The Meisner Technique, the Last Lesson

[itayavtalyon]

I was very sad yesterday when I realized that the lesson was the last one in the Lasalle course An Introduction to the Meisner Technique. And in fact, I had the case of the blues yesterday afternoon well into the first 10 minutes of the class. This course meant a lot to me, seeing as it was the first professional training I got in about two-three years, since my time at the acting course in Tel Aviv [happened before my first summer at camp and thus before this blog even started]. Not only that this course offered me a creative outlet (and I was going crazy before that) it also taught me valuable lessons.

I had not heard of Meisner at all before the course, and had been only half aware to the term Method acting, not even knowing what it really meant. Now, I can't really say I am an expert on the Meisner Technique [because of time constraints we didn't even finish the sylabus of the intorductory course; but I asked what we were missing and it wasn't much (mostly work on emotional preparation)], but my eyes are now wide open and I will look for more information in that subject, though I am not sure this is the technique for me.

Anyhoo, in this last lesson we worked on monologues, and specifically on the monologues we were asked to choose so long ago. But first, we got back to the three types of monologues:

• True Monologue, which is basically one sided dialogue: One person speaks, the other is silent. 
• Soliloquy is when a character speaks its thoughts aloud.
• Direct Address is when you are talking directly to the audience, like narrating (and in that case, the narrator should be regarded as a character, and you are not playing yourself) or aside [when a character shares something with the audience].

A way to distinguish between the three kinds, is to think about where the focus of the character is. There are three foci:

• on the other - outside; your eyes are focused on the other person
• on the self - inside; your eyes' focus switches as you speak
• on the audience; you either stand back enough to take all the audience in, or you pick one person in the audience

When working on a monologue is important to pick a focus, though it is important to keep in mind that the focus can change between bits of the monologue. More important things to think about when working on- or performing monologues:

• What are the circumstances of the scene?
• Who are the characters in the scene?
• What has happened just before the monologue?
• What do they want in the scene? (Think about it in terms of action verbs)
• What is the relation between the two character? What is their status in relation to each other?
• What's their independent activity?
• Where does it take place?
• What's the subtext? Sometimes it helps to physicalize the subtext.
• And it's very important to think about why the other person doesn't speak (and thus makes the monologue a monologue)?

A good exercise when working on a monolgue with a partner is to utilize the Three Moment Game, with the lines of the monologue and work off the reaction of the partner to say the next line.

We even performed our monologues this time after discussing them to answer all of the question above. It was the first time I performed the monologue (I had not practiced it before), but if I may toot my own horn, it was quite all right.

After that we watched a few moments of the Meisner Master Class DVD (now on my watch-list), got certificates of participation and had to bid our good-byes. I am really looking forward to the next acting course they are going to offer...