being from ireland i recently travelled to england to do a course on it and was left with a few question, and after buyin stella adlers the way of acting book but think i have came up with what is is and maybe you guys can confirm and maybe throw one or two more ideas in.
the only questions i have is relating the excercises to myself or the character, fair enough.
Ok, relaxation, on a chair say and in a position you normally wouldnt sit in to break bad habits, tell yourself to let stress leave the parts of the body you name in the head, release all the tension in those spots and let out “ahhhhhhhs” to relieve emotions from yourself
ok i get all that
now with sense memory such as the smell of popcorn and maybe it might remind you of the cinema, what exactly are you suppose to do with that, concentrate harder to see it perfectly??
and with imagining an object, the touch of it, the feel the taste, is this all just to turn your brain into a concentration genius there fore when you want to relate back to a time in your life during a scene you wil be if you train hard enough?
but what about then doing a character backround and a story so you know why your saying your lines, how does that relate using method if your tracking into yourself?
as you can see im pretty confused and full of questions so some help would be greatly appreciated
cheers
Dave
Personally, as an actor, I don’t like the method and not many actors use it. I think The Method is too much input and unnecessary. I mean learn the lines and act. Have some business to do with your lines. The Method for me is too much work and kind of silly. Yea, learn you character’s history and know your character, or make it up. Acting is just faking sincerity. Of course The Method does not apply to comedy, what I do the best. It is only drama.
In my personal opinion, The Method is the most misunderstood and wrongly-used technique in theatre. EVER.
Stanislavsky set out to figure out why some actors sizzled the stage while others didn’t. He found that some actors were so natural on stage, people wanted to see more and more of them. So he then set out to find out why. By this time, it was clear that physical beauty (or handsomeness) wasn’t really a factor. People would flock to watch a play that featured their favourite clown! This is seen in modern times as well; a Jim Carey movie or a Danny De Vito movie (For the record, I think Danny is a genius and Jim, well, “No comment!”) draws a crowd.
So Stanislavsky found some of the methods that the good actors use, such as affective memory and the like.
Unfortunately, those methods got turned into some kind of religion for the movies and the stage. Stanislavsky’s observations were forgotten. Modern Method training has little resemblance to Stanislavsky’s observations.
You are absolutely right when you ask about character background and story.
They are important struts in the performance.