Acting Approaches

Theatre Arts 1B

Stanislavski• 1. Relaxation. Learning to relax the muscles and eliminate physical tension while performing.

• 2. Concentration. Learning to think like an actor and to respond to one’s own imagination.

• 3. Work with the senses. Discovering the sensory base of the work: learning to memorize and recall sensations, often called “sense memory” and /or “affective memory”; learning to work from a small sensation and expand it, a technique Stanislavski called “spheres of attention”.

• 4. Sense of truth. Learning to tell the difference between the organic and the artificial. Stanislavski believed that there were natural laws of acting, which were to be obeyed.

5. Given Circumstances. Developing the ability to use previous four skills to create the world of the play (the circumstances given in the text) through true and organic means.6. Contact and communication. Developing the ability to interact with other performers spontaneously, and with an audience, without violating the world of the play.7. Units and objectives. Learning to divide the role into sensible units that can be worked on individually, and developing the ability to define each unit of the role by an active goal desired by the character rather than as an entirely literary idea.8. Logic and believability. Discovering how to be certain that the sum of the combined objectives are consistent and coherent and that they are in line with the play as a whole.9. Work with the text. Developing the ability to uncover the social, political, and artistic meaning of the text, and seeing that these ideas are contained within the performance.10. The creative state of mind. An automatic culmination of all the previous steps.

Constantine Stanislavski

Sanford Meisner• Meisner Training is an interdependent series of exercises that build upon each other. The basic exercises are critical for later ones, and the more complex work is used, in turn, to support a command of actual dramatic text.

• Meisner students work on a series of increasingly complex exercises designed to develop an ability first to improvise, then to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to scripted text. The technique builds upon teachings of Konstantin Stanislavski (father of the Stanislavski System and grandfather of the elusive American "Method"). Emphasizing "moment-to-moment" spontaneity through communion with other actors allows adherents to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances.

Some prominent actors who trained at The Neighborhood Playhouse in the Meisner technique are:

Robert DuvallAllison JanneyJon VoightJoan AllenChristine LahtiDiane KeatonMary SteenburgenDavid MametJeff GoldblumGrace KellyGregory PeckJoanne WoodwardDermot MulroneyJames CaanSydney PollackMark RydellKim BasingerTom CruisePhilip Seymour HoffmanWilliam H. Macy

Lee Strasburg

• With Harold Clurman co-founded the Group theatre which became the center for American acting technique based on Stanislavki’s method. Meisner was also a member

• Became head of the Actor’s Studio in 1949 which became the training ground for the greatest American actors of the 20th Century.

Uta Hagen and Herbert Berghof

Herbert Berghof

Herbert Berghof (1909-1990) was born in Austria and graduated from both the University of Vienna and the Vienna State Academy of Dramatic Art. A protégé of Max Reinhardt, he performed with the St. Gallen Repertory Theater in Switzerland and the Volkstheater in Vienna. Berghof fled Vienna when the Nazis began their reign in Austria, coming to New York City in 1939, where he joined Erwin Piscator at The New School for Social Research. He made his Broadway debut in FROM VIENNA, one of the many cabaret-style shows created and performed by and for exiled Austrian refugees.

Uta Hagen

Uta Hagen (1919-2004) was born in Germany and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. She made her professional debut in 1937, in Dennis, Massachusetts, as Ophelia in Eva Le Gallienne’s production of HAMLET. In 1938, still in her eighteenth year, she made her Broadway debut as Nina in the Lunts’ storied production of Chekhov’s THE SEA GULL. Her many credits include starring roles on Broadway in KEY LARGO, THE COUNTRY GIRL, ST. JOAN, and WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF. She toured in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE with Anthony Quinn and played Desdemona in OTHELLO with Paul Robeson and Jose Ferrer.

Hagen and Berghof met in 1947 in a production of THE WHOLE WORLD OVER directed by Harold Clurman. She joined the faculty of HB Studio that fall and the two were married ten years. She taught at HB Studio, a well-known New York City acting school, starting in 1957, and married its co-founder, Herbert Berghof, on January 25, 1957. After his death in 1990 she became the school's chairperson.Ms. Hagen was an influential acting teacher who taught, among others, Matthew Broderick, Christine Lahti, Jason Robards, Sigourney Weaver, Liza Minnelli, Whoopi Goldberg, Jack Lemmon, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. While being profiled in Premiere Magazine, actress Amanda Peet said of her mentor Hagen, that she was a woman whose class you didn't want to miss.

Stella Adler• Was only American Actor trained by Stanislavsky

himself• Was original member of group theatre but was in

conflict with Strasburg over details of “method.”• Adler's biggest issue with Strasberg was over the

issue of whether an actor should use the technique of substitution, recalling personal experience for a believable result, or living in the moment, using your partner to create a believable result.

• Actors who trained with Adler are:Among her students were Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, Elaine Stritch, Mario Van Peebles, Harvey Keitel, Benecia Del Toro and Candice Bergen.

Acting Innovators Test

1. List five of the ten characteristics of Stanislavski’s training technique

2. Which teacher focuses on listening as the primary goal of the actor

3. Which teacher trained total sense memory to the extent of re-experiencing past experiences to play a role

4. Which was the only trainer to actually work with Stanislavsky and broke away from the group to do her own technique toward method acting