Chapter 9 Image Maker: The Actor

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Chapter 9 Image Maker The Actor

• For it is not a game of charades, this acting
  world of ours it is an everlasting search for
  truth.
• Laurence Olivier

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Chapter Summary

• Acting is the truthfulness and technique by which
  actors bring human presence onto the stage.
• Theatre is the art human beings make out of
  themselves.

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Acting Is Doing

• Definitions of acting
• Living truthfully in imagined circumstances
  (Sanford Meisner)
• An everlasting search for truth (Laurence
  Olivier)
• Foundation of acting search for truthful
  behavior
• Acting is not
• Showing
• Narrating
• Illustrating
• Exhibiting
• Displaying emotion

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Acting Is Doing

• Three responsibilities of actor
• Select sensory responses
• Select behavior pertinent to character
• Respond to given circumstances of play
• Preparing for a role
• Actor selects emotions, sensations, responses
  from personal experience.

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The Actors Goals

• To tell the characters circumstances in play
  truthfully and effectively.
• Circumstances are conditions of world of play
• Time
• Place
• Surroundings
• Other characters
• To attune him or herself to the reality of the
  play

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External Technique Mimetic Acting

• Technical, outside in approach
• Actor observes and studies human behavior.
• Naturalistic
• David Garrick
• 18th century British actor
• Approached acting as imitation of life
• Prepared for role of King Lear by observing
  friend who had been driven mad by childs death
• Felt that actor should not feel the emotions
  being portrayed
• Aims to recreate authentic human behavior

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Internal Belief Realistic Acting

• Aims to build authentic response to world of play
  from subjective emotional responses
• Actor works from inside out
• Searches for emotional impulses from personal
  experience
• Transfers these to portrayal of character
• Uta Hagen as Nina in Chekhovs The Seagull
• Used awe of fellow actors as basis for similar
  feelings experienced by her character
• Stanislavskis Method

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The Actors Training

• Traditionally, actors trained in theatre
• Apprenticed to older actors
• Learned time-tested vocal and movement techniques
• In late 19th century, realism dominated
• Large style of acting seen as old-fashioned
• Demand for characters that were recognizable
  human beings (as opposed to theatrical types)
• Created demand for new training methods

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Preparing the Role Stanislavskis Method

• Method a systematic approach to training actors
  to work from inside outward.
• Actors must understand how people behave
  physically and psychologically in given
  circumstances.
• Actor must study and experience subjective
  emotions and feelings and show them to audiences
  by physical and vocal means.
• Personal truth must be balanced with playwrights
  vision.

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Preparing the Role Stanislavskis Method

• Psychotechnique
• Set of exercises designed to help actor call on
  personal feelings and experiences
• Actors learned to experience what their
  characters experienced as if it were happening to
  them
• The magic if (e.g., If I were in Othellos
  situation, what would I do?)

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Preparing the Role Stanislavskis Method

• Emotional recall (or affective memory)
• Process by which actor creates reality of
  emotions
• Effort to remember circumstances surrounding a
  past emotional event to stimulate emotions that
  could be used onstage (Lee Strasberg)
• Psychophysical actions
• Reframing of concept of emotional recall
• Physical action as means of triggering emotional
  memory

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Trends in Training American Actors

• Sanford Meisners Foundations
• Derived from Method
• The reality of doing
• Instinct and imagination
• Practical Aesthetics (David Mamet and William H.
  Macy)
• Combined stoicism with Method
• Focused on those things in actors control
• Voice, body, concentration, script analysis
• Process of making acting tools habitual to free
  the actor to live truthfully and fully within the
  plays circumstances

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Trends in Training American Actors

• The Viewpoints (Mary Overlie and Anne Bogart)
• Postmodern, movement-based approach
• Focused on six principles of movement
• Space, time, shape, movement, story, and emotion
• A physical alternative to Stanislavskis
  emotional recall

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Actors at Work Improvisation

• Spontaneous invention
• Exercises and games
• Substitute own words for script
• Repetition between two actors of same word or
  phrase
• Purposes
• Frees creativity
• Hones concentration
• Spurs commitment to finding truth of behavior

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Actors at Work Movement Training

• Gives actors a range of physical choices in
  creation of character
• Process of eliminating tensions and mannerisms
• Assumes movement to be expressive signal of
  character and intention

(c) Barry Slobin/ Playmakers Repertory Company
Kathleen Widdoes as Maria Callas in Terrence
McNallys Master Class
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Actors at Work Voice Training

• Aimed at freeing the voice, opening up
  possibilities
• Goal to merge technique with actors imagination
  to communicate characters needs through words

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Actors at Work Rehearsal and Performance

• Rehearsal
• Conditions actors responses
• Brings cast and director together to set
  interpretation and physical movement
• Performance
• Everything actor has established in rehearsal
  (objectives, mannerisms, vocal intonations,
  movements) should stay consistent.
• At same time, each performance requires the actor
  to give fresh life to the character.

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Actors at Work Acting with the Camera

• Credibility before camera eye separates the
  successful film actor from the talented stage
  actor
• Camera listens to and records everything.
• Challenges
• Scenes shot out of sequence
• Distraction of technicians
• Camera records every mistake and hesitation
• Fast production schedules

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Actors at Work Stage Acting vs. Screen Acting

• Stage
• Audience more distant
• Auditions focus on match between actor and
  character
• Rehearsals explore character, relationships,
  interpretation
• Actors discuss role with director, each other

• Screen
• Audience as close (close-up) or far as camera
• Screen test assesses presence in front of
  camera
• Rehearsals used to set blocking for camera
• Production schedules often rule out discussion

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Core Concepts

• Actors bring living presence to the stage.
• Their search for new depths of creative energy
  and truthful behavior keeps their performances
  fresh and lively night after night.