Sanford Meisner on Acting

If I were to take Meisner’s class, I’m fairly certain I would be kicked out and never want to act again. He has an issue with introversion in actors. He’s all about getting the actor out of their head and relying on their instincts and gut responses. This certainly has its place, but I think that an actor’s brain is important. I want to be an intelligent actor. I think it is important for there to be intelligent actors. I don’t want to go to a play and see a bunch of brainless acting. There are times when you need to be able to think on stage and not react with your gut or your instinct. For instance, a cell phone goes off or an audience member falls asleep or walks out. You can’t stop the show and yell at them (though I have heard stories of some actors doing this). Or a prop is not where it’s supposed to be or your scene partner skips a chunk of dialogue. Your instinct would be to react to that, but instead you have to figure out an alternative, how to do the scene without the prop, how to get the dialogue back on track to keep the story cohesive. I also think it’s important to be able to intellectually look at a piece of writing and analyze it, to know what the message is as a whole, to recognize its comment on society, its cultural significance. Plus, Mr. Meisner, there are introverted characters! I think his repetition exercises would drive me absolutely batty. I understand their purpose, to boil everything down to being in the moment and to really listen to your partner and respond, but is that theatrical? I’ve seen Meisner trained actors in plays and they’re talking, they’ve found the truth in the scene, that’s great. But do people go to the theatre to just see other people talking? Maybe. But I think there needs to be some other layer of theatricality, of high stakes on top of that otherwise it isn’t very interesting. I also have issues with his approach to creating a character. I don’t think Meisner would be able to train actors to do comedy very well. <br /><br />I do agree with some of his method, however. His emphasis on listening, the idea that everything in a scene comes from reacting to your scene partner, that is important. His preconceived circumstances preparation also resonates with me. I think it is mandatory to know where your character is coming from, what their expectations are, and what their emotional state is coming into a scene. But his description of a river of emotion and a small canoe on the river being the words that you say riding on top of that emotion seems to be lacking. I was taught never never to play emotion. That’s what they do in soap operas. I’m so SAD! I’m so ANGRY! I’m so JEALOUS! I think you’re missing some of the Truth in a play if you ignore the intellect and focus only on the emotion. I don’t think that’s interesting theatre. Meisner is constantly having his students weep and weep and do the scene incoherently through tears and praising them when that happens and they think. Aha! I can cry uncontrollably! I’m a great actor! I, personally, can cry uncontrollably, but what is difficult, what is more human, is to be in that scene, have that emotion, but try NOT to cry. If you see an actor weeping like crazy on stage, it’s like watching someone masturbate. Oh, look at me. You think, oh, look, as Uta Hagen says, that actor is crying REAL tears. You’re not in the story anymore, you’re not having an emotional response to the story and the characters, you’re taken out of that by watching an actor REALLY cry. Not the character. <br /><br />However, Meisner’s recognition of the actor’s imagination is incredibly refreshing. Other methods I have studied have relied on personal emotional recall to reach a truthful emotional state in a scene and that feels really gross and like a departure from the moment when I have implemented it. Meisner says that you are still able to achieve emotional truth without thinking of some personal awful emotional thing that has happened to you in order to get there. The actor’s imagination is incredibly powerful and I’m glad to know that there is a theatre guru out there who supports using that in order to reach an emotional truth on stage. <br /><br />Clearly, I have strong opinions about this book. I think it’s flawed in the way in which it is written as well. I have no doubt that Meisner was an incredibly gifted teacher, but the book is a log, a transcription of his class. It’s not really a tool that I can use because what made Meisner such an amazing teacher was that he lived in the moment of his class and tailored his exercises around the needs of the actors in his class and their particular needs in that particular moment and put into words for them specifically to get them to grasp a concept. When you read that 30 years later, it doesn’t resonate because I am not that actor experiencing that difficulty in the same way. It’s sad that there’s not a better book in his own words explaining his method on a more accessible level. I guess there are the Larry Silverberg books. Maybe they are better, but still. I would love to hear it in Meisner's words. What an incredible teacher. To be in his 80s, been hit by a car, have had a laryngectomy and figured out how to talk again through burping out words, and still STILL have a need to teach people how to act? Hobbling around and burping? I have so much respect for him.<br /><br />I’m still on a quest for a book that I can use as a real reference every time I approach a role in a play. I guess Uta has come closest so far, but I’m going to re-read some Stanislavsky and see where that takes me. After all this Meisner, I am curious about what Lee Strasburg has to say since they differed greatly on several major points.<br /><br />It was hilarious when Meisner would be having a glass of scotch and talking about actors and be incredibly crotchety and candid:<br /><br />“It’s the theater that interests me, not acting. I don’t like actors very much, though I do like to act. It’s enjoyable-sometimes. But I don’t like what it brings to the surface in my personality: the self-centeredness, the childish vanity, the infantilism. That’s what an actor has to have.”<br /><br />Wow. Tell us how you really feel, Sandy. I want to be child-LIKE, but I want to be able to listen and give to others on stage with me. And I want to be smart. I don’t want to lose my brain. I hope that means that I can still be a decent actor. <br />

De-emphasized affective/emotion memory and instead put focus on the given circumstances of the play. <br />-acting is doing<br />-be specific<br />-an ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words<br />-emotional dialogue is a ping-pong game<br />-to transfer the point of concentration outside yourself<br />-there's no such thing as nothing<br />-don't think, work from your instincts<br />-follow your instincts: forget polite or what's socially acceptable; it's imposted, not natural<br />-don't do anything unless something happens to make you do it<br />-what you do doesn't depend on you; it depends on the other<br />-acting is emotional impulses, not intellectualizing<br />-the truth of your instincts is the root of your foundation<br />-when you enter the scene, have a reason for entering (it doesn't need to be death-defying, to get a can of soup)<br />-don't pick up cues, pick up impulses. If the impulse comes at the beginning of a person's line, sustain it; or find a new impulse as their line progresses.<br />-memorize lines, not emotions; let those develop through scene work <br />-don't act; live under imaginary circumstances<br />

When I attended the Texas Educational Theater Association (TETA) convention last month, the name Sandy Meisner kept popping up. Most notably, Larry Silverberg, a Meisner devotee, did a double session teaching the early stages of the Meisner method. A few other workshop presenters referenced the man as well as they demonstrated various philosophies and rehearsal techniques.<br /><br />Having come to my career as theater director through a bit of a back door, I sometimes find myself embarassingly ignorant of very fundamental aspects of the history of acting technique. I just recently read Stanislavski's "The Actor Prepares" and just thought it was the bee's knees (the same way a first year philosophy student has their naive eyes repeatedly opened as they learn first about Socrates, then Plato, then Aristotle, then Spinoza, then Locke, then Kant, then Kierkegaard, and so on...) So my first step <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/6288.The_Road" title="The Road by Cormac McCarthy" rel="noopener">on the road</a> to illumination was Stanislavski, who beget Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, and Harold Clurman, and one Sanford Meisner.<br /><br />I know there are very definite distinctions between Meisner and Stanislavski. Though he started out as a student of The Method, Sandy states in this book that there are as many techniques for acting as there are acting teachers. He half-jokingly insists that all the rest are crap, and that his is the TRUE WAY, but as far as being a viable text for would-be actors, there are many striking similarities between this and "An Actor Prepares".<br /><br />Most prominently, both books present themselves almost as narrative fiction. Instead of textbook like lectures on how to approach the methods in question, both men put forth themselves as a main protagonist, surrounded by the supporting characters who are their students. Stanislavski coyly changes all the names to protect the innocent, but Meisner rather bull-headedly insists on making sure the reader knows that it is HE who is the genius behind the lessons. This makes the book immenently more readable, and I felt I took enough away from this reading that my next productions will benefit greatly.<br /><br />More than just learning a few little tricks, like when I read Spolin or Jesse, this book inspired me to try and achieve greater hieghts with my actors, and even to be a better actor in those rare moments when I still get to take to the stage.<br /><br />This is my new favorite book on acting. Until I get around to reading Adler, or Stasberg, or Clurman, or whoever else is out there waiting to be consumed by my eager eyes.

متاسفانه اصلا جذاب و گيرا و عملي نبود برام

Before cracking this one open, it's important to know On Acting is structured less as a self-help book and more like a documentary, tracking one of Sandy Meisner's acting classes from start to finish.<br /><br />Maybe that's music to your ears. It's the closest you can get to raising Meisner from the grave and studying with him. But it also means you're getting second-hand wisdom. Much of the book's insight comes from critique of the fledgling actors' performances or their personal epiphanies, and by the end of the book I was staring down a half-finished jigsaw puzzle; one with large islands of perfectly assembled pieces, but no obvious way to connect them or any corner pieces to orient myself.<br /><br />Sanford Meisner cheerfully admits that his teaching style is not for everyone. He even asks a few students to leave partway through the class. I'll chalk my dissatisfaction up to a disconnect between a jazzy, improvisational teacher and an analytical top-down student. <br /><br /><b>tl;dr As someone trying to approach acting as a serious craft after five years of dicking around, this book revealed a new mindset to me, but left me unsure of how to apply that mindset towards practical action.</b>

I first read about The Meisner technique in an article one of my professors had us read for class. I was drawn to it because the technique was supposedly about achieving spontaneity and living in the moment, and being able to achieve that is probably my biggest weakness as an actor. I wanted to learn more about the technique and I came across this book when doing preliminary research for my thesis. I was not expecting this book to be so mind-opening. Meisner has such a deep understanding of the art of acting that he is able to explain ideas and concepts in simple, easy-to-understand terms. I look forward to the next time I act so I can try some of the exercises Meisner describes in here. This is the best book on acting I've ever read and I would highly recommend it to any of my theater friends.

This is the current rage in acting handbooks, and the basis for modern theatre acting style. It's solid, simple, and doable if you have the level of commitment it takes and the basic talent. Any actor should read this book, and you'll get a lot out of it.

In one of the introductions and forwards in this states that there are no good books on teaching acting, and I have to say that this belongs in that category. I think it's inherent in the medium - reading is passive, and acting is, well, action-based. While the words on page may have value, there's no practicality behind them when reading and all inflections and emotions are the reader's own. Its even one of the lessons of the book: That a lot of acting is reacting, and it's hard to react emotionally to dry words on a page. And more, there's not a ton of original thought in here that wasn't already really gone over by Stanislavski (from what I remember about his book), so I would suggest starting with An Actor Prepares instead of this one. <br /><br />Also, I know it was the 80's, but I don't think Meisner would stand a change in today's "Me Too" world, and from the sounds of his personality, I don't think that's a bad thing. Crotchety, sexist, controlling... I don't think we would have had a good student-teacher relationship because he doesn't seem to respect that his students might have something to teach him in turn, and also, his disrespect for what writers want out of their scripts also left me scratching my head and brings us back to the age-old question of whether the actor is just a prop for the writer, or if the writer is simply a vehicle for the actor. My question is why can't it be both and why compete or look to unbalance it with ego?<br /><br />All in all, this was a slightly valuable read because it reinforced some things from my current acting class, but for the most-part I could have done without it because I'm already learning those things in class and my teacher is so good that I got the lessons without needing this enhancement to his teaching.

Wow! I am not even vaguely interested in acting, but Sanford Meisner was clearly a master and his genius comes through in this book. It is like reading a play, only it is an edited record of a fifteen month class he taught in the 80s. Almost entirely dialog, the book teaches about emotions and authenticity. What I learned is this: real acting is not acting at all. A great actor or actress puts themselves out in front of an audience, not AS themselves, but they put their truest emotions out there for everyone to see and the text and particular actions they portray are the vehicle for this revealing that they are doing. I suggest this book to anyone really, it's not just for people interested in acting at all, just for people interested in human life.

This book is a fabulous tool for actors. I feel that it is more beneficial to those who have studied or are currently studying Meisner's method in a classroom or workshop setting than those who are learning about it for the first time. I started reading it concurrently with a class solely dedicated to exploring the Meisner technique, and I think that was perfect. I just re-read it and the whole method became clearer through hindsight and mental repetition. ;) A good read for the actor or actress looking to hone his or her craft, but I would recommend working the method in a classroom or workshop in addition to reading the text.