  

There are past experiences in my life which I constantly recount, and all other experiences seem to pale in comparison.  The funny thing is, it's always the utterly simple experiences that prove to be the most powerful; that leave an indelible mark in my memory.  

(to be continued...)

Yep.