method acting

If you want to have a great performance, you need to understand your material and you need a performance plan - not just technical elements like dynamic markings, but something truthful, passionate and emotional; something vivid enough to keep you and your audience engaged the whole time.

So how do you create such a plan?  Can you write it all ahead of time?

In method acting, they acknowledge that the development of the emotional foundations of a stage play is an iterative process - you take a good look at the script, do your research, make a "first draft" plan, and start developing it from there in rehearsal based on how it feels to the actors and the director, how it hangs together artistically, and so forth.  Then you get it in front of people and iterate it all again based on their direct or implicit feedback.

So why should a song be different?  You're accomplishing the same thing - creating a vivid emotional story that supports the song and keeps the performer completely and appropriately engaged.  Applying method acting principles to choral singing is exactly what Tom Carter will tell you he's doing in his book Choral Charisma.

Anyway I've touched on all these concepts many times in the past few months, so let's do an example.  Realtime is working on a beautiful ballad called "Little Boy Lost" for our upcoming third album.  We heard it sung by the Voices In Harmony, and it was arranged by our good friend Greg Lyne.  Here are the lyrics:

Little boy lost in search of little boy found
You go a wandering, wandering
Stumbling, tumbling 'round

When will you find what's on the tip of your mind
Why are you blind to all you ever were, never were
Really are nearly are

Little boy false in search of little boy true
Will you be ever done travelling
Always unravelling you

Running away could lead you further astray
And as for fishing in streams for pieces of dreams
Those pieces will never fit
What is the sense of it?

Little boy blue, don't let your little sheep roam
It's time come blow your horn, meet the morn
Look and see can you be far from home

The song is from the musical "Pieces of Dreams" so that's where we started.  The plot of that musical is that an American journalist is stationed in Paris during World War II.  He falls in love with a French woman there, but when the Nazis invade he is sent to the front.  While he is there, he hears that she has been killed.  Later on, he hears that she had his child before she died, and he starts to look for the child.  He comes across an orphanage, and the nun there tells him she has his son.  He takes the boy and they begin to live together as father and son.  Later he finds out that the nun lied - the boy was not his son, but she had promised to find every child a family.  His quandry - what should he do with this boy whom I love, who has become my son?  And should he keep looking for his real son?

It's a wonderful and complex story, but it only got us so far.  As is so often the case, taking a song out of its context changes things a lot.  We could used a set-up in performance to bring back some of the context, but in this case it's quite a complicated story so we decided it wasn't really feasible.  I remember the late Larry Ajer telling me that he didn't like broadway tunes done in barbershop, because they don't make sense without the rest of the musical.  (This, just two minutes before I sang "Old Man River" while he was in the audience... sheesh!)

Then the feedback.  Performing this song with the "real" scenario in mind just didn't work.  Without the context, we couldn't follow the plot.  Based on the audience response, I'd say we left them confused as well!

So starting with some of the ideas from the scene of the musical, we went back to the lyrics. For us they evoke strong images of father-and-son scenes.  Sometimes the "little boy lost" seems to be the son, and sometimes it seems to be the father!  Sometimes, such as in the first few lines, we choose to be the father speaking to the son.  But when we get to "and as for fishing in steams", we choose to be sharing wisdom with the audience directly.  That focus swich is something that actors can't usually do because their context is fixed, but as a singing group we have that kind of flexibility.  We continue with that "direct communication" mode through the lines "little boy blue, don't let your little sheep roam" which is all about taking care of your loved ones.

Once you understand what's happening in each "unit" of the piece, who you're singing to, what your objective is, it's relatively quick and easy to construct the technical plan because it all falls into place naturally.  It seems to grow organically from the shared understanding of the emotional foundations of the piece.  No more arguments about whether to be mezzo-piano or mezzo-forte in bar 29.

This kind of work is what I enjoy most, when coaching performers.  It's like magic, watching their performance come together once they have a clear and vivid emotional foundation for their scene or their music.

If you're a performer, and you care about being good at it, you crave inspiration - those moments when you are completely engaged in your performance; in a state of "flow" where everything proceeds to "just work" quite naturally, without apparent effort.  This is your best and most effective self.

But inspiration is a funny thing - it's not something you can force.  It's certainly not something you can rely on, because it may or may not be there at the right time, like when you're on stage!  What we really need is a way to invoke our inspiration, so that we always take our best and most effective self on stage.  Fortunately, this is not a new idea.  In fact, it is the core of method acting.  Stanislavski's "method" if you boil it down to its purpose, is a way of accomplishing exactly that.  It's a way of invoking inspiration.

The question is, if you can't control inspiration, how can this method possiby work?  The answer is, indirectly!  By creating the right conditions, or "inner stimulus" as Stanislavski puts it, the inspiration is called up.  By preparing correctly, you can harness your subconscious and create a truthful performance - one that will engage the audience at a level far below the surface, take them on the kind of emotional journey that they crave, get them into the standing ovation mood, and ultimately get them coming back for more!

This makes a lot of sense, neurologically.  The brain is complicated, and composed of many parts that evolved at different times, and that talk to each other.  Some parts of your brain can not tell the difference between a real memory and one you made up.  Those same parts are unable to tell the difference between a real situation, and one you have created for yourself.  Consequently you can fool your "subconscious" into responding in a very real way to an imaginary situation!

Here are some of the tools you can use, to go about fooling your subconscious mind.  With these tools, you will create the conditions for inspiration:

1.    Invent a scenario. What Stanislavski calls the "magic if", and "given conditions."  For example, sitting where you are right now, say to yourself, "what would I do and how would I feel if there was a crazy person with a gun banging on my front door?"  Really put yourself in that space - it's not difficult.  This kind of imagination work is what playwrights do when they create a play.  And you can do the same, no matter what sort of performer you are.

2.    Break down the action in your scene (or song) into units that follow logically from the beginning to the end.  For each logical unit, figure out what your objective is, and how it relates to your overall objective in the scene, play or song.  Make each objective believable, clear, attractive to you, and active.  These objectives will nudge your subconscious into helping you get what you want, in the imaginary scene.

3.    Learn to control your attention.  Focus it on something in your scene, whether you have a real set and props to work with, or you have to invent it all in your mind's eye.  Focus on the reality of that scene, instead of where you actually are - on some stage, with some other players, in front of a bunch of people.  Learn to keep your focus on the invented reality, so you're not distracted and pulled out of it.  Your subconscious can't tell the difference, as long as you have the discipline to give it all the right input.

4.    Execute true physical actions that fit with the scenario.  If they are true in their detail, again they will provoke inspiration out of your subconscious.  If you're supposed to be drinking, really swallow.  If you're caressing the cheek of your lover, feel the softness, make it real and it can be a powerful stimulus to inspiration.

5.    Study the text and the subtext of the piece you're performing.  Dig deep into the lines or the lyrics, and try to understand what motivated the artist who wrote them.  What were they feeling?  What are they driving at?  What is their philosophy?  These things will get you below the surface and into the reality underneath.

Depending on your mode of performance, you may also be able to rely on external stimuli such as sets and props, to help transport you to the appropriate reality.

If you are hoping to create performances that have deep impact upon your audience, you will want to acquaint yourself with the ideas of Constantin Stanislavski.  Stanislavski's book "An actor prepares" describes his system for acting, and apparently it is still the only complete system for acting that we have.  Consequently it influences the vast majority of what you see in professional theater and in movies today.  Method acting came from it, as explained nicely in this wikipedia page.  But what does that mean?  I mean, method acting is a method for what, exactly?

The purpose of Stanislavski's system is to access the performer's inspiration, and to use that inspiration to create truthful performances.  "To Inspire" a performance literally means to "breathe life" into it.  Stanislavski believed that the way to breathe life into a performance was to engage the performer's subconscious mind.  Because the subconscious is responsible for the details of our actions in our real lives, the actions of the "inspired" performer would also be realistic and believable, resulting in the ultimate goal - a truthful performance, capable of touching an audience deeply.  You can prove this to yourself quite easily - last time you had a conversation with someone, how many of your facial expressions and gestures were the product of your conscious mind?  Almost none, I bet.  The rest was done by your subconscious mind, which is masterfully capable of producing in you realistic and believable behaviors.  Truthful behaviors.  Authentic behaviors.  Just the stuff you want on stage.

In writing his books, Stanislavski was fighting against various forms of the same lousy and untruthful acting we see so much of today in the theater and in the movies.  I'm sure you will recognize all of the following:

• Forced Acting - you rely on inspiration but you don't know how to access it reliably.  Consequently, as Stanislavski puts it, high moments alternate with over-acting.
• The Art of Representation - you create the part in a deeply felt and truthful way and and "get it right" in rehearsal, with a focus on external appearance, then strive to duplicate that correct performance each time, rather than living it afresh each time.  Getting it right in rehearsal requires a lot of skill, and replicating it even more so.  But he argues that the result is not truthful and therefore leaves much to be desired.
• Mechanical Acting - you learn the cliche gestures that represent your character and emotions, like putting the back of your hand to your brow to express tragedy, or spitting on the floor because you are playing a peasant.  Stanislavski refers to this as "a dead mask of non-existent feeling."
• Over-Acting - takes the first general human conventions that come along and uses them without technique, and without refining them for stage.  Like mechanical acting, but without the technique.
• Exploitation of Art - moments when you as the performer are merely using your place on the stage to showcase yourself personally, rather than to play the intended part.

Maybe you've recognized yourself in the list - I know I did!  As usual, learning new things teaches one humility.

So The Method tries to get at something better, more truthful, and more effective than the approaches listed above by engaging the performer's subconscious mind.  The trouble is, you can't get at the subconscious mind without making it conscious, and in doing so you kill it.  The subconscious just can't be dragged into the light for examination without introducing a lot of what you might call "left-brained interference."  So you need an indirect method of engaging the subconscious, and that is what "the method" is really for.

The book itself takes the form of a journal written by our hero Kostya (you might guess here that the original book was in Russian) who is taking a year-long acting class in the Moscow Theater.  In the first chapter, the students are asked to come up with something and put it on stage for a live audience, so that the teacher can get to know their talents better.  It's a pretty funny read, because it reminds me of what most amateur performers actually do when they're first hitting the stage, namely make up an approach more or less at random, and get unpredictable and usually horrible results!  Kostya decides to play Shakespeare's "Othello", and without understanding the play itself, the character, or anything remotely accurate about how a "moor" might have behaved, he paints himself brown and struts about like a savage, flashing his teeth and rolling his eyes.

You have to admit, most amateur performance is pretty bad.  Sometimes it's not much better than watching third-graders, except that the people on stage have lost their cute factor and with it, the audience sympathy.  We could really change the world if we taught everyone just the basics of how to perform, so their first experiences on stage were more likely to be positive.  They might just keep at it long enough to get quite good at it!  And they might attract an audience outside their circle of friends.

In subsequent articles, I will explain all about how the method works, and how you can apply it to create truthful performances.

Recently I've been having a great email exchange with Tom Carter, author of a book that I am re-reading called "Choral Charisma."  His book is aimed mostly at choral directors who want their choirs to sing with expression, but would be great for coaches and singers as well.  If you haven't read it already, I highly recommend you buy it!

Tom often describes his philosophy as "method acting for singers" and we've been having this discussion about Mamet's statements on the topic, which I have quoted in a previous article.  It's a bit of a mess, so let me try to sort it out for you.

The issue boils down to this - is it necessary for a performer to generate the emotions in himself in order to act them out believably.  Simple enough question, with huge implications for performers.

Mamet suggests in his book, "True or False", that a performer needs to simply follow the script, and act each scene with an appropriate objective in order to be believable and convincing.  The performer may feel emotions as a result of acting the scene (much like the audience), but it is a result of the acting, not a precondition to it.  Therefore he suggests that Stanislavski's "method" (a.k.a. method acting) is completely backward, self-aggrandizing, causes insecurities and other issues, and simply does not work.

However, Stanislavski says this in his classic book "An Actor Prepares" (thanks, Tom Carter, for the quote):

You can understand a part, sympathize with the person portrayed, and put yourself in his place, so that you will act as he would. That will arouse feelings in the actor that are analogous to those required for the part. But those feelings will belong, not to the persona created by the author of the play, but to the actor himself.

It seem quite clear that Mamet and Stanislavski are saying the same thing!  So why the conflict?

It turns out that Mamet's words are a backlash against the various Method Acting schools that misunderstood Stanislavski's intent, and produced a whole generation (or at least a lot) of actors who believe that you have to feel it first, in order to generate a believable performance.  Indeed many actors in Hollywood have taken this idea to ridiculous extremes, at great risk to their own health and well being.  Christian Slater decided he needed to take drugs in order to play a drug addict, and got himself famously addicted to drugs.  Dustin Hoffman ran around New York City for hours in order to play someone who was exhausted, famously prompting Sir Lawrence Olivier to say, "Just act man!"

So where does this leave us?  I'm inclined to agree with Mamet and Stanislavski.  Use your personal history and humanity, your "emotional memory", in order to understand the situation in the scene (remember this can be a scene in a play, or it can be a musical piece, or any other sort of performance), and act that scene passionately with the objective of the character in mind.  If you surrender to the scene, you will experience feelings that come out of that scene.  Not the other way around.

This all makes sense, because suspension of disbelief works just as well for the actors as it does for the audience.  Perhaps more so, because their immersion is more complete - they are in the scene, while the audience merely observes it.

This might all be a bit academic, but in a nutshell, don't worry about it.  Figure out what the purpose and objectives are for your performance, and dive in!  Emotions will come.

I have recently been reading "True and False, Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor" by David Mamet.  This is a book that contradicts a lot of what I believe about acting and performance.  I didn't know it, but I think like a "method actor" in many ways - perhaps "the method" is so pervasive in my circles, I learned its assumptions without even being able to define it.  So in order to understand the Mamet book and why it seems so outrageous at first, you might need to understand The Method.  Here's what Wikipedia says about it:

Method acting is an acting technique in which actors try to replicate real life emotional conditions under which the character operates, in an effort to create a life-like, realistic performance. This can be contrasted with the technique of the actor putting him/herself into a strong "imaginary" circumstance which then induces an emotional reaction parallel to the amount of mental immersion the actor puts him/herself into.

And that's exactly what I have believed for many years!  In order to be convincing, one must experience the emotions.  I've learned that.  I've taught that!  And yet in practice I have achieved it only rarely, and not achieving it hasn't dimmed the audience response in any noticeable way.  I won't ruin the whole book for you because you absolutely should read it yourself, but here's a good summary quote:

The Stanislavsky "Method," and the technique of the schools derived from it, is nonsense.  It is not a technique out of the practice of which one develops a skill - it is a cult.  The organic demands made on the actor are much more compelling, and the potential accomplishments of the actor are much more important - the life and work, if I may say so, so much more heroic - than anything prescribed or foreseen by this or any other "method" of acting.

At some level I can buy that it's not necessary to feel the emotions in order to create them in the audience.  After all, they can not read minds.  Mamet suggests that the emotional responses are essentially created by the author of the play, and that the actor needs only "a clear voice, a supple body, and a rudimentary understanding of the play" in order to do their job to perfection.  He would also suggest that trying to create an emotional response in the audience is inappropriate for an actor, in that it is manipulative.  Just act the play, and the audience will feel what they feel.

And the "rudimentary understanding" is so that the actor can figure out what their objective is in each scene, with regard to the other actors on the stage, and say the lines with that objective in mind.  That's it - anything else is a waste of time.

How fascinating!

And how liberating!  No more worrying about whether you are or are not in the correct emotional state.  No more guilt about failing to be in it.  Without that, there is only the skill of delivering the lines, and performing physical actions on stage that are consistent with your well-chosen objective.

Realtime had an interesting discussion in Doug's Cessna yesterday about what simple objective might be associated with each "scene" in each of our songs.  And it really is a simpler way to think about it.  It's so simple, we might even remember to do it!  :)

That's one of the things I like about having an a cappella ensemble as my main artistic outlet - we get to be actors as well as musicians, and we get to sing for live audiences constantly, and grow from the feedback they give us.  Mamet would be proud.