Many people believe that acting is about pretending emotion. If they watched and enjoyed the performance of an actor that uses the Method, they would quickly realize the difference.
When there is an actor who is faking the emotions that their characters are feeling, there is always an element of disbelief. Actors who pretend to feel what their characters are feeling are very apparent to the audience that is watching the performance. This can take a great deal of genuineness from the entire production when the actors use this approach in their performance.
Method acting is an approach that can bring some of the realism back to a performance. Many acting coaches will agree that method acting is a way for an actor to bring the truth to the performance or to even use in their auditions.
Method acting began in the 1930's with the formation of the Group Theater in New York. Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman formed the theater in 1931. This group formed the theater to create a theater that would train their players in a group atmosphere where there would be no star, but a collective group producing contemporary plays.
Some of the members who were a part of the Group Theater were Kurt Weill, Lee J. Cobb, Paul Strand, Paul Green, Clifford Odets, Michael Gordon, John Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Franchot Tone, Will Geer, Howard Da Silva, Luther Adler, Stella Adler, John Garfield, and Elia Kazan.
The Group Theater is the place where Lee Strasberg first began to develop the Method, which is how it is known today. He drew upon the inspiration of Konstantin Stanislavsky for the approaches that would be used in this method of acting. The actors who use the Method are taught to use the experiences of their own life to work through the emotions in the piece of acting they are performing.
Through the years, the Method has gone through many incarnations as it has been passed through the hands of different acting coaches. Acting coaches add their own personalization to the method to get the best performances out of their students.
The Method has given some very stilted and guarded actors a way to bring the truth of emotion into their performances. The intense exercises are designed to help the actor open up and add some emotion into their performance without pretending the emotion.
The exercises that the Method uses will help the actor to draw upon their own life experiences for the emotions that their characters are feeling in the scene they are performing. It is about moving from a state of being into a state of emotion and then using that state to perform the scene. When an audience watches an actor who is using this technique the performances can be powerful and raw. There is genuine emotion behind the acting.
The Method approach to acting is a lifelong commitment to the process. The actor will always be learning about their own emotions and their response to the events of their life. They will always have a well of emotional experiences to draw upon whenever their performance demands it.
An actor who uses this approach is opening himself up to the emotional pain of his or her own life. This is what it means to be an artist and not simply an actor.
When there is an actor who is faking the emotions that their characters are feeling, there is always an element of disbelief. Actors who pretend to feel what their characters are feeling are very apparent to the audience that is watching the performance. This can take a great deal of genuineness from the entire production when the actors use this approach in their performance.
Method acting is an approach that can bring some of the realism back to a performance. Many acting coaches will agree that method acting is a way for an actor to bring the truth to the performance or to even use in their auditions.
Method acting began in the 1930's with the formation of the Group Theater in New York. Cheryl Crawford, Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman formed the theater in 1931. This group formed the theater to create a theater that would train their players in a group atmosphere where there would be no star, but a collective group producing contemporary plays.
Some of the members who were a part of the Group Theater were Kurt Weill, Lee J. Cobb, Paul Strand, Paul Green, Clifford Odets, Michael Gordon, John Randolph, Joseph Bromberg, Franchot Tone, Will Geer, Howard Da Silva, Luther Adler, Stella Adler, John Garfield, and Elia Kazan.
The Group Theater is the place where Lee Strasberg first began to develop the Method, which is how it is known today. He drew upon the inspiration of Konstantin Stanislavsky for the approaches that would be used in this method of acting. The actors who use the Method are taught to use the experiences of their own life to work through the emotions in the piece of acting they are performing.
Through the years, the Method has gone through many incarnations as it has been passed through the hands of different acting coaches. Acting coaches add their own personalization to the method to get the best performances out of their students.
The Method has given some very stilted and guarded actors a way to bring the truth of emotion into their performances. The intense exercises are designed to help the actor open up and add some emotion into their performance without pretending the emotion.
The exercises that the Method uses will help the actor to draw upon their own life experiences for the emotions that their characters are feeling in the scene they are performing. It is about moving from a state of being into a state of emotion and then using that state to perform the scene. When an audience watches an actor who is using this technique the performances can be powerful and raw. There is genuine emotion behind the acting.
The Method approach to acting is a lifelong commitment to the process. The actor will always be learning about their own emotions and their response to the events of their life. They will always have a well of emotional experiences to draw upon whenever their performance demands it.
An actor who uses this approach is opening himself up to the emotional pain of his or her own life. This is what it means to be an artist and not simply an actor.
About the Author:
Roy is a successful actor who has made a career of developing and pioneering comedy vehicles that shape the genre. An acting coach and mentor, and has taught in Hollywood and abroad at the IAFT, a film school in Cebu, Philippines.
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