Posts filed under 'Theatre'
Hi everyone!
I’m Boris Wilke and member of the Prague Playhouse Meisner acting group. I blog about our class activities.
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This blog entry is closely related to my last one on keeping face. Brian has been telling us repeatedly to let go off control. The reaction to one’s respective partner should come “like hiccups”, involuntarily, instinctually.
Meisner’s main credo was “fuck polite”.
Politeness always gets in my way! Let’s say, the person in front of me smells from their mouth. See?! I’m being polite again! I wanted to say: If they stink from their mouth, I fail to tell them, for example. I suppress my instinct. Shame on me!
As an interesting note aside: “To stink from one’s mouth” is the direct, i.e. German, way to say it. The cowardly polite Anglos talk about “bad breath” or “mouth odor”. That sucks! In the English language there seem to be either euphemisms or four-letter-expletives. Where is the zone of truthful naming it, nailing it – so to speak – in between those two extremes?
“You have bad breath…” “I have bad breath?” “You have bad breath…” That’s as boring as a cold potato! Go get yourselves a life, people!
It is: “You reek from your mouth like a cow out of its ass!” Where is the fuck, the shit, the damn, the cunt, huh? None of that! And still, this is painfully truthful!
God! That gets me going!
Why are we like this?
I, for one, know that I am absolutely scared of total defeat. And total defeat is a possibility if one “drops one’s bowels onto the stage”. In the past people have been sneering at me, belittling me, pointing their finger at me laughing because of my openness. They called me naive, immature, nasty, weird. They deemed themselves superior and took it out on me by ignoring me, bad-mouthing me, excluding me, cursing me, even hitting me.
The worst thing was, when they let me feel like a weirdo.
I got to nurture my inferiority complexes big time.
I still knew, deep inside, that they sensed somehow I was giving them a gift: my true self. I gave them my heart. But instead of being happy and thankful about it, they dropped it on the floor and trampled on it, just because what was not to be, could not be. And love simply was not an option for them. So they destroyed it, even before it really reached them.
They made me feel like shit – asocial, useless, deranged, ugly, geeky, clumsy – even presumptuous!
Most of those fuckers, I would refuse to touch even with a ten-foot-pole. But they mistook my love for a fumbling pass.
And then I closed myself off. I kept my gob smack shut and pretended to play along. I smiled and went through the moves as well as I was able to. I started to hold back – and later ration – the love I had to give.
I know, some of you will react to my liberal and free – yes: liberated! – use of the word love by putting me down like this: “How dare he say he was loving! He thinks he’s better than us – what does he call us? – «fuckers»?”
But I am talking about my past. This hell started in kindergarten. If this applies to you – yes! – then shame on you for letting innocent, lovely people run into your ready and open knives – for subjecting them to social suicide, just because they were being bold enough – no! They simply dared – to be themselves!!! You let them suffer for their refusal to play by the rules of make believe and cheapskate charades that kids and certainly teenagers create around themselves to spread fear and misery. And all that, because you were even more scared of showing your true colors than we were.
Why?
I have been asking myself this so many times: What do people have to hide that they think they’d rather die than tell us? In class of late, we have been hearing stories like: “My step-mother laughed at my singing in public. I used to love singing. But I’ve hated my voice ever since and never sung out loud again!” or: “Just a few days after my arrival at our new home, my uncle and my father drove with me to a soccer field. And I was supposed to train with the local kids. They were playing in a way that reminded me of urban warfare – so tough! I was scared stiff and refused to get out of the car. But instead of understanding me, my elders were disappointed with me and made me feel like a total loser! They were actually ashamed of me and let me suffer for it, too!”
These stories are lovely in that they talk about true anguish and failure. They make the people who tell them human and amiable. All Tarantino-style bragadero bullshit you hear from so many people “in the business” is just so bloody lame. Yeah, Warren Beatty had sex with over 12,000 women – or was it inflatable dolls?
Who cares? Thinking about it: What do stories like this tell us about their creators? Why did they have to go to such extremes? How wretched must they be, really? Poor things!
True stories about what we feel deeply about – oftentimes it is shame and defeat – are harder to tell than those overblown success stories from the media. But the more of these truly intimate tales we hear the more we come to realize that what we thought was unique in us and dreadfully shameful, is commonplace among our peers. Even murder and incest are aspects of the human condition everybody has to deal with in some way.
Telling these stories is therapy without a therapist – self-healing, so to speak.
So what keeps us from letting go off control? It’s ancient events, the memories of which we buried deep inside, thinking if we ever unearth them we will die of embarrassment and/or shame.
How will we be able to “spill our guts”, as Brian calls it, though, if we get spooked by these ghosts from the distant past? They are just figments of our imagination, really. But they will keep on haunting us, if we don’t finally address them by dragging them out in the open and facing them in broad daylight. What seems like powerful wraiths while rummaging around in the bowels of our subconscious will turn out to be a puny puff of fog fading faster into the air and with way less smell than a real fart you let.
I have seen so many class members give in to self-generated fear. They refused to go back to class due to their reluctance to lift up their carpets and chase those pesky little ghosts from the past out. I am afraid that to this day they keep them roaming inside like gas moving up and down one’s intestines. A simple fart can give you a bad bout of colic, you know? I’m sure even the Queen of England has been told time and again by her doctors to rather create a stir among her subjects by breaking wind than keeping the little buggers inside.
And I think while it would be nice of us to expose our shit from the past to the scrutinizing light of day in class, we are free to use other ways to do it. Therapy is an option. But that takes time and money. Writing a journal about it is free and quite powerful – for the ones who can relate to that. Meditation is fine; so is yoga – even sport! Talking to one’s best friend can do the trick as well.
But done it must be! The sooner we realize that, the better off we are, i.e. the faster we can let ourselves go, the more truthful and in the moment we become. Remember: Meisner training is getting us prepared to act. And to me acting is the best thing in the world!
Yes, we can become instinctual. Yes, our reactions can leap out of us like a cough or a hiccup: wild, loud and ugly! That really is beautiful – and true!
We just have to let go off control.
So let’s do it! Just do it!
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General stuff:
Our acting class consists of some twelve new and not so new active members, who meet every Monday and Wednesday from 6.30 pm to about 9.30 at the Prague Film School. 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!
There will be no class from the second week of February on until the end of the month. It will resume in March!
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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 41-year-old, please leave a note!
January 30th, 2010
The Prague Playhouse is proud to announce the upcoming production of Sam Shepard’s True West. The show opens January 21st at 19:30 and plays 22, 23, 27, 28 and 29 as well as February 3, 4 and 5. Tickets are 220 Kc general and 190 Kc (for students and seniors over 65) and will be available at the Globe Bookstore (Pstrossova 6) as well as online at the beginning of next week.
The director Jeff Beck, the cast (Mark Bowen, R. Scott Williams, Andrea Bulisova and Frank Martinez), and all of the production staff are going all out for this dark comedy about two brothers who must work out who and what they are to themselves and each other. Past Playhouse productions have sold out quickly, so don’t hesitate to buy tickets now!
January 7th, 2010
The Bear Theater will present Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at Reduta Theater (Narodni 20, Prague 1) on December 13 and 14 at 7pm. Tickets are 220Kc (180Kc discounted) and are available at the box office. It is suitable for families (children from the age of 6).
Ebeneezer Scrooge is the meanest old man in London, but one evening four ghosts visit him and teach him the true meaning of Christmas. The Bear Theatre stay close to the essence of Dicken’s original story but still use film, puppets and real mince pies to communicate the spirit of this classic Christmas tale. God bless us, each and every one!
December 2nd, 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 Marc 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 Marc’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 Marc 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.
***
Marc 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
There are several interesting events coming up in the English-language theater world.
The Prague Fringe is offering two comedy nights this season. Both are likely to sell out quickly, so don’t hesitate to book tickets! November 17th: Stephen Frost Impro All-Stars at Divadlo na Pradle. December 15th, David O’Doherty at Divadlo na Pradle. More info and tickets at: http://www.praguefringe.com/2009/comedynights.php.
AKANDA is showing SEX, DRUGS, ROCK & ROLL at Divadlo Barfly, U Milosrdných 4, Prague 1. November 27, 28 and December 3 and 4 at 19:30. It’s a black comedy by award-winning playwright Eric Bogosian. Biting social commentary guaranteed to make you laugh at the most inappropriate things and question your own mental health. Over-the-top characters become caricatures of people we have all have met in our lives and hope we will never see again.
Students from NYU are performing two short plays by Vaclav Havel at Divadlo na Zabradli, Anenske namesti 5. December 5 and 6 at 2pm. The students are acting, directing and producing the plays, Audience and Unveiling, themselves. It should be well worth a look. Tickets are 120 Kc and available by emailing nyupraguetheatre@gmail.com.
November 12th, 2009
The Prague Playhouse will be having auditions for True West, the dark comedy by Sam Sheppard, this coming Tuesday, November 10th, from 6-9pm at the Prague Film School, Pstrossova 15, Prague 1 (kind of across the street from the Globe Bookstore). We are asking for a 2 minute monologue for the audition.
The show will start rehearsals now and be performed at the end of January. Jeff Beck will direct the show. Actors will be paid 300 Kc per performance. We are planning 6-10 performances.
We are looking for the following roles (ages are approximate):
Austin – late twenties/early thirties – screenwriter
Lee – His older brother – late thirties/early forties
Saul Kimmer – Hollywood producer
Mom – mother of the boys.
Please write to brian@pragueplayhouse.com to schedule an audition.
Thanks!
Brian
608 577 012
November 5th, 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
The Black Snow theater company is overseeing a production in English of Dorta Maslowska’s play A Couple of Poor Polish-Speaking Romanians for Divadlo na Zabradli.
They are having auditions Sunday November 15 from 11am-5pm at the theater: Anenske namesti 5.
Callbacks are November 22nd. Rehearsals begin March 15, 2010. The show will run in repre3tory at Divadlo na Zabradli starting May 15, 2010.
This is a paid production commissioned and supported by the theater.
They are looking for male and female actors of all ages and types.
To schedule an audition, please contact Nicole Grisco at blacksnow.elt@gmail.com
November 2nd, 2009
Divadlo Inspirace, Thursday and Friday 22nd, 23rd October, 8.30 p.m.
Hitchcock meets Guy Ritchie in the story of a young hospital nurse who breaks into the home of a hardened criminal and finds a pornographic studio in his back room. Why is she there? And what will happen if he comes back?
Father’s Day is a short (Fringe-length) play by local writer David Fisher, whose last play Early Retirement featured in last year’s Prague Post Playwriting competition.
For information or to book tickets, please contact David via email: thebeareducationaltheatre@yahoo.co.uk
October 12th, 2009
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