Posts filed under 'Acting'
For everyone who is interested in working on their acting, the Prague Playhouse acting class for professionals is starting up again January 11th. You can read more about the class here.
Since Mark Wakeling from the Actor’s Temple in London came to do a workshop with the class in November, we have considerably deepened and strengthened our sense of truth. The approach is much more of a therapeutic approach to looking at why we block our feelings about things. It is a real eye opener to see people who you think you know start to reveal who they really are underneath all of the pressure and expectations that society puts on them. It has really inspired the class to learn more about themselves and by watching other class members go through the process, develop a real sense of humanity: we are all human underneath, no matter what we look like!
The take away for new students is that this class has become much more serious about the craft. It is not a place for hobbyists any more. I am considering starting classes that are more for casual actors as well as classes for people who are not confident with their English. If you’re interested in one of these classes, please write to me at brian@pragueplayhouse.com.
January 7th, 2010
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about the paradigm shift that is happening right now with our take on the Meisner technique and how that is leaving us dazed and confused at the moment.
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
The weekend seminar with god-like Marc Wakeling from the “Actor’s Temple” in London shed so much light on us mere acting mortals that we are left blinded and dumb-struck. How are we ever going to live up to this high a standard?
What seemed truthful and in the moment only a week ago, now seems utterly fake and stuck in past experiences or future expectations.
All of us, Brian included, are limping along like war veterans. And I glimpsed a fellow acting pal, when they jotted down the note: “Lies! All lies!
What the fu*k happened?
I am as confused as everyone. And we just learned six days ago that confusion is a filter which we put between us and the awful, painful or embarrassing truth. We are so used to hiding that truth from others and even from ourselves that we are mostly ignorant of it and stumble into it like one might hit a wall or a lamp-post in the pitch dark.
So we were busy avoiding the truth when resuming class on Monday and Wednesday – of course!
We had yelling fits that locked us into ourselves. We called imaginary behavior that made us feel alien to ourselves. We kept certain calls to ourselves because we didn’t know which ones are still OK and which have become “no-no’s”.
Being in this and watching it made me feel awkward, sad, blocked. I fell asleep once. Well, I was a fly in a jar of black molasses – drowning in sticky goo – in the middle of class! Another time I had a knot in my throat, the size of a brick. Then I there was anger building up in me like in a pressure cooker.
I felt awful.
It almost made me miss what happened: One class member admitted to loving another. One member called him/herself an asshole and meant it. He/she then went on about his/her former live as a crook. One shared their fear of being considered homosexual if they opened up completely. And there were only four people, who exercised in these past two classes at all. Things this intense have never been addressed before!
So despite the feeling of being lost, this is a change so big, I dare call it a paradigm shift!
I talked to my brother about this, who is a counselor. He is trained to use, what he calls “the inner team”. When a conflict or a problem needs to be solved and people come to him for counsel, he asks them for the voices they hear in their head. Each distinct voice belongs to what he calls the “team players” within you. One might want to dash forward and attack the problem head-on. One would rather back-off. Yet another one might want to mediate between the other two. And a fourth “team player” might want to inform themselves further before doing anything. This has nothing to do with a split personality or bipolarity. If you pay attention to yourself you can hear these different voices, too, when solving a problem.
My brother’s work is to help the person align their various “team players”, so they start to cooperate and really act as a team. The different voices are assigned different tasks. And this creates the synergy needed to go ahead and solve the problem. As my brother told me this, I was just wondering what that might have to do with our quandary, when he said something that utterly amazed me:
“I think a good actor has the ability to give a large number of these ‘team players’ free reign and to purify them. That enables the actor to have this amazing range of possible behavior. People will admire them, because they ask themselves: ‘How can a single person be a pedophile serial killer in one movie and a loving caring father in the next, all totally convincingly?’”
“Wow! That is so true!”, I blurted out. Then it dawned on me what this means for us seemingly clueless Meisner folks out in the dark. It means we actually are on the right track.
Yes, we need to make a leap of faith to dare look at the suppressed feelings inside of us that trouble us so. But for that to happen, certain things have to grow first that hopefully the weekend seminar has sown: For one, we need to have more trust in our fellow class members. Who can “spill their guts”, as Marc Wakeling called it, if they are afraid other class members might use the info against them later on? This building of trust needs time. Everyone has to show, they really dedicate themselves to this work now completely so that we start to form a community of true equals, of acting peers – more so! – of acting friends. Wakeling said this work is a true sign of love: In its pure form it means to accept your partner fully and unconditionally. And that is the definition of love. But to achieve that the sneers at anything that appears to be homosexual have to vanish along with the silly urge to compete. If this seems to be all “guy’s stuff” then listen up girls! You need to stop being so fu*king polite!
Brian said at one point to one of the above mentioned people during their exercise: “So you might appear queer. Is that a bad thing?” There came a halting, muffled “no”. Fine! But only when that “no” becomes a “NO!!!” and comes straight from the heart will we know the paradigm shift has actually passed over from wishful thinking into reality.
Then we can start to help build the “team players” in our respective partner by letting him or her try out those “players” freely without prejudice or pride on our part.
This prospect is worth all our painful bumping into hidden blocked feelings that we are experiencing now. And as with all things that are hard to do: Once we overcome them, the going will be so smooth.
We will be awesomely smug (and deliriously happy) with the knowledge that we actually made it through the dark!
I am loving it – even now!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
Beware! This quarter will close on Monday, December 7th 2009. The new quarter will resume either on the first or second Monday in the new year of 2010. Brian will keep you informed!
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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!
December 4th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
In this entry I will shut up for once and let Mark Wakeling speak. His workshop (November 28 and 29, 2009) in the attic of the Prague Film School was a life changing experience. After that “Meisner earthquake” the lame exercises we’ve been doing lately in and out of class just don’t cut it any more!
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
This is some of Mark’s wisdom:
To act means to do.
Apart form violence there are no rules.
The intellectual mind switches on when preparing for the acting. The emotional mind switches on when acting.
We’re animals in our impulsive state. And acting means being in our impulsive state.
The only two pure feelings are joy and grief.
More Mark Wakeling quotes:
The seed of the craft of acting is the reality of doing.
We tend to think that the aim of the repetition exercise is “getting it right”. That is irrelevant, though.
What we need to do is to put all our attention on our partner and off ourselves.
The faith to put all your attention on your partner is something that takes about 20 years to build.
Ultimately there is no Meisner technique apart from putting all of your attention on your partner and accepting them the way they are.
Love is acceptance. Thus acting is the most loving experience.
The only thing that exists is the doing it.
Be in the moment! Use all your senses!
Holding hands is a valid form of connection.
Be in the exercise from the very moment it starts. No preparing for it!
Acting is the most perfect way of really living your life. Look at it as a way of being yourself!
The most loving thing is to be brutally honest with your partner. The most terrible thing is to be polite to them.
Be prepared to go in the exercise with everything you got – with the risk of falling flat on your face.
Get into the exercise with a warrior spirit, like being in a battle for life and death.
All the problems you have, are imaginary. Everything that’s holding you back is not real!
Be yourself! The moment you hold back, you’re denying your partner an experience. You can be 100% you! That is welcomed, even embraced!
Notice how your partner is instead of protecting them from it!
Go all the way! Don’t be the dumbed-down polite little version of yourself that you were deformed into by society! This is all or nothing!
Have an experience other than you’re used to!
You can’t get “good” at the repetition exercise: You can only get honest. It’s as simple as that. Then it’s unique every moment – a deeply profound experience.
You either commit to it 100% or you better not bother doing it at all!
What is real, is what’s happening right now. Everything else is not real.
We spend most of our lives, living in an unreal state. We worry about stuff that’s over or yet to come.
The personas we have developed to protect ourselves are not real.
The genius of the repetition exercise is that it makes you real.
Nobody cares! No offense meant! So you can let it all out in order to unlock yourself. If you “clear the decks” then you have this wonderful range.
Getting connected is effortless. You just have to use your senses.
You actually help your partner by being ruthlessly honest. There is nothing you can’t say. An actor has to muster the courage to face up with what is really happening.
Every time you say something is another moment. Go further with it. Pursue the moment! Go after your call until you get something!
Fighting one another might be interesting to watch. But it is not real. Anger is an unnecessary state. It’s just avoiding to acknowledge the sadness one really feels deep down.
Being yourself is about being yourself completely.
Avoid falling into an “emotional trap”! When you start to have a strong feeling, don’t retreat into yourself! Keep on placing all of your attention on your partner! Acting is not about getting emotional.
Nothing needs to happen. Just connect with your partner!
Who are we? It’s what we are feeling right now.
Trying to control your feelings is a problem.
Be pathetic and weak! Yeah! That takes real courage!
Hypersensitivity is a good thing. Doing this work properly will make you notice a pin dropping. And it should!
Putting all your attention on your partner means becoming unselfconscious.
In acting positive thinking is limiting. You need to be ready for bad things as well. Be truthful! You might be ugly. You might be terrible. But that’s great! Where else can you let everything out?
Be normal with each other! Just name it as it is! But be there for one another! Being in the moment is absolutely fine. It’s perfect!
There is no “I don’t know”!
We are only confused about things we don’t want to admit.
All that matters is your opinion, right now!
To pretend to be someone else to other people than you are, is really horrible! It’s insane to deny yourself!
Meisner work is not therapy. You only do it because you want to be an actor. This is not a game.
Showing that we’re all the same underneath is the actor’s job.
***
Mark came all the way from London to teach us because he truly believes that the way acting is generally perceived must change. He’s doing everything to make this change happen. And so should we!
Let me finish by a thing Brian said: “There is so much work ahead of us!”
Oh yes, it is! And that’s great!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
+++
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!
November 29th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how we Meisner students must be ready to invest a lot of time and energy in this work, if we want to succeed as professional actors.
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
I’ve had a “run” of “doors” and “activities” lately. I mean, they worked. And that was due to a large part to the fact that I have been investing roughly one hour per day in this work for about two months now. However, I’ve made the experience that as soon as I quit being serious about it, I encounter difficulties. And the exercise blows up in my face.
You can ask any professional who uses his whole body as an instrument, from sports- and stuntpeople via dancers and pantomimes to us actors that as soon as they take their skills for granted, those very skills are bound to fail them. “Go slack and you’ll crack!”, might be the catch phrase to that. Besides they will tell you, just as musicians would, that one mere hour of work is laughable and will not get you anywhere. Still, in my case, one hour of work each day, made a huge difference.
But what would my progress be, if I dedicated two hours a day to this work? And how much do I have to progress in order to really be able to convey to directors that I have crossed the line and have become professional – that they can rely on me?
If I knew the answer, I’d be a fortune-teller. But one thing is clear: If one wants to be taken seriously in the world of acting, one has to persevere.
I wrote about auditions and how useless they seem to newbies, as they won’t get the role anyway. (I certainly failed to get into “True West”. And I wasn’t even invited to audition for – now I’ll name the stupid title – “A Couple of Poor Polish-Speaking Romanians”! How much does that suck? Huh?!)
I wrote about how Meisner work is to acting only what push-ups are to a tennis player: It’s just one specific kind of exercise, by no means the whole thing!
I alluded to the importance of being known to people and how impossible it is to get known without acting experience. (Why did I not even get invited to the above mentioned play? Am I Robert de Niro? See!!!)
Trying to become a professional actor in Prague has the air of a vicious cycle. It seems futile.
So what is the use of all this?
If I had to seriously ask myself that question, I’d better quit – and yesterday at that!
The Meisner technique is a powerful means to get connected to your partner and to live truthfully under imaginary circumstances. Both are paramount to acting. None of the two are acting, though. Acting happens on stage. Acting happens after one wins an audition. Acting happens when one gets a script in hand, a whole script, not just a scene! Acting is (going to be) awesome!
How can one make sure to get a chance one day? How can one push for success?
My answer is: I don’t know.
“Nobody knows anything!”, is a famous saying in the art world. So how could I know?
And now what?
I say: Get to work! Get someone to rehearse with you – quick! Double-check the next exercise for Meisner class to make sure it’s good and strong! If you’re “only” repeating still, get out there, in a tram or park: Look at people, animals, trees, houses, objects, weather formations – what have you – and practice having an opinion about everything! Sharpen your senses by looking closely and paying attention to minute details! Watch movies! Go to the theater! Get inspired by books! Start a journal! Do pottery! Walk barefoot, even in winter! Do whatever it takes to nurture your inner child!
What it is, only you will be able to tell. But do it! Do it every day! Do it for its own sake! I gave enough reasons why we are all likely to fail at becoming rich and famous. But we may. And one thing is sure: If we don’t try it, over and over again and claw to it with the resolve of a chess master and the energy of a supernova, we will most probably fail.
What if it were all about doing the Meisner work and just the Meisner work? What if we just stopped worrying about it? What if looking out for the next step and taking it, would be enough?
Seen from that angle perseverance is feasible. It’s the keeping at it that counts. And I believe with all my heart that good will come of that perseverance. What good it’ll be, only time will tell. And father temps keeps us in the dark about his plans.
So let’s just keep on keeping on! All else will follow suit.
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
+++
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!
November 24th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how the Meisner technique can help you win auditions or at least make them a fun experience.
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
Brian just put up a new post here about auditions for a play. I won’t tell you what it is: It has too foolish a title. Anyway, they are looking for English-speaking actors of all ages and types and of both sexes. Click here to read for yourself!
Since there are very few opportunities for acting work for English-speakers in Prague in general, and this year, due to the financial crisis, in particular, all of a sudden, all of the Prague-based actors and actresses will swoop down on this like vultures – me included. They will most likely be way more experienced than you and me, of course more beautiful. And they will be ready to do almost anything to get on the ticket. After all it will be a paid job. They will probably even resort to showing off various body parts or bribe the jury with innuendo, cigarettes and/or Hašlerky (Czech cough drops).
Surely the roles really have already been distributed informally to hand-picked folk well-acquainted with the director. This audition might be just a must-do event to cover the scam.
So why should I go and make a complete fool of myself in the first place? I have no fuddling chance!
Or do I? This is, when Meisner comes in:
First of all, even in the most jaded of worlds there sometimes is a need for types that the pool of cronies a director has at their disposal just fails to cover. They might be deliberately hunting for someone ugly, lanky, overweight or sickly – in short: you – or me at that! Who knows?
Then you need to take into account that despite the fact that one always seems to see the same faces, over and over again, in productions in Prague, even the most pushy and well-connected actors and actresses don’t manage to get into everything. It is because even the most jaded of directors might actually want to grab hold of some new talent they can boss around and impose their will upon. Do you know for sure, if the game is really set already? Maybe the director is sick and tired of the same faces that make it into his or her plays. A cynic would say: “Maybe they want someone new to shag with.” No matter, how you look at it: Variety is a real option here and your chance to get in! Strut your stuff! Show you are different! That might get you the part!
Thirdly and most importantly one should go to auditions for the auditions’ sake. Meisner teaches to be in the moment. An audition is a string of very scary and exciting moments, moments one usually doesn’t have in one’s everyday tedious life of routines and rut. Auditions can be fun, if you choose to look at them that way. I, for my part, love them. I revel in the challenge they present. I love to put my courage to test. I love to see how I fare.
And while doing auditions, rare as they might be after all, one starts to progress, i.e. to get better.
Meisner wants us to take in everything, the environment as well as the partner in front of you. If your partner is the scary director him- or herself, who reads a part from the script with a yawn and a stutter – and you struggle to connect with them while reading your own part, it is very hard to take in the environment: the smell and the lights of the place and the people who share it with you. But how can you shine and thus wow the director when you are all concentrated on the text before you, a mere pent-up focal point rather than an amazing multi-dimensional fluid entity? I recognized that I free more and more resources for being in the moment and available to the director’s needs on the spot, the more I go to auditions. Many non-Meisner-trained actors resort to acting-routine such as shouting, miming and gesturing in exaggerated ways. If the director gets excited about these tricks, you are not his or her candidate, anyway. Then again, if you are exactly the type she or he is craving for, you might get the role despite your lack of mechanical stagecraft. And then it is up to you to incorporate as much Meisner-work into your role as possible. But that’s a different story…
As with Meisner exercises it’s the work you do before an audition that gets you into the target zone. Since it is part of the set-up that you very often just cannot prepare for an audition, it is all the more important to bring acting experience of all sorts. And that is, why more experienced actors and actresses have a better chance to get the role.
I know that is a paradox. You as a fledgling actor or actress can only work through that paradox by getting experience. Going to auditions – against all odds – is one way to gain it.
I can only say: Do it! And do it over and over again! It will pay off eventually!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
+++
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!
November 3rd, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how failure is a necessary albeit not so fun way to improve one’s Meisner technique .
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
Last Monday I had it all planned: An “activity” that would wow my acting teacher Brian and the whole class. I would move on from tedious “doors and activities” to the cool cool cool new “home alones”. I would be king of the group. But instead, when I left the room to prepare myself for my “activity”, the meaning that is so badly needed for it to succeed, left with me, but got lost outside.
Horror of horrors! I reentered without any meaning! Preparing my “activity” at home, I had cried and felt really strongly about it. But in class, everything had evaporated. I felt foolish. I dropped my “activity” to at least pay full attention to my two partners who had come to my door. But everything just felt ridiculous. I could not in the least take them seriously. I failed tremendously…
Why was that?
“Doors and activities” might be something that one comes across early on in Meisner work. But they sure are hard to do well. You need to prepare them thoroughly, i.e. days in advance, and revisit them frequently to see if they still make sense, work for you, are believable and have meaning. Preparing “doors and activities” is much like digging for something or chiseling at a rock to create a statue. You go through a lot of uncertainty and haze, before things take shape and come into focus. You also fish in the dark a lot, before you find that an exercise is good. If you force a “door” or an “activity” into existence in haste, they might work if you are lucky. But usually they deflate before or while doing them in class or during a rehearsal. It is clear, why: Like a city that has a dense center but also more loosely populated outskirts, a “door” or an “activity” has half-conscious aspects and grey areas which need to be explored beforehand. As a person cannot claim to know a city while having visited only its center, so an acting student won’t be able to be well set for an exercise, if he or she has only looked at its core. The same goes for the opposite: People, who live on the periphery of a town, won’t know it well, until they go to its center frequently. An exercise that one has only a vague idea about, will be vague and frustrating in class.
But only through failure does one learn these things! And it is a fact that long-planned exercises can fail, while ones that were prepared on the fly might work splendidly. Failure is thus part of the game and actually a sign that growth is possible – that there are still voids to be filled. And it’s funny to see the patterns of failure and how they differ from student to student.
I, for my part, am very lazy.
So on Monday Brian told me to dedicate more time to the Meisner technique: “A pianist would never call himself a professional, if he or she didn’t rehearse every day and for hours on end!”, he tells us time and again. And he says: “What you put into it, you will also get out of it.” So he urged me to dedicate at least an hour each day to the Meisner technique.
And that’s what I’ve been doing, be it through rehearsals, writing or coming up with “doors and activities”. The blur that one has to overcome in order to get a hold on a good set-up for an exercise is very uncomfortable. I like things clear. But every good thing takes time. And Brian told me: “Look, you lucky bastard! Who can get away with just one hour of work each day?” He is right. One hour is a ridiculously short amount of time. But it’s a great start. And it makes a difference.
So on Wednesday, after I had spent three hours on preparing a “door” and an “activity”, I fared much better. It was almost as if there were rails I could follow. And those rails had been laid in the hours I spent on Meisner before class.
There is a moral to all this: While failure is discouraging and frustrating, it is a necessary element of “the work”.
It’s good to fail as little as possible, though. And one thing I do to avoid failure now, is, to prepare myself better for class.
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
+++
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!
October 24th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how getting inspired is a necessary and fun way to improve one’s Meisner technique .
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
I came back from a twelve-day-trip on Tuesday and failed to prepare myself well enough to “do” a really good activity. Still, I enjoyed it, as I slowly seem to get the hang of what the whole tedium of “doors and activities” really is about. I’m sure, I wrote something similar before. But my grasp of and on the technique seems to tighten somewhat. And seeing two only slightly more advanced members from class do a scene last Wednesday: nearly effortlessly, fluidly, with verve and so interesting to watch, I am more than convinced now of the “Meisner Way”!
Preparation is key. Then trust in the work that was done before class! I mentioned the tennis-player before, who exercises to prepare for the match. While playing a match, he does everything but exercises, of course. The better his preparation, though, the better his performance. This is also valid for our work, even if it so far “only” amounts in an exercise itself, albeit one in front of our teacher and acting colleagues. What is important in that situation is to let go and trust in one’s own preparedness – which takes thorough preparation in the first place, of course.
Preparation can be boring. The fun bit about it, though, is getting inspired:
Our teacher Brian often asks us, what we did to inspire ourselves. “What are you doing artistically right now?”, is a typical question, we hear from him. At first, I felt pressured to some cultural activity. And I failed to see the connection between consuming art and producing it. But it is obvious and quite pleasant: We are the sum of what we perceive. So what we take in with our senses is the only thing we can work with to express ourselves. An artist thus needs to get inspiration. And the great thing about that is: I can choose, how to inspire myself.
Even though I failed to do actual Meisner work for myself during my trip – and it showed in class – it was a wonderful way to get inspired. Spain is so beautiful and warm in the early fall. And I just loved taking it all in: the different smells and tastes, sights and sounds! In the Prado I saw one of the most famous works by the artist Hieronymus Bosch: “The garden of earthly delights”. I was moved by it to the point that I had to linger in front of it for quite a while. I also went to see it a second time. We had a book with close-ups of scenes from that picture at home. But an original is an original: It just inspired me so much! I started immediately to think about how a human being can come up with these weird things and how it is possible to depict them so expertly. You can find more on this enigmatic 15th-century-painter here!
Right-click on the image below and chose then to see it in full detail!
El Greco moved me even more, as he lived in the late 16th and early 17th century but drew subjectively and psychologically, often with little regard to the outward reality of things, in such a way that one would expect only in the late 19th century. He might be less striking than Bosch. But many of his paintings speak directly to my soul. More on him here!
Right-click on the image below and chose then to see it in full detail!
Getting inspired is essential and a great pleasure to me these days! I love it. And I get inspired by the smallest things, like a red leaf flickering on a tree in the wind or a stripe of sunlight on a sidewalk.
Reading is quite inspiring, too. I also love to watch TV with a Meisner eye!
So, everything is out there. It just takes keen senses and an open mind to get inspired by almost anything!
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General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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! If you do, be prepared for some serious thrills!
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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!
October 10th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how getting affected is key to doing the Meisner work.
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
I have just been sent an email by a class member who stated my English had “a certain Germanic flavour” which would cause it to collapse sometimes. To start with, I would spell flavor the American way, like color and labor. Then – being a foreigner himself – who is he to… But there we go: I got affected. And from a Meisner perspective, that is a great thing!
You start class with good intentions: Yes, you believe in Meisner, whatever that means. Yes, you are dedicated to the “work”. Yes, you are willing to go where Brian, our brilliant teacher, is taking you. And all of a sudden you are in front of a sweating, twitching individual (just like you) who tells you stuff like: “You are defensive!” or – horror of horrors! – “you are pathetic!” (or, in my case: “Your English sucks!”)
Of course, this should affect you. But strangely, it fails to do so. Why? Because you are not yet ready for it.
Now, it takes courage to let things affect you. And some students will get there faster than others. But I came to realize that it is not the speed that tells you about your progress: It is the effort you are willing to make that ultimately propels you to new levels.
So if getting affected means for you to first fight and deny it, so be it. If it means, you feel bad and would love to skip over these bloody rounds of seemingly endless repetition, you are where you need to be. That alone means, you are already getting affected – one way or the other. And that is all there is to do. Expose yourself. And the rest will follow suit.
That’s all, folks!
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General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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 all new and full of promises. So buckle up and get ready for some serious thrills!
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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!
September 22nd, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
This entry is about how the new quarter started with new students at a new location with new possibilities.
Click on the “CLASSES” button above and then choose “ACTING FOR PROFESSIONALS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
Welcome back!
Times and ways of teaching and learning remain the same. Basically the magic of mastering the Meisner technique still lies with us students and our willingness to really dedicate ourselves to “the work”. But we are paying four times as much, which has a certain “ouch!”-factor.
The good thing is that we will be at a warm place in winter and a cool place in summer. Nobody will get gassed or burned to death. And we certainly won’t trip over cables or slip in the dark on wet or icy steep and broken steps. For we are now congregating in a real class room in a real building with real lighting and real heating. Awesome!
The start of the new quarter already brought new thrills. First of all there are quite a few new members, most of which are women. I daresay, that we might have reached parity genderwise. That’ll provide for less testosterone-driven yelling spells and more estrogen-bound soul-searching, I presume. I am looking forward to a good mix of both male and female energy!
We also lost a member from class due to a too high amount of misunderstandings. It’s a shame. But Meisner is no laughing matter, a thing that Brian aptly pinpointed when he said: “Sorry guys! But this is no fun acting class where we try out things in a light way. This is Meisner. And Meisner takes discipline and dedication.”
Which takes me to the term “beginnings”:
I think none of us members from class, who are slightly more experienced, really have taken that discipline and dedication into the summer. One can have different opinions about that. I, for my part, badly needed a break. I gave slack and reaped some fruits of my labors of the previous quarters by having had the chance to play in my first two TV commercials.
But now with the summer a thing of the past, and that we are paying more, reside at a much better place to do “the work” and have loads of “newbees” to impress, I am getting the feeling that slack is not an option for the new quarter.
I have two metaphors for that:
1) Meisner is a lot like throwing clay at a wall. You throw and throw. The lumps seem to always fall back down. But then, when you do not expect it any more, the clay sticks and dries. And you can occupy yourself with a new lump. It will fall off the wall again a 1000 times. But that one, too, will eventually stick. If you do not dedicate yourself to the tedium of mundane things like repetition, if you don’t have the patience to go through weeks and months of seemingly being stuck, you won’t progress at all.
2) Meisner is like sailing. In order to move forward, you need a taught sail. And for that you need two forces that keep it in place: Intuition and letting go on the one hand and focus and a clearly set mind on the other. When you do Meisner, all your attention is supposed to be on your partner. But for doing that you must be truly centered in yourself. Seeing the two forces at work is a beautiful sight to behold. And when they are, the sails of the Meisner vessel can take you quite far quite fast.
I wish everyone in the boat a fast and groovy journey!
**********************
General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some fifteen new and not so new 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 all new and full of promises. So buckle up and get ready for some serious thrills!
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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!
September 17th, 2009
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
The weekend before last (i.e. June 26 through 28), we traveled to Germany’s capital Berlin to have a two-day acting seminar with Brian Caspe’s former teacher Andrea Helene. It was exhilarating to do “the work” with someone even more experienced than our teacher.
Click on the “CLASSES/COACHING” button above and then choose “MEISNER ACTING CLASS” to read more about the class itself and where we meet!
Click the “(more…)”-button below to read about the acting seminar with Andrea Helene!
When we went to Berlin, we met Brian’s teacher Andrea, who’s a lively, wiry, tall redhead with a German mother. I related very well and easily to her. I could speak German with her after all!
While Brian stepped down from his teacher’s pedestal to become one of us lowly students, we could see the same passion for the technique burning in Andrea, who visibly enjoyed working with us. She used very similar ways to get Meisner across to us, too. But a two-day intensive workshop is more demanding and at the same time more rewarding than the usual fix of four hours a week, that we have to make do with in Prague.
We did scene work. And everybody seemed to enjoy it greatly except for me: I hated it, as usual. I loath it, when words get in my way and put me in my head. Andrea tried to help me wriggle out of it by giving me funny things to do – such as: be a latin lover or a boss doing a job interview. But to me those directions felt like extra Meisner balls, that I was supposed to juggle. So I fumbled and felt miserable, again.
Besides, the script hit home psychologically. I felt very embarrassed by it. I’m sure, if I worked through the fear and self-hatred, that the script generated in me, I’d get much more out of it, than just mastering the scene.
It’s good that our host Mike Bernardin, who’s running the Meisner school in Berlin and who let us use his rooms, showed up at a certain point and couldn’t keep himself from saying something very meaningful.
Mike said, that “the technique” is to us actors, what sit-ups and other strengthening exercises are to a tennis player. He won’t do them during a tournament. But he has to do a lot of them before stepping onto the court and facing the game.
Thus doing “Meisner”, will get your “acting muscle” strong, as Andrea and Brian called it. But it is just one element in a whole array of elements, that one needs to deal with, in order to become a successful actor. And that alone can feel like a heavy load.
“If you think, that you’ve got the hang of it, you are definitely doing something wrong“, is a thought, that came to my mind and out of my mouth today, facing a fellow member from class after an especially dull and dead-feeling round of rehearsal.
That relieved both of us somewhat.
For the Meisner technique is a twenty-year-project, thus supposed to keep you busy for that amount of time. If you think, you know, what it’s about after a fraction of those two decades, you fail to acknowledge the complexity of the process.
In our last class at the end of the spring quarter last Monday, Brian told me to “be stupid”. It’s a funny concept to just let go of trying to make sense of it all by grasping it intellectually. To forego the arrogance of believing, one knows it all, is very hard to do for an “intello” as the French call my cerebral breed. To me my brain is a means of self-protection. I trust my brain. To let go of that means to learn to trust one’s emotions, to let your gut dictate your actions, to become helplessly entangled in it – like a baby: Just taking it as if it were all new and reacting to it moment to moment.
Oh, how I wish, it were as easy as it sounds!
Then again, there is this saying, which I read in Barbara Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”. I’ll paraphrase like this: Dear universal energy, that makes us all hobble through life, one way or the other! Please take care of the quality of what I am doing, while I provide for the quantity!
I use these high-flying words, while Andrea – and Brian just left me with this: Take the next step!
That’s the quantity of one. And one step at a time is enough. Let’s see, what quality this step-taking eventually entails.
And yes, it is up to other forces than little me to determine that. One thing less to worry about! Yippee!
Have a great summer! May you be truthful and in the moment, always!
**********************
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 over! We’ll resume in a slightly new format and in new and fancy rooms on September 14th, 2009. Brian will let you know about all these exciting changes in due time on this site.
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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!
July 8th, 2009
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