* one act fest
acting.filmplus.org
books.filmplus.org
directing.filmplus.org
him.filmplus.org
...
|
* 2008 -- Technique vs. System (Method)
* one act fest
acting.filmplus.org
...
|
"The theatre has built a whole art round the actor, based on the man and his double - the actor and his character." Jean-Louis Barrault
 stanislavsky.us
2005 updates: Small Chekhov Fall * "Four Farces & One Funeral" -- Chekhov.05
 Fundamentals : BioMethod Episodic Acting  Meyerhold My children look at each other (they don't comment anymore), when I say that I am an old man. They don't understand it. They don't understand that the old man can die before completing his work (M. did). They shot him. I'm still alive. I would like to finish mine...
ACT I. Scene 1. The Scandal I never invited Meyer to my classes or rehearsals, nevertheless, he shows up without any notice. No phone calls, no emails -- and what a moody character he is! When he likes something, he loves it, but if he doesn't like it -- he hates it! ... plans -- notes page *
NotesMethod is working fine on the "macro" level approach to acting training, but for the "micro" level, we need other tools -- theatre biomechanics!
2007 vtheatre.net updates: ACTING -- google.com/group/acting2 textbook: 5 Approaches to Acting (David Kaplan) ... subdirectories (1-4) and lessons! * Spring 2007 : THR221 Intermediate Acting * ...
|
Continued development of physical, emotional, and imaginative awareness. Emphasis on text and character analysis, scene and monologue study and presentation, introduction to improvisation. (Prerequisite: THR 121 or permission of instructor.) (1 + 4). Offered Spring.
Well, this is another BM directory (I call it BM+); I need it in order not to mess the old BioMX @ filmstudy.net. Besides, I want to keep two levels of complexity seperately. Like Acting I and Acting II. BTW, I teach biomechanics mostly in Acting II classes (THR221 Intermediate Acting).On Grotowski: Without an actor there is no theater...there is "literature" but the word has to be made flesh. Literally. Period.I will be bringing together Stanislavsky and Meyerhold, since I use both and since I would like to organize them as the ONE System (in Acting ONE I call it "BioMethod"). Did you read the title page?
Probably better, if you start with the old BM directory, or even with act.vtheatre.net, Fundamentals of Acting. Or maybe with the first original page, which started everything: ACT... Wait! Perhaps, Brecht page in script.vtheatre.net is a good begining...
One way or another we need to introduce a few non-Aristelian principles. Remember "episodic structure" in epic theatre? Should we now talk about "episodic acting"? What about acting for the camera?
In his book "Five Approaches to Acting" David Kaplan gives the definition of The Basics of an Episode:
[ Spring 2008 ]"The King died and then the Queen died" is a story.What an episodically structured performance does is act out a story, or sequence of events, rather than attempt to perform a plot linked together by cause and effect. In theory, each event in a story can be understood separately from the sequence. (62)
"The King died and then the Queen died of grief" is a plot.[ ... ]
Well, I rather call the cause-effect sequience a STORY, but you got the point: "Performed onstage -- no matter why -- an event becomes an episode"
Maybe your experience clocking TV remote could provide a better image of "episode" -- relative independence from the rest of the whole. Or should we say that this whole is contructed differently?
Each episode have a central gesture: look at the picture!
[ Actors, take one character from the pix (old paintings) and think how did we arrived to this position? Directors, think about the group composition. ]
[ ]
BioMechanics (BM) poll, Oct. 1, 2004. 135 votes. Biomx is important because... Method Acting is limited 34 (25%)
We need physical theatre 35 (25%)
Method is not working 1 (0%)
actor must have discipline 17 (12%)
I don't know BM 20 (14%)
I don't care 6 (4%)
I don't believe in it 1 (0%)
BM is wrong 4 (2%)
Actors shouldn't study theory 4 (2%)
there is no acting theory! 13 (9%)Here we go again! "I don't know BM" (14%) + "I don't care" (4%) + "Actors shouldn't study theory" (2%) + "There is no acting theory" (9%) = 27%!
Depressing...
Not only the central theme/image, but also each episode can be reduced to CAPTION. (Consider watching a show from the fast moving car!)
Since we have such "broken" into pieces narrative, we need to have strong TRANSACTIONS. Here comes in somewhat complicated concept of gest! (Kaplan: gest -- the moment between people when the trade is made or denied). Plus, the object lessson -- use of a physical object to demonstrate the gest...
Transaction -- the underlying structure of behavior; trade; something is bought or sold.
Caption -- the summary of the event in the episode.
Demonstration -- making the episode clear to the audience...
Is it clear? No?
Did I mention that Brecht (and Meyerhold) were Marxists and even Communists! "Trade, conflict, sold"...
On title page I wrote that only 1 in 10 has a chance to become professional actor... Looking at BM poll, maybe I should say one in 100? Any success is in the attitude. I need to check other polls; perhaps the ratio is one in 1000?
Listen, ask in your philosophy class about the Dialectics (Hegel) and we ready to talk about this famous Brechtian A-affect, "A" (Alienation), or even E-strangement (estrangement -- in order for us to notice something we are used to: making the familiar strange).
It's not that new: Shakespeare used episodes (and this is why Tolstoy hated Shakespeare). This very economical way of narrative; like in movies we cut out everything that is not important for MESSAGE. Remember, old Aristotle? Epic Theatre is Idea-oriented playwriting!
PLAYING OPPOSITIONS
Opposition -- contradictions, simultaneous or sequential, deliberatly included in a performance in order to create a dynamic fusion of opposite forces (Kaplan)
In their 1920s both Brecht and Meyerhold watched too much cinema. They wanted to replace the traditional organizational enviroment (space) with the new one -- time. This is why "expressionism" and "constructivism" and so on. In film industry irectors cry "CUT!"
TABLEAUX
Aha, this is how "director's theatre" was born... The Spectacle, the last in Aristotlean list of the main principles (Poetics) became the FIRST.
...
see "lessons" pages!
You can think of the "text" as the skeleton or "blue print"...
It's about archetype and how one can reach that level in performance.
Grotowski tried to continue the Stanislavsky's later period (Method of Physical Action, Meyerhold's theatre was closed already), but we must remember that Method is full of spiritual and even religious energy (Christian heritage). How do we get to the level of "archetype"? Start with types and even stereotypes!
If you do not read, you can't think. If you can't think, you do not belong to stage.
[ How to work on glossary BM? ]
 classes | online | anatoly.com |
 virtual theatre Stage, Film, Webcast |  webbing Webman's Diary |  HamletWeb & other productions |
 Biomechanics Physical Theatre Meyerhold |  webmaster film academic theatre |
|
Fillmaking
Analysis Theory: film & theatre FILM-NORTH |
|  Script Analysis Class forum |
|  film books Video, DVD, Amazon Mining Film: links |  Student Pages: Instructions on Instructions |
 write Nonfiction Textbooks |  theatre books acting, monologues |  Classes: Aesthetics |
 Films&Movies Directory Analysis and History | GuestBook View mailing list |  & other nonfiction |
TEACHER (Stan): I know, my friend, you did what I was asking -- to create your own method.
Profession is a craft.
Craft is a practical knowledge.
Knowledge comes through learning.
Learning is a labor.
Do you have this talant to learn?
Talant asks for a commitment.
Do you have the time to be an actor?
Do you have the will?
©2004 filmplus.org *
@2004 vtheatre.net *
Make FILM w/ANATOLY your homepage -- click here!
Get Site Info
[ web companion to THR331 Fundamentals of Direction Theatre UAF course ]
The BM were born at the End of Language, Novel, at the Era of Film, globalization and needs for the new universal language as always at the times of the great historical changes and mass migrations. I shouls mention maretialism in many forms from Marxism to Objectivism. And of course the revolution in science and technology, when the matter became equal to energy (Einstein). The physicality of the world was under the centuries of rediscovery since the eraly modernity (the Age of Reason instead of the Religion). Physics became the new religion of the century. Why should we be surprised that the physical theatre came on stage? Was it a conflict with the "spiritual" -- according to the ideologies of the time, the physical was the only true form of the ideal! [ Physical Theatre page ]
Meyerhold believed that Actor is Artist and everything that applies to a composer or a writer, does work for actors. If we to accept the notion that any performance is a "composition" -- we can see how useful the Concept of Chronotope is.
An online course supplement * Film-North * Anatoly Antohin * eCitations *
© 2005 by vtheatre.net. Permission to link to this site is granted. books.google.com + scholar.google.com
