Prague Playhouse

Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Exactitude”

May 6th, 2009 at 12:20am boris

Hi everyone!

I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.

On Monday, May 4th, our teacher Ben Steel prompted us on the most basic of the basics of the Meisner technique: “Repeat EXACTLY, what you hear!”

Click on the “ACTING CLASS” button above to read more about the class itself and where we meet!

Click the “(more…)”-button below to read about last night’s class!

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Last night (Monday, May 4th), we were taught by Ben. We had a woman in class, who, despite the fact, that she had done Meisner before, chose to start the technique anew right at the beginning. And we had some members in class, who are ready to add a fifth ball to their juggling. Which means, that they are already years into actively studying the technique (if you have difficulty understanding the metaphor of the juggling balls, feel free to read my last blog on last Wednesday’s class, which explains it). Their fifth ball is called “emotional preparation” which tops the other four. Those are: “paying attention to your partner”, “being aware of how your partner makes you feel”, “door” and “activity”.

This time Ben prompted us all, the very beginners and the most advanced among us, to pay attention to the first two balls, which are used in the revered Meisner technique repetition.

When you start a repetition exercise, you need to focus all your attention on your partner. You look at them and they at you. The first thing, that strikes one of you about the other person is the first “call of behavior”. That could range from: “You have a bruised lip” to “you are nervous” or from: “You are wearing pink lipstick” to “you look tired”. The person, who hears the call, then repeats it exactly how they heard it, no matter how silly it sounds or how wrong or faulty it seems. The call then goes back and forth, until a change of behavior in one of the partners makes the other one change the call.

An example:

A: You are smiling.

B: I am smiling.

A: Yes, you are smiling.

B: Yeah, I am smiling.

[This goes on for, say, ten rounds...]

A: You are smil… [starts to sob]

B: Goodness, you are crying!

A: Yes, I am crying.

B: Yeah, you are crying!

A: I’m crying.

etc.

Ben noticed, that we haven’t been paying enough attention to the exactitude of the repetition lately: When a partner repeats in a fashion, that is not the way the other partner incited it, we correct them, rather than repeat exactly what they said (from our point of view, of course!). Or we repeat a call, even though our partner failed to understand it the first time.

Faults or misunderstandings are new moments and need to be dealt with. In real life, we also acknowledge the reality of the moment. Only there we want to make sense. So we correct and explain ourselves. But in a Meisner exercise, this is wrong. The moment dictates your action. If the moment changes, your action changes.

Ben’s explanation to this is, that not repeating exactly means not paying exact attention to your partner. And that leads to a mounting lack of truthfulness. He called this lax attitude “glossing over”. Rough bits are being shorn off, annoying slips of tongue or lack of understanding are ignored, gaps are filled. All this paints over the reality of the moment and replaces it with a slightly fake version of it. And this faking can spread from sloppy repetition to other areas: In one exercise the door of our imaginary apartment stayed open the whole time, a full 15 minutes! Astute Meisner students would have noticed this reality and taken it seriously. They would have dealt with it somehow. After all, who in real life lets the door of their apartment open for 15 minutes?

Other signs of glossing over are, for example:

- We students take things for granted. Certain situations always incite the same boring, predictable calls, as if we were on auto-pilot.

- We expect a certain behavior from our partner, not giving them the chance to be truly free.

- We overlook blatant changes in our partner’s behavior, just because it didn’t fit our preconceived notion of him or her.

All of this is bad and needs to be worked on. We have to go back to the beginnings regularly. We must not think, that we are too advanced for that. And the easiest way to do that is to forget to be smart or witty and just “REPEAT EXACTLY, WHAT YOU HEAR!”

So Ben reminded us quite effectively to be humble about the technique, to always respect and pay close attention to even the most basic elements of it.

This unites the absolute beginner and the seasoned Meisner buff in humility and awe.

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General stuff:

Our acting class consists of some ten active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 8.30. We do Meisner. And the Meisner-technique really rocks!

If you want to connect with your inmost feelings, expressing them freely in an acting environment and thus getting to know yourself better and better, feel free to join us!

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About the author:

I am Boris Wilke, a German expat in Prague. I am a writer at large and have been studying Meisner since January 2008. If any of you know of any kind of acting work, that befits a laddish, tall 40-year-old, please leave a note!

Acting,Classes,Theatre