10/05/2021
WHY MEISNER IS INAPPRORIATE WHEN PERFORMING SHAKESPEARE.
I am well aware that this will be, to some, a contentious statement.
I am an expert in performing Shakespeare and admit to being less so when it comes to what is known as ‘The Meisner Technique’ and am willing to enter into public debate if someone feels that the statement is erroneous.
My arguments;
From what I have observed, Meisner is a superb tool for training actors to find ‘truth’ and ‘reality’ in their work. I watch a lot of American “Cop” TV series – because I admire the work of the actors. The plot lines are formulaic and the outcomes, for the most part, utterly predictable. However, the regulars in the series have an opportunity to develop their characterisations that is unique in the discipline. Playing a character over hundreds of hours of episodes is a chance that very few actors have – and in the best of cases the results are superb. Also as the actors develop their characters, the writers also go deeper into the characterisations; consequently creating a richness and a subtlety rarely found outside this particular medium.
What fascinates me also is the quality of the performances of those that appear in only one episode (usually the perpetrator or in some cases the victims or their relatives). Their performances are totally believable and that requires a skill and a training which is of the highest quality. They bring to their rôles a truth and a semblance of reality that is remarkable which, as an actor, I admire. Watching them is also very instructive and I would recommend any actor to watch carefully the technique and skill that is on display.
These techniques are highly appropriate to the genre and create a sense of reality that is almost documentary like.
The scripts are of a banality that requires technique and skill to bring alive.
e.g.
“This cannot have been done by our UnSub”
“Why not?”
“The wounds are made by someone who is right handed; the UnSub is left handed”
“What if he’s ambidextrous?”
- takes out his phone
“Jane – I know we thought that the UnSub is left handed – I want you to pull up a list of all the similar crimes in the area, including those that were done by someone right handed; our UnSub may be ambidextrous”
It takes a great deal of technique to render that exchange any thing other than the most tedious of ‘information relaying’ and to bring it alive in a truthful manner.
For the characters to be believable and truthful in a way the audience can relate to, the actor has to look way beyond the text and create a life for the character within the context that the story creates. In characterisation terms, the text provides next to nothing in and of itself – everything is determined by the context.
If one takes even some of the more celebrated plays dating from the 19th century that is, to a large extent, also the case.
Look at the opening sequence from Chekhov’s The Seagull.
MASHA and MEDVIEDENKO come in from the left, returning from a walk.
MEDVIEDENKO. Why do you always wear mourning?
MASHA. I dress in black to match my life. I am unhappy.
MEDVIEDENKO. Why should you be unhappy? [Thinking it over] I don’t understand it. You are healthy, and though your father is not rich, he has a good competency. My life is far harder than yours. I only have twenty-three roubles a month to live on, but I don’t wear mourning. [They sit down].
MASHA. Happiness does not depend on riches; poor men are often happy.
There is nothing much in that exchange that gives any indication as to character. It only becomes meaningful if the actors in question have determined their characters’ back stories and perform those lines with an understanding of their context. In fact – simply playing the lines at face value will probably be inaccurate in terms of the character as the play progresses.
So when Meisner speaks of ‘Truth’ or ‘Reality’ in performance, these are achieved by the application of certain techniques that are appropriate to this type of writing.
Now I will look at the requirements of performing Shakespeare.
There is no ‘reality’ in the sense that I have discussed above.
There is a very different reality.
Shakespeare uses heightened speech forms and writes in a combination of dramatic verse and prose.
He uses all the aspects of linguistic conceits that are accessible in the English language.
Hyperbole
Syntax distortion
Poetic exaggeration
Phonomics (and phonemes)
A lexicography that is way beyond anything people would use in everyday speech
A juxtaposition of heightened language with a prosaic language (for dramatic effect)
And so on.
Reducing this to a type of performance that would be appropriate to a TV drama would be to deny everything that is poetic about Shakespeare.
My contention then is that to be ‘truthful’ to the author, another form or style of performance is necessary.
In Shakespeare, one does not need to look beyond the text to find the character. By simply speaking the words that he has written, the character will develop within the actor.
But that speaking needs a technique that is particular to the requirements of the text.
To make an analogy with Opera – one cannot sing the role of Violetta in La Traviata if one has not had a classical training. A folk singer, no matter how talented, would be disastrous in the role as they would not have the technical skill set to satisfy the musical demands.
Shakespeare wrote for a very specific set of working practises. The players, working exclusively from cue scripts and with a scant knowledge of the rest of the play and even less the content of the other players’ words, were forced to find everything they need to create their characterisations in their own text. Exclusively.
The result – in dramatic terms – is that the context is created by and through the characters and their interaction.
This is the difference in “Theatre” between what I call modern theatre (i.e. anything after the mid 19th century) and Classical Theatre.
In Modern Theatre the context comes first and the characters are inserted into it. In Classical Theatre the characters create the context by their dialogue.
Look at this short speech from Taming of the Shrew.
Petruchio.
Verona, for a while I take my leave,
To see my friends in Padua; but of all
My best beloved and approved friend,
Hortensio; and I trow this is his house.
Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.
This is ‘information relaying’ but the style in which this is written is very different from the example I gave above.
What we have here is information not only for the audience (and creating the context) but also for the players themselves. In 5 lines the players now know the ‘who’ the ‘where’ and the ‘why’ (the fundamental requirements of acting) An added plus is the relationship between the two characters is established.
To be ‘truthful’ in modern acting terms, that speech would be impossible as Grumio would know most of the information contained and the speech would be totally redundant.
In conclusion, to perform Shakespeare one has to find a different ‘truth’; one that goes beyond a psychological reality and enters a poetic truth where a heightened language is theatrically justifiable.
