You've been cast in a show and handed a script. Now what? How do you prepare for performance? Where do you start? Once you begin rehearsal, what do you do if you run into trouble? After the show opens, what do you do if the actor co-starring with you can't remember her lines or gets replaced? The answer to all of these questions is contained in a single word: "Technique". Technique is an actor's blueprint, a set of operating procedures.
It amuses me that a lot of people evidently think that "Technique" is Meisner's last name. It's not true. Meisner Technique, popular though it may be, is simply the approach to things that Sanford Meisner recommended. Uta Hagen offers other techniques and approaches, as did Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg. In my acting classes, I teach my own suggested technique. If your current acting teacher is not teaching you technique, then it would be a good idea to check out other classes. Technique is what acting is all about.
Here are eleven basic acting principles that are at the core of the technique I teach:
1. Thinking tends to lead to conclusions; emotion tends to lead to action.
2. Acting is reacting. Acting is doing.
3. Find the conflict in a scene. Conflict = Obstacle = Negotiation
4. Theatrical reality is not the same thing as regular reality. It is compressed in time and space, enriched and oxygenated.
5. Your character needs an objective. An action should be in pursuit of an objective. Activity is not the same thing as a theatrical action.
6. Play an action until something happens to make you play a different action. When on stage or a set, you should be playing an action 100 percent of the time.
7. All action begins with movement.
8. Empathy is the magic key to acting. Audiences empathize with emotion. Emotion is an automatic value response.
9. Play off the reality of whatever your scene partner is doing.
10. All humans -- even the most vile -- act to survive. From birth to death, every waking moment, we act to survive. The audience's empathic reaction depends upon the actor finding his character's survival mechanisms.
11. Acting is a shamanistic activity. When you act, you are stepping into the circle to talk to the tribe. It is an honorable thing to do with your life.
At the end of the day, every actor develops his own technique. He takes a little from here and a little from there and does what works best for him. Neither Meisner nor Strasberg nor Hagen nor Hooks have the only single answer or approach. Some roles work best if you approach them internally and others work best if you work very externally.
I have been fortunate to act opposite some very excellent actors, and I can report that no two of them use the same technique. I have seen actors show up at the first rehearsal with their entire role committed to memory already, and I have seen others that are still clinging to the script at dress rehearsal. I've seen actors work improvisationally, and I've seen others stick to the scripted word like glue. Whatever works for them is okay with me. I have my own technique.
Regardless of your technique, it is not wise to flaunt it. In his book "Olivier on Acting", Laurence Olivier wrote: "Technique should appear effortless. If you buy a diamond ring or any other wonderful bit of jewelry, you don't ask, 'What was your technique in creating this?' If you did, the jeweler might say, 'Why don't you mind your own business? You're not a jeweler.'"
