Sanford Meisner was one of three founding actors that formed the Group theatre, which was widely popular in the the 1930's. Based in New York City the Group theatre founders included Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. The main purpose of the company was to explore and create theatre based on the systematic and deliberate acting techniques developed by Constantin Stanislavski. Stanislavski is thought to have been the first actor to approach the craft of acting as being a systematic discipline. The principles and exercises that he created have helped actors experience and master the craft of acting.
Stanislavski's primary exercises involved concentration, physical movements, observation of human behavior, voice and analysis of the dramatic arts. These exercises also included a technique that became referred to as emotional memory. This approach was considered to be the universal approach to acting. Sanford Meisner however, began to consider that certain aspects of this method were too European for American actors to adopt. He later founded the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City to provide the opportunity for American actors to exist onstage, truthfully in the imaginative situations they discovered onstage.
The Meisner technique has been well respected and practiced for over sixty years. Meisner identified that the internal emotions are responsible for creating impulses. The impulses then create external reactions and behaviors. It was the full range of emotional impulses, he believed, that resulted in verbal responses, physical reactions, and voice qualities. Meisner believed that these could all be learned and mastered to create spontaneous, genuine and more authentic performances onstage.
Training actors to follow these natural human impulses freely, without the barrier of their own thoughts and emotions was the best way to get honest, human authentic performances. To be bale to perform in this manner, actors have to be taught how to eliminate their conscious fact that they are performing, and instead to react immediately and honestly as the character would, a character that has its own set of emotional and physical triggers and responses.
The Meisner technique is most widely know for the word repetition exercises during which actors repeat a phrase that mentions something that they have between them. The actors repeat this phrase back and forth to each other, many times. As they repeat the phrase back and forth to each other, over time the phrase starts to take on different meanings as things happen between the actors during the exchange. The words and the phrase do not change, the meaning is the same, but it range of emotions that it expresses deepens. The initial explanation of the exercise may seem simplistic, but the actors' ability to observe, hear and react as real, unique human beings is a difficult skill to master. It requires skill that is more than simply processing and reacting. It requires both discipline and an awareness and skill of a full range of human emotions and reactions that are not the actor's.
Meisner's systematic training uses a series of exercises all intended to build upon each other as the actor delves further into the craft. As actors are given more complex circumstances and relationships, their ability to add meaning and nuances to the text increases and allows for more spontaneous, truthful responses. The ultimate challenge, of course, is a lead character with a full range of emotions, experiences and relationships set within a dramatic context of a play. The successful actor is able to enter into the play as the character with no self awareness to hinder their more immediate character driven behavior.
The Meisner technique also includes the interesting practice of memorizing lines without any physical movements or vocal inflections. This method of memorization, know as "dry memorization" allows the actors to learn not to speak their lines out of habit or in any predetermined manner. When the actors are performing together then in practice or in a performance, they are more intent on making their responses based on the interaction with the other actor, as it unfolds, moment by moment. When this is done extremely well it pushes the scene forward with a sense of urgency and immediacy that removes the actors' awareness of themselves. The actors are not merely repeating lines. They are real living characters interacting with each other.
Stanislavski's primary exercises involved concentration, physical movements, observation of human behavior, voice and analysis of the dramatic arts. These exercises also included a technique that became referred to as emotional memory. This approach was considered to be the universal approach to acting. Sanford Meisner however, began to consider that certain aspects of this method were too European for American actors to adopt. He later founded the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City to provide the opportunity for American actors to exist onstage, truthfully in the imaginative situations they discovered onstage.
The Meisner technique has been well respected and practiced for over sixty years. Meisner identified that the internal emotions are responsible for creating impulses. The impulses then create external reactions and behaviors. It was the full range of emotional impulses, he believed, that resulted in verbal responses, physical reactions, and voice qualities. Meisner believed that these could all be learned and mastered to create spontaneous, genuine and more authentic performances onstage.
Training actors to follow these natural human impulses freely, without the barrier of their own thoughts and emotions was the best way to get honest, human authentic performances. To be bale to perform in this manner, actors have to be taught how to eliminate their conscious fact that they are performing, and instead to react immediately and honestly as the character would, a character that has its own set of emotional and physical triggers and responses.
The Meisner technique is most widely know for the word repetition exercises during which actors repeat a phrase that mentions something that they have between them. The actors repeat this phrase back and forth to each other, many times. As they repeat the phrase back and forth to each other, over time the phrase starts to take on different meanings as things happen between the actors during the exchange. The words and the phrase do not change, the meaning is the same, but it range of emotions that it expresses deepens. The initial explanation of the exercise may seem simplistic, but the actors' ability to observe, hear and react as real, unique human beings is a difficult skill to master. It requires skill that is more than simply processing and reacting. It requires both discipline and an awareness and skill of a full range of human emotions and reactions that are not the actor's.
Meisner's systematic training uses a series of exercises all intended to build upon each other as the actor delves further into the craft. As actors are given more complex circumstances and relationships, their ability to add meaning and nuances to the text increases and allows for more spontaneous, truthful responses. The ultimate challenge, of course, is a lead character with a full range of emotions, experiences and relationships set within a dramatic context of a play. The successful actor is able to enter into the play as the character with no self awareness to hinder their more immediate character driven behavior.
The Meisner technique also includes the interesting practice of memorizing lines without any physical movements or vocal inflections. This method of memorization, know as "dry memorization" allows the actors to learn not to speak their lines out of habit or in any predetermined manner. When the actors are performing together then in practice or in a performance, they are more intent on making their responses based on the interaction with the other actor, as it unfolds, moment by moment. When this is done extremely well it pushes the scene forward with a sense of urgency and immediacy that removes the actors' awareness of themselves. The actors are not merely repeating lines. They are real living characters interacting with each other.
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