Ouai

Originally a diary, slowly becoming also my acting class journal. More in depth thoughts can be found on my substack!!

[an0neemouse]

It's okay to want people to engage with your art. People act like it's shameful to want engagement, but it really isn't. We are social creatures who crave connection. It makes sense that we would want that with the things we create as well.

Our world is no longer built for community. We are isolated and lonely and tired. Make art anyway. Find a community. Engage and be engaged with. Find your people.

[weltenwellen]

you can always find something else to love. you can always find something else to love. YOU CAN ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO LOVE.

[phlbelgian]

Chekhov Technique

Ironically, I seemed to have picked another technique by a guy who worked with Stanislavski in his early years!! Wild how that works out.

The difference between Michael Chekhov and Stanislavski is that Chekhov didn't care for the actor's personal feelings in his art. An actor has himself as a person and himself as an artist, and the two should not be mixed. The Chekhov technique completely focuses on the imagination, creativity, and the inner/outer connections of the actor.

Michael Chekhov was the nephew of Anton Chekhov and was a star pupil of Stanislavski before being forced into exile in 1928. He worked in Europe and settled in England for a couple of years, but moved to the US given the war that was going on. This led to the birth of the Chekhov Theatre Players. Sadly, with actors being lost in the war, the company had to be disbanded, and Chekhov moved to L.A. to carry on with his work.

I'm not sure how else to best rephrase what was written in the Backstage article for now, so we'll just run with it. The core tenet of the Chekhov technique is that "every choice they make is crucial to the story." So, Chekhov's philosophy, combining 'physical action, imagination, and the exchange of energy,' has these main principles:

Psychological Gesture: 'Physicalizing a character's internal want, need, or impulse into an external gesture.'

Movement: Warm-up so you feel in touch with your body and feel free to express yourself physically

Radiating: Share your internal energy with your scene partners.

Improv: Verbal or nonverbal improv work is key, usually done in a group setting, for the Chekhov technique. From what I understood, it's to help you combine the previous three principles in a way and tap into that creativity and imagination.

From what I can find, method acting seems to be closely related to the Chekhov technique, but I wonder if this is because of the Stanislavski connection simply.

Michael Chekhov acting technique — Michael Chekhov Canada

Michael Chekhov developed his acting technique from his early years with Stanislavsky and wanted to free the creative process from the criti

What Is the Chekhov Technique? Everything Actors Need to Know

Michael Chekhov’s acting method has inspired countless performers of stage and screen.

[phlbelgian]

Stanislavski’s System

This acting method was created by the Russian Konstantin Stanislavski, who also founded Moscow Art Theatre in 1898. BUT Stanslavski isn't even the guy's real name: it's Alekseyev. The more you know, thanks to the internet. He gave himself the stage name Stanislavski at 23 years old. I guess it's never too late to pursue something and hope no one recognizes you immediately. His family had founded a dramatic company, the Alekseyev Circle, so I'd assume you'd want a stage name for the sole purpose of separating yourself from that.

Our Russian founder here had started acting with his family circle, and that was where he had begun his initial 'theatrical experiments' regarding the characters' human behaviour. Today, this may seem bizarre, but, apparently, acting back then was purely mechanical and focused on presentational, technical skills. The idea of connecting to a character via subtext and emotion was not professionally studied.

Further on in his career, Stanislavski's notes were simply growing and ever evolving when he was working on Anton Chekhov’s drama and some plays by Maurice Maeterlinck. However, it was really the Moscow Art Theatre that gave Stanislavski the space to explore exhaustive and intensive rehearsals and training.

Overall, Stanislavski's system focuses on the preparation, rehearsal processes, and training required to understand a character's inner workings, emotions, and motivations in a story and scene. His work was always updated, and Stanislavski pushed actors to explore new techniques to develop natural performances. Nonetheless, there were some core principles or questions actors should be able to answer:

What would you do if you were in your character's situation?

What are the given circumstances?

What is the super-objective (the primary motivation) of the character?

What does the character want?

Physical action: Specific, concrete actions build a character

Emotional memory: Connect emotions from daily life to the character

Subtext: What is the meaning behind the words on the page?

American practitioners Hagen, Strasberg, Adler, and Meisner were all influenced by Stanislavski's work, leading to the creation of four additional acting techniques: the Group Theatre, the Actors Studio, the Meisner Technique, and Adler's technique (what creative naming, am I right?)

Given the time period, it's not surprising that equity and diversity weren't brought up in Stanislavski's writings. However, I think his desire to create a new method due to his own acting being impeded by the mechanical acting of the time period could be a similar method of fighting for everyone to have a chance to act.

Theater practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski’s acting technique is one of the world’s most famous and influential forms of dramatic instruct

The Stanislavsky Method of Acting

Everything actors should know about Konstantin Stanislavsky and his acting techniques.

[phlbelgian]

What is actor training?

With the holiday season and the new year, I decided to look into film acting more seriously. So, I'm doing the Coursera course Discover Acting, and I'll be using this tumblr as my journal in addition to other posts I may make.

The current exercise is to look online for three different actor training methods or techniques and answer the following questions.

Who created these methods?

What was the background of these practitioners?

What inspired and influenced these practitioners?

What did they call this type of training; did they give it a name?

Do they make reference to Equity and Diversity in their training?

Did they set up their own acting schools?

What do these methods and techniques have in common?

While it wasn't explicitly stated to make a journal entry, it's a fun research project I could work on.

The three methods/techniques I'll be analyzing are

Stanislasvski's System

Chekhov Technique

Meisner Technique

Ooh, I'm excited to look into them! It would probably be best to have a separate post for each. So stay tuned for that!!

[phlbelgian]

Tumblr vs Substack

Subscribe to Her Substack

Thought diary, acting journal, etc. Click to read Her Substack, a Substack publication. Launched 10 minutes ago.

Going forward, I hope to hold myself accountable to make a short, fun post a day and an in-depth post a week. However, Tumblr will generally be where I just quickly write my thoughts as a true diary. Substack is more for going through the thoughts, formulating them better, formatting them better, and adding more content with the increased processing occurring in my brain.

It is more for myself in the end, but if anything I write about interests you, I'd love to see you interact with the posts and maybe even strike up conversations!

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

MAY YOU NEVER LOSE YOUR HYPERFIXATION