Method acting

Method acting is an acting technique in which actors try to replicate the emotional conditions under which the character operates in real life, in an effort to create a life-like, realistic performance. "The Method" typically refers to the generic practice of an actor to drawing on his or her own emotions, memories, and experiences to influence their portrayal of a character.

Origins

Mainly an American school, "The Method" was popularized by Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio and the Group Theatre, in New York City in the 1940s and 1950s. It was derived from "the Stanislavski System", after Konstantin Stanislavski, who pioneered similar ideas in his teachings, writings, and acting at the Moscow Art Theater (founded 1897).

Strasberg's students included quite a few of America's most famous actors, including Paul Newman, Al Pacino, James Dean and many others.

Technique

Some consider Method acting difficult to teach. It is characterized by the lack of any specific or technical approach to acting; it usually forms an antithesis to clichéd, unrealistic, and so-called rubber-stamp acting.

Depending on the exact version taught by the numerous directors and teachers who claim to propagate the fundamentals of this technique, the process can include various ideologies and practices such as "as if", "substitution" and "emotional memory".

Sanford Meisner, another Group Theatre pioneer, championed a separate, though closely related, school of acting known as the Meisner technique. Meisner broke from Strasberg on the subject of "sense memory" or "emotion memory", one of the basic tenets of Method. Meisner's theory revolves around fully immersing oneself in the moment of a character, and experiencing all sensations as the character would, while his contemporaries used their own experiences as springboards into the emotional life of the character that he or she plays.

Stella Adler, the coach whose fame was cemented by the success of her students Marlon Brando and Robert DeNiro, as well as the only teacher from the Group Theatre to have studied Acting Technique with Stanislavski himself, developed yet another form of acting. Her technique is founded in the idea that one must not use memories from their own past to conjure up emotion, but rather use circumstances from their imagination. She also emphasized, like Sanford Meisner, the all-importance of "action" within the theatre. As she often preached, we are what we do, not what we say.

Method Actor training has evolved during the last century. Contemporary acting teachers combine the acting theories of the last generation of American acting teachers. These methods utilize the actor's imagination fully, while calling on the actor's life experience whenever needed. Modern acting training also incorporates tools from psychology, such as awareness of and the use of human archetypes. "Archetype Work" has its roots in Jungian Psychology and in the acting work of Michael Chekhov. Chekhov was closely associated with Stanislavski, but as his work evolved, broke away from Stanislavski, Strasberg and the original members of The Group. Many people believe that later in life, Stanislavski increasingly recognized Chekhov's work was extremely important in the development of modern acting theory.

Teachers

Stanislavski's works, including the autobiography My Life in Art, and his trilogy of books set in a fictionalized acting-school as a pretense for his own teachings: An Actor Prepares, Building a Character, and Creating a Role, inspired many others who have followed the example of Stanislavski as prominent Method teachers. They include:

• Michael Chekhov, actor, director, author
• Eugeny Vakhtangov, a Stanislavski student and protegé
• Uta Hagen, the author of Respect for Acting
• Richard Boleslawski, actor and film director
• Stella Adler, actress
• Lee Strasberg, director, actor, producer
• Robert Lewis, cofounder of The Actors Studio and author of Method -- or Madness?
• Sanford Meisner, actor

External references

Major books on Method:

• Respect for Acting by Uta Hagen
• An Actor Prepares by Constantin Stanislavski
• To the Actor by Michael Chekhov
• Sanford Meisner on Acting by Sanford Meisner
• Method or Madness by Robert Lewis
• Advice to the Players by Robert Lewis
• Slings and Arrows: Theater in My Life by Robert Lewis
• The Actor's Studio: A Player's Place by David Garfield

Articles about Method Acting:

• Article about Method acting at Slate
• List of Method techniques and definitions