Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Home Alone” Activities
this is a test excerpt
Continue Reading 2 comments June 22nd, 2009
Posts filed under 'Classes'
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Motivation”
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.
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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! 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!
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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!
2 comments June 16th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Connection” (part 2)
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
On Monday, May 18th, our teacher Ben Steel reminded us to mind about connection in Meisner exercises.
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 I finally had an exercise that felt good, worked well and was appreciated by our teacher, too.
Whot hath gone right?
First of all, my exercise had meaning. It wrenches my heart out to think about it even now. It had a strong connection to the most important of my real life worries. It had an imaginary element. It was physically difficult. And I let it drop enough to connect to my partner.
Now, connection: What is that exactly?
First timers in Meisner class connect by looking at their respective partners and commenting on something existing, non-mental, such as: “Your pants are torn.” or: “You have a scar across your biceps.”
When one repeats those obvious facts, the connection consists of your partner’s reaction to these trivialities, which is mostly smiling, blushing, going blank or stiff.
The words don’t carry any meaning, really. One uses them just as a transfer medium, as a bridge to your partner. This is the most important and basic means of connection.
When one starts to comment on one’s partner’s behavior, a few steps higher on the 20-year-or-more-staircase of Meisner training, the words flavor this basic connection. They add an element of feeling. It does make a difference if your partner tells you: “Your hair is green.” or if they yell at you: “You are green with envy!”
But connection remains something non-verbal. You still just use the words as a medium that carries connection.
Try to repeat with eyes closed. You will see, that a lot has to do with your senses. With your eyesight gone for a moment, your hearing and sense of space all of a sudden become really important. Blind repetition is a valuable addition to exercises, in that it strengthens your connection. The link through words is even stronger. But you might find out, that their meaning really only flavors the link, rather than, that the link consists of the words.
I wonder what it would be like to constrain oneself to a non-sensical call such as: “Unni wenno, whooz.” or anything that comes to mind and does not carry any meaning whatsoever. How hard would it be to connect? And what would the connection be like? I bet, the way, one would say “Unni wenno, whooz.” would alter dramatically during the exercise. One would laugh, get angry, frustrated or worried just like with “real” words.
Ben mentioned silence as well. Taking the above example to extremes would mean, not to say anything at all during an exercise. And silence can carry meaning. One can remain connected during a period of silence. It works in real life when you run out of words to say or just get tired saying them, when you are too happy to speak or overwhelmed with some other feeling.
Go figure that this works in acting, too!
Go figure what a great moment silence can be to an audience, when this silence is bristling with the most intense connection between the partners on stage.
Now that is awesome and leaves the audience breathless and connected to the play.
That is Meisner magic!
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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!
Add comment May 19th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Meaning”
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
On Wednesday, May 13th, our teacher Brian Caspe had us think about meaning in Meisner exercises.
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 tonight’s class’s resemblance to aliens having just found a new home here on Earth!
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Imagine you met someone, who thought, life was a Meisner exercise – say, an alien, who looks like a human being, but really isn’t human at all and sees this plane of existence as an option rather than the real thing.
If he ran over your beloved poodle with the stupid wheel-barrel, he tends to walk around with, crushed Fido dead and then shrugged it off with a laugh, you’d be really offended, would you not?
He’d be lacking meaning in the things that he did. Running around with a wheel-barrel has no meaning, unless you transport something with it. And even if you did transport something, you as a human, would consider other modes of transport, depending on what exactly it was, that you are transporting.
Crushing a poodle with a wheel-barrel is really hard to do. Or you would have to be using it like people used ramrods in the dark ages. Our alien would certainly look awkward, doing the barrel-crush: goofy and too forceful at the same time. It would lack any sense. It would lack meaning.
Now, laughing about leaving a bloody mess of your beloved pet tops it. The alien would look totally nice and friendly. But he would lack any type of sympathy for the creature he just thrust over the threshold of this world. It wouldn’t mean anything to him: life and death, love, passion, pain, loss…
This is, how a Meisner exercise can look and feel like, if the door or activity you’re doing, is lacking meaning.
I juggled balls today. I literally did. And I fumbled in more than one way…
I had come up with this activity within ten minutes, because I somehow sensed I would need one. The door I had, was stronger, had more meaning.
Besides I had been posting stuff onto this site, instead of preparing well for class.
So in Meisner world I wheel-barreled around, bounding funnily, recklessly up and down. I failed to crush a poodle this time. But I wouldn’t have cared much, if I had. My partner was in a similar mood. Following the analogy of the alien, he probably had neon-pink curlers in his three-meter-long hair, trying to unroll his outrageous locks while keeping his eyes closed.
Is there any meaning in that? Would we have been this strange to one another outside of Meisner world? No!
Lesson: Take your time coming up with a door or activity that actually means something to you. Doing it twice a week – or more, if you also rehearse outside of class with doors and activities, is hard, though.
You need to believe in the circumstances you created. It has to be something quite specific, you are going to be striving for. You need to get all upset, happy, concerned, sad, mad or angry about the thing you came up with. It should hit you in the stomach. At the same time it needs at least a kernel of truth, because it has to be that good, so that smart you is going to believe in it, while in the exercise.
In short, coming up with a good activity is hard work. The same goes to a teeny-weenily lesser extent for doors.
Funny though, that it is you yourself you’re fooling, when you try to circumvent the working and time-consuming aspect of finding meaning! And that goes for real life outside of the Meisner world as well.
By trying to fool others you end up fooling yourself.
It might take longer to stick, but once you got it, you got it.
I love this aspect of the Meisner world. In a nutshell it represents the real world. It helps me understand myself interacting with reality really well. It helps me become a better person.
And if I could tell Meisner that, I know, he’d be happy.
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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!
Add comment May 13th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Relaxation” part 2
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
On Monday, May 11th, our teacher Brian Caspe let five of us try out relaxation prior to our respective exercises.
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 Monday’s class!
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Relaxation is easy and hard to achieve at the same time. Everybody is able to calm down a bit during a break, during lunch, while waiting for something. That’s easy. But to use relaxation to become more astute, to concentrate and thus to perform better, can be hard.
On Monday Brian let five of us slightly more advanced class members leave the room before our respective exercises. We were to relax for a while to be better prepared for them. While I tried to calm down, Frederic had his exercise with John-Paul and Jana. And the former was yet again a “tsunami of truth” as Brian called it afterwards. Although I did not see the exercise, I could hear it well and was totally wrapped up in listening to Frederic’s and J.P.’s yelling and cursing – and Jana’s sneering.
It’s normal to having to relax under less than perfect circumstances. I don’t know, if I did well. But during the two exercises, that I had the luck to be able to do that evening, I felt myself much less than usual. I was more in the moment and did not at all think about myself. I hope that meant, that I was more focussed on my partners. What that relaxation did not do: It did not give me a sense of certainty in what I was doing. I might have been better prepared after all. But I didn’t really notice it.
Only time and more practice will tell, if in the long run I will be able to forget about anything that goes on around me, in order to clear my mind completely during relaxation.
But I will certainly try.
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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!
+++
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!
Add comment May 13th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Relaxation”
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
On Wednesday, May 6th, our teacher Brian Caspe talked with us about relaxation.
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 tonight’s class!
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Before I go on about relaxation, I’d like to stress the fact, that being in the moment and being truthful really are the key to success in Meisner technique and ultimately to acting itself.
I was humbled yet again by what happened in tonight’s exercise. I had to deal with Fred, who was very emotional and totally focussed on me, while I struggled with my activity. Instead of dropping it, I forced myself to juggle with it and didn’t connect enough with Fred, who was left alone with his sadness and anger. Had I been truthful and in the moment more, I would have shucked my activity and placed all my attention on Fred. I didn’t.
I don’t want to blame myself for anything, though. I broke down crying in class and experienced how it alienated my partners, how they shut down and left me alone with my emotion. It just happens. I know now, why they did it. Fred scared me. I was overwhelmed by his intensity. Next time I should try to express at least that. It is a step in the right direction. I did try, but I fell short of it. I will do better next time.
Rehearsal is the key to getting better. I used to think that going to class twice a week and coming prepared was already quite good. It is not enough – not, at least, if one wants to progress.
Fred has been dedicating his whole life in Prague, now about eight months, to Meisner. And it shows. I rehearse two to three times a week. It shows. Some people do not rehearse. It shows.
As with any art – any skill, really – practice lets you progress. I am a writer. The more I write, the better I get, just by writing. Fred is an actor 110%. He rehearses more than once a day and spends hours thinking about his acting work. Even he might have a bad day. But he shoots at it so hard and from so many angles, he is bound to get better – and fast at that – because he simply does it.
What is to learn from this? Acting is hard, but applying yourself to it suffices.
“I take care of quantity, God takes care of quality” is the quote of choice for this (from Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way”).
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Now on to relaxation.
Brian said, it helps you prepare yourself for anything, that you need to be focussed for – be it a sport event, a job interview, a performance of any sort, an important talk or a Meisner exercise.
I have been using visualisation with amazing success for the last two years. It involves being relaxed. But I do it at home, mostly in bed, before I fall asleep or directly after waking up.
Relaxation wants less than creating a whole new world for oneself, which is what visualisation can be used for. Visualisation involves putting oneself in an alpha state. It’s a state of mind exactly between waking and sleeping. You can do it anywhere. But it involves practice and skill and oftentimes misses the point.
Relaxation is easier to achieve. Basically closing one’s eyes and getting oneself in a comfortable position does the job. People are not used to suddenly putting themselves in a state, where they can hear themselves think. They get scared by the fact, that at the beginning it is really hard to clear one’s mind. I tend to hear music a lot, even in my sleep. And it is music, my mind produces. How scary is that?!
But as much as it might be disconcerting to fail at achieving a clear state of mind at the beginning, even the most nervous relaxation-rookie automatically does relax a least a little bit, simply by doing it.
Sit, stand or lie with eyes closed and relax! That’s all you need to do, really.
Like my writing, Fred’s acting exercises or anything else, one chooses to do regularly, relaxing will lead to deeper, better, faster and more effective relaxation.
Relaxation will eventually set in within seconds. And two to five minutes of it will suffice for you to let go of tension, anger, anxiety and/or stress. You’ll loosen yourself up, so that you can easily put yourself in the moment with a full focus on doing the thing, that you are getting yourself relaxed and ready for.
Brian recommended trying out different techniques, because everyone of us needs to find his or her own way to relax.
Finding one’s ideal relaxation technique can take some time and involve work. But ain’t that one heck of a fun way to work?
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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!
+++
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!
Add comment May 6th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “Exactitude”
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!
+++
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!
Add comment May 6th, 2009
Andrea Small’s Singing Workshop 5/17/09 in Ceske Budejovice
Jim from acting class forwarded me this announcement, which I am glad to pass on:
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Hello Everyone,
It is my pleasure to once again inform you about Andrea Small’s next
visit to the Czech Republic.
She will lead a workshop under the title “Singing for Joy” on Sunday
17th May in Ceske Budejovice. As usual it will be held at the Materske
Centrum Maj and will run from 10.30-4.30. The workshop is open to all adults and
teenagers, even if they believe they cannot sing. The cost is on a sliding scale from 375kč – 700kč
We are planning a shared lunch so please bring something – not too
much – to put on the table for us all to enjoy. Tea, coffee, water and
biscuits will be provided throughout the day.
I would be grateful if you could distribute the information about the
workshop as far and wide as possible. Word of mouth is still the best
recommendation. Flyers are attached but if you need printed ones please
let me know. You can have the flyers either in Czech or English.
You will also be able to find full information on www.expats.cz on the events
calendar.
Booking in advance is necessary so please contact me either on
gilbomber@cbox.cz or send a text to 608233310.
I look forward to hearing from you very soon and perhaps singing with
you in May
With best wishes
Gil
Add comment May 6th, 2009
PSF: Shakespeare Master Class with Andrew Wade
The Prague Shakespeare Festival is offering a unique Master Class featuring Andrew Wade, one of the world’s foremost experts on Shakespearean Verse, May 23-24, 2009 in Prague, Czech Republic. Space for this exclusive Master Class will be limited to 20 participants and a select number of observers. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn from one of the most respected Shakespearean Theatre experts in the world.
http://www.pragueshakespeare.org/newsPage2.php?id=News
Shakespeare Master Class with Andrew Wade
May 23-24, 2009
Prague, Czech Republic
Saturday May 23, 2009 – 10:00-17:00
Sunday May 24, 2009 – 10:00-17:00
Cost:
Particpant (limit of 20 total) – 4,000 czk
Observer (limited seating) – 2 hours per day – 10:00-12:00 Sat & 14:00-16:00 Sun
1,000 kcz – both days
600 kcz – one day
To apply for the Andrew Wade Master Class, all applicants must submit via email a complete registration form, a headshot or photo, resume and personal statement (if also applying for a partial scholarship).
Add comment May 5th, 2009
Meisner Acting Class Blog on “CONNECTION”
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
On Wednesday, April 29th, the most striking issue, we had to deal with, was connecting to our respective partner(s). This article is about why connection is our mantra, what juggling has to do with the Meisner technique and how hard it is to stay connected, when more “Meisner-balls” are added to the exercise.
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 (Wednesday, April 29th), we were taught by Brian. And the emphasis of our exercises lay on connection. One of the most fundamental differences between the Meisner technique and other, more traditional ways of acting, is this: You need to be connected to your partner.
In a “normal” play or film, each member of the cast knows their lines. One delivers them at the right time in the right tempo and position on the set or stage. But it is of almost no importance, how your partner says his or her lines. If they mess up, that’s their problem. You might want to gloss it over some. But the main goal is to just get on with your lines.
Meisner hated this kind of behavior, because it lacked truthfulness. In real life we don’t talk to the person facing us without checking, if they got our message and how they took it. We change, what we have to say, according to how they react to us.
That is exactly, what Meisner demanded of his students as well – that is, what both Brian and Ben are telling us all the time: “Don’t do anything, unless your partner makes you do it!”
It’s Meisner’s mantra, really.
What can happen in class because of this mantra – and it happened to me yesterday – is this painful experience of humiliation…
I was bursting to deliver my lines – Paul and I are “doing” a scene from the Pinter play “Betrayal” at the moment – and Brian gets cross with me and tells me to forget the scene and just “repeat, repeat, repeat!“
Because of the fact, that I wanted to get into the scene so badly, I failed to connect with Paul, who in turn failed to make me snap out of my scene-spleen. I was in my head. At least there was some sheet of cerebralness, that put itself like a veil over the truth of the moment.
You might know this from normal life. You are chatting on your computer, while somebody is talking to you on the phone. Suddenly they yell at you: “What’s wrong with you?! You seem totally distracted. You are not paying attention to what I’m saying at all! Jerk!” For the same reason, it is prohibited by law to drive with a mobile phone clutched to your ear. If you do two things at the same time, you are bound to lose your full attention to either of them. Women, you might tell me differently: But having to think about Pinter’s play while trying to connect with a bloke, who is threading beads on a string to make earrings, is nearly impossible, even for you!
Now comes in the metaphor of the juggler. If you repeat, which is the basic Meisner technique, you need to pay attention to your partner and how they make you feel. That’s two balls. Add a “door“: You need something, badly, from your partner. That occupies you, while you repeat: Another ball. Add an “activity“: You need to get something done, really fast and urgently: Another ball. Add a scene: You need to follow certain lines: Another ball.
That’s five balls.
Try to juggle with five balls! It’s really hard. How can you achieve it? Only by practicing and practicing and practicing, until one day, you actually forget about the balls and juggle them without having to think about it.
This can mean, that you have to go back to juggling three or four balls. Or, in the case of our scene, that you forget about it and pay attention to repeating, until some lines pop into your head and get flung out without your paying attention to it. That would be, as if you are juggling with four balls. And from time to time someone throws you a fifth ball, that you juggle for a short moment until you drop it and continue to juggle with four again.
The lessons to learn from this are manyfold:
Work step by step! Don’t juggle with too many balls too quickly! If you overload your system with stuff you struggle to achieve, you will drop more than just one ball and mess up everything. Be humble enough to resort to the basics: Repetition! If a strong connection builds, you might try another ball for a moment. Then again, you might not.
Be prepared for rough going! If you add a ball, you might drop it. That’s the name of the game. You need to try to add balls, though. Otherwise you won’t progress. But don’t overdo it! Don’t get frustrated, when a ball drops! Just try again and play with it. Go back and fourth! Give yourself room to expand but also to resort to well-known areas! Be fluid!
And last, but not least: “Von nichts kommt nichts!”, we Huns say, meaning: “Nothing comes from nothing!” If you don’t invest in the technique, you will not earn anything from it. Half-assed preparation will result in half-assed rehearsals, or worse still: half-assed exercises in class, resulting in humiliation or frustration – or both.
Try to see the goal less in the result but in the process, though. As long as you make the next step, you’re moving forward, no matter how slow.
And as Schwarzenegger always said when he took another round of steroids: “No pain, no gain!”
Try to say dat vissss an Austrian eccent and laugh about it, before you wreck your mind again, trying to come up with another one of those endless doors and activities. Look at it from the bright side! There you go!
That’s the right attitude!
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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!
Add comment April 30th, 2009
