Prague Playhouse

Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Motivation”

June 16th, 2009 at 05:50pm boris

Hi everyone!

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

Yesterday Monday, June 15th, was a truly astonishing class, as some members did “Home Alone” activities, a thing I had never seen before. I’ll talk about that after Wednesday’s class, though…

Besides, yesterday’s class made me think about motivation. And that is, what I will write about today.

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 motivation!

I was gone on vacation for a week. Before that I had a couple of classes, that I failed to find interesting enough to blog about. And last week, I suffered from “Acting Fatigue”, which is a euphemism for “lack of interest”.

Now, what is it, that keeps me from going to class sometimes?

The answer lies in the nature of the course. Friends of mine have asked me about it, time and again. And their questions all ran like this:

“So you go to this acting group. What play do you work on?”

“None.”

“None? Are there at least skits or scenes, you are doing?”

“Scenes, from time to time. But they are used merely as exercises, as the rest of the time in class.”

“What? You only exercise? What is the use of that? Why don’t you create something? When can we see you on stage?”

“When I make an audition, I mean, IF I make one. Then we rehearse and then we perform. But that has nothing to do with the Meisner acting class.”

“I don’t get, what you are doing there…”

And so on…

Yeah, I sometimes also don’t “get”, what I am doing in class. Activities and doors take hours to prepare. They involve you emotionally. Otherwise they tank. You are supposed to rehearse with them as well. I am a writer and have time. But I still cannot get myself to do enough for class. How do people fare, who actually WORK all day?

And that is the thing about the Meisner technique: It is really cruel. It throws you back on yourself, over and over again. You are supposed to delve deeper and deeper into your inmost feelings and baring them in this stupid space in front of these near-strangers called class-mates, who gawk at the awkwardness and geeky situations of embarrassment, that you present them with; until it is their turn, that is. And it so shows, when you come badly prepared. It also hurts, when you see people, who have been in class way shorter than you, pass you on their way to become “Meisner trained”, just because they rehearse more.

When you put on a show in class and try to remain chief of the situation, you are reprimanded by your teacher, and rightly so, for being fake and not letting out your true opinions, thus failing to transport your true feelings. When you become defensive, because you have become really vulnerable and fear getting hurt emotionally during an exercise, you get flared for not letting go, for being too polite, for focussing on other things than your partner alone.

Meisner is harsh and takes a lot of dedication.

How can one motivate oneself to muster the energy to come up with the necessary level of dedication?

Many of us did make an audition and did get to perform in real plays, TV-series and films. They have had a certain reward for their suffering in and around class.

I have only been in student films thus far and am really sick and tired of just going to class.

But I need this high level of dedication as well. Otherwise I can quit, right here, right now. But I will do ANYTHING than that!

How do I motivate myself for just going to class, then?

I go to class despite it and because of it. I try to love it, to just go for its own sake. Meisner class, to me, is a little laboratory of life itself. I might have mentioned this idea already before. But it is all the more important to stress it:

In class people laugh, cry, despair, fight, scream, cuddle, smile and sing, just like in real life, or better even, just like they SHOULD in real life but fail to, because of political correctness and other mechanisms, that inhibit them.

I test myself every time I do an exercise. I put myself forward and see what I am like. That is absolutely worth all the pain and strain and despair and lack of energy and humiliation, that go along with it.

Paradoxically enough, all that is my motivation: Even during those times, when I give in to NOT going to class – because it wears me out, it unnerves me, I hate its participants too much, I cannot muster the energy to come up with yet ANOTHER door and activity, I feel above or below it, I don’t see the point of it… – I dedicate myself to the process of the Meisner way.

If he didn’t say it, I am sure, he placed it between the lines somewhere: “As life is not about happiness but fullness, so is Meisner training.”

There is no easy way to it. And that’s what I love about it. Easy is boring.

Meisner is exiting!

And that is that.

**********************

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! But beware, this quarter is going to end in about two weeks! Check this site for details as to when the summer break will end!

+++

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,Auditions,Classes,General,Theatre